THURSDAY NIGHT IN SUMMER LEAGUE

Written by Chad Woodard.   Contributing writer - Sarah Woodard.

Sarah and I made the trip to Balboa expecting to see a slugfest between two undefeated teams on one field and a blowout on the other. We got our slugfest and our blowout, but not on the fields we predicted.

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Isle of Wight and The Blue Whale got going first while I eagerly anticipated the matchup on the other field. Blue had to be excited to have Orin Moore for his second game, and he and Alex David even showed up ON TIME! Blue made quick work of the first point, working it neatly into the endzone with a good team effort. I figured that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, and I thought nothing more of it and started watching/heckling the other game. However, every time I turned around to peak at White versus Blue, I noticed that Blue was pulling. After checking in with Sarah to find the score, I learned that the blind squirrel had been finding a lot more nuts. The play of the night happened at the end of the first half. An ambitious throw was put up to John Deacon in the back far corner of the endzone with Professor in hot pursuit. Just when it looked like Professor had the angle and was about to rip it out of the sky, Deacon jumps up to snatch it from in front of Professor. Blue took half 8-5 but Deacon paid the price as he got tangled up with Professor and they hit the ground hard. Deacon would limp off the field and not return, but he did show lots of leg for the rest of the night as he nursed his sore hip and cheered his team from the sideline. Professor, Diesel, and Linux had several nice dominators and would help White pull within 2 at some point late in the game, but Blue patiently answered every time with great teamwork that including a nice 15-20 throw standoff in the redzone with Julie Birum, Orin Moore, and Brian Kuhn doing a lot of swinging until Brian send a laser up the home sideline to find Alexa Engleman cutting to the back corner. With Blue threatening to win the game, Diesel made an outstanding layout D on Orin’s break mark throw to keep White alive only to get hand blocked right back. Orin would throw another break mark that was bobbled but finally reeled in by one of those Thomas brothers (they’re even harder to tell apart at night). Blue pulled out the upset 15-12.

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I didn’t think Impeach Nixon and Golda Meir would ever get started. For a moment it looked like Gold would be playing with 5 people until a Gold army emerged from the parking lot like the phantom baseball players emerging from Ray Kinsella’s cornfield in Field of Dreams. It was a very casual atmosphere and it seemed like the teams were more interested in throwing and chatting than getting started. I was halfway expecting to see a mac-line break out at any moment. Once underway, Peach struck first with a 10 yard shot from Rachel Bowers. She then got a D on a Gold huck from Andy Bandit in the second point and Peach would take advantage again. Then came the third point - my least/most favorite point of the night. There were at least 4 dropped pancakes and 2 gimmes that Gold couldn’t convert in the endzone. Heckling got old and I just watched in silent disbelief. Would the lights go out at 2-0? Peach would finally put that one in too on a nice cut from Rachel Bowers and all of a sudden Peach had a 3-0 lead. Gold continued to have one of those nights where things just did not go their way, and Peach would end up at 5-0 before Gold took a timeout to regroup. The timeout just delayed the inevitable - another Peach score. Gold would eventually score on a long shot down the sideline to a wide open Alison Regan. I was holding my breath the whole time the disc was in flight and would not have been surprised had the disc struck a random owl flying by and fell into a Peach player’s hands. It was just one of those nights for Gold. Peach was powered by huge hucks from Rob Severson to basically whoever would cut deep - Jake Kupier, Robbie Paolini, Alli Moffa, and sometimes no one at all. Jake Kupier had the highlight of the first half with a huge sky to pull one down with Mike Margala right there. Jake must not have cut his fingernails because he came down with it between two fingers. The throw was short of the endzone, but Peach had no problem scoring on that one too. Peach took half 8-2 and this was turning into a snoozer. The second half was marginally better. After making it 9-2, Peach decided to throw zone. I didn’t understand it either at first, but it was obviously for practice because Andy Bandit, Finn, and Stacey Adams had no problem poking it through the holes in Peach’s zone without too much trouble. They scored several times and found Llama for at least two of those scores to eventually bring it within 4 points. After a couple of great Ds by Andy Bandit and a dropped score by Erick Cifuentes on a very pretty huck from Rob Severson that actually knocked Erick’s bandana off his head, I thought we might have a game. The two teams traded points until Sarah Kremen caught the game winner on a sneaky strike to the home side. Peach over Gold 15-11.

Fun fact: Gold has 2 Lauren’s, 2 Alex’s, and 3 Andy’s.

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