Carrboro Ultimate Teams - Sectionals 2005

Disc-worshipers of Carrboro:

I wanted to send a quick note out to congratulate "The Peoples Republic of Carrboro" for competing in the North Carolinian Sectionals Championships. The "Peeps" battled it out Saturday in the Ultimate Players Associations Coed division and managed to get fourth in the state (out of six! :) By all accounts, the day was a good one. For the first time (that I know of), Carrboro placed a team in this competition, and I have to say everyone played their hearts out. We finished the day 2-3.

Our squad of 22 peeps started the day playing against a very experience and talented Winston-Salem team. The Peeps' nerves were a little shaky coming out this first game, and we mostly beat ourselves with unforced turnovers in the endzone. But, we played hard to the last point finishing (3-13).

Then we battled against my old Asheville squad. These folks were averaging at 6 foot 3; they had the legendary Ed Fox; and most of all they played extremely well together as a team. Again, we were mostly giving up unforced turnovers but did manage to improve our offense. (5-13)

Next up was our game against Chapel Hill High School, and we took the game 13-2. I'll only say that these kids never gave up, had great attitudes, and impressed us with their promising skills. Our goal in this game was to reign in our turnovers, and we mostly did (especially with a turnover=beer penalty I imposed-- Derrick eventually had to buy a keg! ;)

We then played the legendary Olio squad. By this time in the day, our game was starting to come together. In fact, we took the first point against Olio, and managed to play strong up to 3-3. They even gave up playing zone against us after we rolled over their zone defense without them putting on a single stall count. Unfortunately, our turnovers got the better of us, and Olio's talented team never looked back. 3-13.

Finally, we took on a talented but exhausted Greensboro squad. Our numbers and time to gel paid off, and by this game we were playing like a real team, rarely turning it over, and even throwing some long hucks. After the game was tied 3-3, we turned it up and never gave up another point. The game ended with the Peeps winning it 13-3.

I wish we could have played these weaker teams first so that we could have had a chance to gel, turn up our offense (we had plays we virtually never used), and most of all, we could have demonstrated to each other that this large squad of ours was also quite talented. I've played with scores of teams over these past 11 years of ultimate, but I have to say this one had as much heart and respect for each other than most I've played with. Low points were few and far between-- Evie's twisted ankle and Patrick's strained groin stand out most.

Carrboro should be proud of their People battling it out for the love of the game. For sure, there was lots of love to go around.

In Solidarity,

Furious Andrew George
Sub-commander
9/18/2005