Playing Teams that Aren't as Good

Hey Again. I will give 15 minutes to this entry.

Yesterday, we asked a team (Kennesaw State University) to come up to Athens, GA to scrimmage. Kennesaw State University, AKA KSU, is going to be in our Sectionals tournament coming up this weekend. This scrimmage was an opportunity to try new defenses, practice our defenses/offensive plays, and simulate a game where we are favored to win. At Centex, we lost to Harvard, a team that we were favored to win because we got lulled into their game plan. Yesterday, we beat KSU, but only by 3 or 4. Also, we lost our second scrimmage to them simply because we did not care enough.

I am predicting that our team loses a game at Sectionals because of this chronic syndrome of everything is going to be okay come time for the tournament.

1. "We are content with losing because we always have excuses for it." This was a statement by Travis Smith. At Queens City, we excused our loss because it was "early in the season". At Mudbowl, we could excuse our play on Sunday because we had split teams. At Centex, we made excuses because we had some hurt players. Against the B Team, we made the excuses we had some players that weren't here. Against KSU, what excuse did we use? We were hung over? We have exactly one week until Sectionals arrive. All excuses are going to be left in Athens, GA. We are going to Sectionals without any excuses. I am interested to see how we respond to this.

2. We become distracted easily. The first thing I noticed at the scrimmage was the presence of girls on the sidelines and how my teammates focused at times more on the girls than the game they were playing in. Instead of getting playing defense after someone turfed the disc, they turned and looked to see if the girls saw it. This killed us during the scrimmage.

3. We are content with ONLY beating them, and not destroying them. Championship teams love to play hard ultimate frisbee every time they get the chance. This requires effort. Just as we prepare mentally for the tough games against ranked opponents, we must prepare for the easy games as well. We are no longer the Jojah team with Dylan, Shraft, Frank, etc. with natural talent and high absolutely everywhere. Instead, we are now a team that must work hard for everything we get. We must throw smart throws that our receivers can catch. We must run hard and box out the big guys on the other team. Yeah.

4. We must focus on our goals during these games. We have to focus on mini games to 3 or no turnovers. Whatever goal we decide, we must continually remind ourselves of it.

That's all the time I have for today.