Butcher doesn't win "ugliest rookie" award. On that note, we will have the vote for the following awards, so be sure to come with an idea in mind!
Lauren Theile is not only the smartest logistical human being alive, but she can also read minds. She is constantly interpreting us and explaining things in a way that is not only threatening, but also very clear and concise. She is the mastermind of Woman Scorned, and what is even more impressive is that many of us don't even know it.
To tell you a little more about Lauren, you should know how she came to get her nick name. For many years she played for Scorned and watched longingly as her teammates all acquired great nicknames. For 3 long years she wished for a nickname and even tried to start one for herself, but nothing caught on. Then one day her junior year, long after she had given up hope for a nickname or a field cheer, “L-Dawg” randomly caught on. It spread like wildfire, but still she had no field cheer. In an email thread this year, there was talk of new field cheers. Jazzy-fay threw a joke out that Lauren’s could be “I will kill you,” and Lauren replied in an email thread saying, "Stop trying to give me field cheers! It will never work, I have given up, you should too!" It also said something like "get me gas receipts from Mardi Gras or I will kill you!" Soooo, at the next tourney, which was Philly, we made it our personal goal to get Laurens new cheer to stick-and stick it did!
On the field, Lauren is a silent threat who isn’t really that silent. She enjoys telling us she cannot handle but her field vision and throws are ridiculously consistent and accurate. As a cutter, her hands rarely falter, but when they do it makes for a great scene in a ritual where L-Dawg stands over the disc and curses it. On defense, she is all about shut down D. While her layouts are rare and may involve a lot more knee than most, it is because she gets the job done and takes her opponent’s threat away. If the disc does go up, watch out. Not only is Lauren great on the field, but she is also great at recognizing situations and explaining to us how we can fix it. I am pretty sure that this is due to all of the wine nights we spent strategizing about ultimate in the house last year. 
L-Diggity is one of the hardest workers on our team. Although we all put the time in and work to improve, Lauren might take the cake. Outside of the logistical money chaos that she deals with, she has undertaken weekly workouts as well. Not only does she make up the treacherous sprint workouts, she runs them multiple times per week. While we struggle to get ourselves to sprints once in a week, Lauren is running them 2-3 times on top of lifting, practice, and pickup (not to mention work and school). In fact, one week no one showed up for the Wednesday time and I found her running them by herself (for the second time) before playing pickup for 2 hours. SHE’S A FREAK!
Off the field, Lauren is straight up awesome. I am not saying this because she is my roommate; she is really the bee's knees. She has managed to get herself into a great position-dating one captain of ISUC (Keiser) and engaged to be married to the other (Kyle). Lauren is going to school for something involving money and she works in a job that is very much comparable to Chandler’s off of FRIENDS-it’s boring and every time she explains it I regret asking. She has been known to start parties as well as end them, and she doesn’t believe in drinking wine out of a glass. She is the Spidey to my Venom, the Bun Bun to my Archie. There are no less than 1 million great memories that I have made with Lauren, and Woman Scorned has truly benefited from her dedication.
Last year was a big year for Woman Scorned. It was the first year that we were able to qualify for nationals and that accomplishment opened up new opportunities for us as a team. One of those opportunities was the invite to play at Centex in Austin, TX. Centex is the most competitive college women's tournament outside of nationals. We were honored to accept.
With this tournament being the 3rd this spring to be over 15 hours of drive time (one way), Scorned was forced to drive through the night in order to not fail all of our classes from too many skips. Saturday morning was a little nerve racking for me (I went down Thursday night with SOL-which was an amazing trip). When Chelle showed up at the fields (she flew down with her mom) we got excited because we could officially play ultimate, even if it was 2 on 7. In the end, our worry was in vain and two cars showed up to give us 10 players to start off the Stanford game.
Game one: Scorned vs. Stanford
As we took the field with a whopping 10 ladies, we pulled on our brand new "throwback yellows." We felt like the Woman Scorned of old, playing nearly savage and wearing jerseys that were almost identical to the first t-shirt jerseys that Scorned played in. It was an awesome feeling! We started the out the tournament smart this time around and made sure Becca was keeping stats as our good luck charm. Scorned came out furious and put two up on the board right away before Superfly battled back to tie it up. With beautiful, sunny weather on our side, Scorned was able to put up several beautiful hucks to make our offense effective, but Superfly took the half at 8-5. Somewhere around 4-4, the remaining cars showed up and we were once again reunited as a nearly full squad team with Coach Taiwo. After half, Superfly continued their run to 10 before Scorned regrasped the fury and ran three points up. Unfortunately, it was too late and the game was capped.
8-10 Superfly
Debate from the stats book: Who is the more powerful twin-Tai or Love?
Gap: "Love has the boobs, I think she is."
Lauren: "Well, if power is derived from the breasts, then Love is, but if it comes from having the ass, Tai's got her."
Gap: "hmm, good point."
Game two: Scorned vs. Oregon
With all the cars at the fields we began our game against Oregon, the #1 seed of the tournament. Although they put the first point on the board, Scorned fought hard to keep the score close. Jessy Erickson had a sick layout score to tie things up at 2’s. As the wind started to pick up, Oregon showed their superior skill and changed their dynamics to defend our offense. They pulled away and took half at 3-8, but not before Scorned ladies could get some sweet D’s. After half, Scorned put a few more on the board, but Fugue ran away with the win.
Oregon 15-5
Game three: Scorned vs. Michigan
The game started out great due to our first season win on the color flip. We got to keep out sick throwback yellows on. Unfortunately, this winning strike didn’t last long. Flywheel put the first point on the board and Scorned answered back with a score of our own. The fight battled on and Flywheel took half at 5-8, as Tai helped us fix the errors in our game. Jazzy brought her body count tally to 3 in this game (people tend to get hurt around her, but not due to fouls, more to running into their own players…its weird). Halftime can be described by this picture:
The remainder of the game included some great defensive plays all around and lacking offense (lots of TTOs from me). The game was capped and Flywheel took the win.
Michigan 8-12
Michigan sideline talk:
Lady Pesch: “I like your Jerseys.”
Michigan girl: “Thanks. What is your team name?”
Lady Pesch: “Woman Scorned.”
Bosco: “Like in X-Men…. or the Bible.”
Michigan: “?” (Bosco keeps chattering)
Becca: *Laughs* Cross over game: Scorned vs. Florida
As we made the long haul over to our new field, the wind began a’ swirlin’. Zone time! The game started off in a battle until 3-3. Offense was a little shaky in the wind, but our D was spot on. The D list included: Jazz, Jessy, Love, plus the SICK cup! Scorned took half at 8-3 and enjoyed some sideline dance practice led by Love. Tai thoroughly enjoyed heckling us during this game (as a warm up for the showcase game) and J-rick answered back with a ballin’ Callahan to take the score to 10-3. The stats book says “We pull, Gap’s legs look rockin’ fuckin’ sausage, they turn…” -Just sayin’. J The cross wind got to be quite intense as wild parrots flew by our field and Scorned took the game to hard cap for our first victory.
Woman Scorned 11-6
With our last game of the day over, the majority of WS ran to grab food before the dance-off. We had approx. 4 practices under our belts before the show, and we were pretty confident that we could contend with the best.
Our sister team, SOL, was up first and set the bar way too high. I had seen the dance practice the night before (Mar-thug had been holding practices for 2-3 months prior), and I knew they had some game. I think what really won them the competition was the following:
1. Anna Hettler’s huge smile during the entire thing
2. The weird leg thing they did when they sat on eachother’s faces
3. Anna and Thug’s conjoined cartwheel move Regardless, it was awesome-well deserved win-Congrats!
While all of the dances were very impressive, the others that really stood out were the ladies with the backwards costumes and, of course, Betty’s “I am not a whore” dance. I was dying laughing during Betty’s dance, and I didn’t even notice backpack girl!
When it came our turn, we were dressed and ready, looking pretty BA in our jerseys and jeans. That is when disaster struck and our song played basically only bass. It sounded terrible and caused our timing to get pretty off. We still pulled off a respectable dance, but it was not what it could have been. Although we were sad, we still had a ton of fun and plan to bring it even harder next year! 
Taco Cabana was on the list of food that must be eaten while in Texas and we hit that up before showering and heading to our host houses. Half of the ladies enjoyed a delightful evening at Bryan Campbell’s (UT men’s) house and the rest of us had a great time crashing with Nicole Crumpley (from UT Women’s) and watching the movie “The Pregnancy Pact.” This movie has been discussed WAY too much and the consideration from our team has been taken too far for words.
Pre-quarter’s game: Scorned vs. Maryland
Although a lot of ultimate happened in this game, the majority of the stats include sideline shenanigans and random crap. Umm, lots of D’s and scores but the really important thing about this game was that Lauren received a Diet Coke as her pump up gift and led every single cheer we know. Lauren went on the field and gave Love the can with this warning, “Don’t you dare drink it. I’ll know. I swear I’ll know!” The score was 4-8 at half, but we jumped back on the line and scored two more with cap on. As Lauren yelled, “AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!” cap sounded and the game was over.
Maryland 6-8
P.S. Helpful Corn, I want to trade you jerseys.
Somewhere not in the champ bracket game: Scorned vs. Kali
With a too many close losses on our plate, we headed into the Kali game wanting to reclaim the Patagonia shorts from Throwdown (we were unsuccessful). The game was fought hard and despite several sick bids from Kali, Scorned kept the score close to 4-4. Shortly before half, this apparently occurred: “Jazz & #42 have a little intimate moment on the end zone line. All of the sudden they’re both on the ground and #42 is patting Jazz’s leg. They score.” Half time. Kali took the next two after half and took the game.
Kali 5-10
For 13th game: Scorned vs. UCSB
This game represented the first time ISU has ever played UCSB. That was exciting. We came out looking a little ragged on offense, but our zone looked good. We forced turn overs and attempted fast break situations in this game, but ultimately their trap zone D proved too difficult for us to break. Towards the end of the game we developed a strategy that seemed to work, but it was too little, too late and we didn’t call their double team when it repeatedly occurred. Bryan (our host) showed up on the sidelines and our entire team instantly had a crush on him. These ladies were a TON of fun to play with. Love asked about their skirts, and I tried out several different styles of bottom wear (SOL shorts, just spandies, and eventually the skirt) in this game. Exhaustion, frustration, and injuries took out several players and we ended the game at hard cap.
5-9 UCSB
Afterward, Scorned took some time to discuss the weekend and bond it up a bit. Spirits were low, but on the rise as Ottawa approached us to tell us they were forced to forfeit due to injuries and being down to only 6 healthy players. Jazz showed true spirit of the game and decided it would be wrong to take the forfeit-win, so we ended on a double forfeit.
Thanks Michelle and Melee for putting on an AMAZING tournament! Congrats to Bella Donna Ladies for winning the tourney!
The car ride home proved to be pretty uneventful other than when I took us on a 10 mile detour in Northern Texas to try to find a Jason’s Deli. I was pretty upset that this plan failed and we ended up with Sonic. Bosco blessed us with her gracious singing the ENTIRE 16 hours home…. That was awesome. We arrived safely and instantly started planning for Fool’s Fest.
