Centex 2011: The longest blog post ever

If there is one non-series tournament of the spring season that college women’s teams get most psyched up for, it is Centex. In all honesty, Centex could definitely be argued as more competitive than the USAU National tournament due to the fact that there are no regional restrictions on bid entries. Also, this year the tournament included more than double the teams that attend Nationals. Anyways, Scorned was pretty flippin’ pumped for it!

After a 5^th place finish at Easterns, Scorned had a great week long spring break vacation, followed by a week of classes before the trek to Austin. Although the drive comes to more than 30 hours round trip, we had a roster of 17, 2 of our coaches, and 3 other helpers hanging out on our sidelines. With a full night of sleep (for most of us) Friday night, Scorned was ready to turn some heads and rock it Saturday.

Scorned came into the tournament seeded 19^th which put us as the first seed of pool G in Division 2. It wasn’t long before we made the executive decision to rename pool G to “The Pool of Hell!” In our pool was Woman Scorned (Hell hath no fury), Hell’s Bells, and Hellions… also Tufts, who unfortunately missed out on the memo when choosing their team name back in the day.

Friday evening Scorned got a chance to check out the turtle pond on UT campus and lie around by the pool. The evening included an interesting family dinner with all 22 of us at Olive Garden followed by costume making in the hotel rooms. Although the tourney gave us a chance to sleep in, I woke up about 2 hours early from a dream, in which Michigan asked to scrimmage us between games because they wanted a rematch from Easterns… it was weird and I couldn’t sleep with so much Frisbee anticipation on my mind. Also, that rematch actually did happen Sunday. After a nice young man who was in town for the Special Olympics helped me carry my ice cooler to our room, we headed to the fields to start the day.

Game 1: Southern California Hellions of Troy

Scorned came out in the first game ready to play some serious ultimate. The Hellions were ready to answer back with fast, fresh legs to run. We utilized our strengths and played smart and chilly from the beginning, allowing us to gain a lead and set the pace of the day with a big ‘ol win.

15-8 Woman Scorned over SoCal

Game 2: Colorado State Hell’s Bells

This is our second match up with these ladies this year. We played at Harvest Moon in a great game for 5^th place in the fall. This is an extremely fun team with great spirit… plus their old logo was very similar to ours. Scorned kept the fury raging into this second game. Despite Hell’s sick upwind forehand hucks and intense defense, Scorned was able to break the cup in zone and move the disc where we wished on offense. This game once again served to be a lot of fun with lots of sideline banter and jokes on and off the field between each team. Hopefully it won’t be long until we get to see these ladies again!

13-8 Woman Scorned over Colorado State

Game 3: Tuft’s University Ewo

In the 3^rd game of the day, we came up against the #2 seed in our pool, Tufts. This was their first tourney of the spring, so we didn’t really know what we were up against. This team was large and their depth was quite apparent. One of their girls had pretty insane bids on both O and D, which added to the intensity of the game. Scorned was definitely starting to feel the heat in this game as the wind picked up a bit, and our decisions on offense were not as wise as before. In one point (I think it was this game) I attempted a forehand huck upwind to Kyra which literally turned over almost immediately after leaving my hand. It was definitely in the top 5 most unsuccessful plays I have ever tried to make…and that is saying something. Scorned had a lead in this game but allowed the score to tighten up near the end as Ewo fought back. The game ended on universe point and Scorned chalked another win up on the board.

On another note, Ewo had an amazing tournament, finishing 3^rd overall. Although there were some crazy upsets at Centex this year, I think Tufts was the biggest surprise of them all, breaking seed by something like 20!

Woman Scorned over Tufts 11-10

Game 4 Crossover: University of Texas Melee

This game will go down in Woman Scorned history for all of us who were there. It was amazing. From the beginning, the game was tight. Texas took half at 8-6 but Scorned was bound and determined to win this game and break up into Division 1. There were sick grabs and Ds pretty much everywhere from both teams. Jessy and Becca were monsters in the Sky, while our handlers put up pretty hucks both up and down wind. Bosco, Jazz, Cami and Mag were freaks on the field both offensively and defensively. In one point, Mag went up for a disc in the end zone but didn’t come down with it. Without any worry at all, Cassie snuck in for the snag and the score, making a huge play for us. While the play was absolutely insane, what was even better was Mag’s reaction to the play.

A time out was called with 3 points left in the game, and Scorned used the opportunity to amp us up even more. Scorned scored an up wind point to bring the game to 11-10, but Texas answered back in the next point to tie it right as hard cap came on. Since we were the last game of the day, the sidelines were pretty packed and there was so much yelling it was crazy. The final point lasted about 10 minutes with both teams playing intense defense and forcing Ds. Scorned worked it up to the end zone line, Hoistad to Mag on an IO. Scorned wins! We took the game through pure will power and fury!

Another thing that made this game so awesome was our sideline help. Big thanks our friends on Seaweed and Saucy Nancy for cheering us on in that game. You were all amazing!

Woman Scorned over Texas 12-11

After the games, Scorned jumped right into a quick, last minute dance practice as the dance off got started. Iowa came out first in the line-up with a pretty great performance by Chelsea Russell who absolutely carried their team to take 2^nd place. Chelsea has been entertaining us Central Region kids for a while now between games when she finds things to twirl and we are all in awe by her talents. It was a great performance, and I was extremely impressed although a little upset that we were denied the incorporation of both fireworks and animals in our dance, but Iowa was allowed to use fire. I’ll get over it, it’s fine, Iowa did a great job. However, SOL is the real story here, taking the win a second year in a row with a performance IN THE DARK! Even without Martha and Anna, these girls dominated the dance field and showed everyone what’s up. Our dance, yet again was a bit of a fail. Once again, the sound system couldn’t handle the beat that we chose and the bass drown out the words to Monster, but we rocked it anyways.

Following the dance, we headed to a late dinner where Becca ate 7 brownies, putting Kevin to absolute shame in an eating contest. There was big talk of ice baths in the hotel after dinner, but I think Jessy and Mag only mustered up about 10 minutes (and Jazzy for 3 min) of courage before bailing…pansys.

First thing Sunday morning, my Friday night dream came true when we were matched up against Michigan in pre-quarters. The bottom line in this game was that Michigan came out to prove a point and win the game. Scorned did not. Both teams pushed the intensity of the game, but every time Scorned made a break upwind, Flywheel answered back the next point with a break of their own. There was absolutely no comparison in our fury from Saturday to Sunday and it showed. I’d like to thank Michigan for that cheer about “Great lakes, great times.” It has literally been in my head for 2 weeks and I keep catching myself singing it. That cheer is money, especially with a little cow bell in there. I really, really hope we get one more chance at this match up.

9-14 Michigan over Scorned

Our next match up was against Cal Berkeley’s Pie Queens. Scorned has never played Cal (or at least not since I have been on the team), but several of us met these girls last year at College Nationals in Madison. These ladies are a ton of fun and the team is just stacked with Bay Area talent, so it was really cool to get to play them. Bob was huge in this game, adding a bit of an advantage to our team. Having played ultimate in the Bay Area the past several years, he had some great insight into their game how we should work to shut them down. Even with this advice and advantage, Scorned was unable to stop PQs IO forehands and handler rotation in the upwind points. Toward the end of the game Cal broke away and solidified their lead to take the game.

7-11 Cal over Scorned

The next game put us up against Northwestern Gungho. I’m almost positive that this is the first time we have played them this year, which is pretty unusual. This game was the last fizzle for Scorned; we were just unable to relight the flame from Saturday. The first half of the game consisted of trading points back and forth. Scorned had some big hucks in this game to put points on the board, but Gungho broke up wind and took the lead around half. Lien Hoffman had an insane layout poach D attempt in this game, it was sick. Jazz and I both stopped running we were so impressed. These girls were also a lot of fun. I definitely missed something that went on in this game, but there was A LOT of pretty serious talk between teams of trading one of our black girls for one of their Asians. Scorned tried to fight back in the second half, but Northwestern didn’t let up and hard cap ended the game.

6-11 Northwestern over Scorned

Our final game was supposed to be versus Penn, but due to their team having to catch flights, we decided to double forfeit because taking a win 15-0 didn’t seem right in a game we didn’t actually play. This put us with a final placement of “tied for 15^th place.” Although Sunday games did not go as we had hoped, Scorned walked away with our head high, breaking seed and pulling ourselves up from the Division II bracket into Division I.

Scorned hit the cars for some dinner at Pancheros before jumping in the cars for the long ride home and back to cooler weather and reality.

Scorned would like to give an enormous THANK YOU to our coaches Lana and Kevin (aka Coach K) for their great coaching this weekend. Another huge thank you to Misra, Taiwo, and Bob for amazing sideline help all weekend and making the trip to Austin with us!

Huge thanks to Texas Melee and Michelle for hosting yet another amazing tournament.

-Lindsey Gapstur #2