Drehst'ner Discs are everywhere!
Tactic Discussion
The end of the Indoor Season
Team 1a were:
Henrik, Frank, Robort, TWP
Carl, Matthias, Andreas, Sylvie
27./28. March, 2004
After a long period of not knowing where, when or if the German Championship Tournament for the 4th league would be, we finally found out that it would be 650 km away in Aachen on the same weekend that the Championship tournaments for the 1st through 3rd league would be in Kiel. To our disapointment, quite a ferw teams cancelled out in the week before the tournament. There would only be 5 teams there. We scrounged together a team of 8 Drehst'ners and made ready for the long boring journey to Aachen in 2 small cars. To our suprise, Matthias came through with a 9-seater van from the car rental! So we waited for Frank and then swung by Plauen and Littleguitar picked up his little guitar: we were on our way to Aachen! Dice and guitar music from Andreas provided a great mood for the 7 hour drive. We got to Aachen around 1 A.M. and crashed in an appartement from one of the Aachner players. After a team breakfast, we spent the morning looking around Aachen (especially the Cathedral), because or first game didn't start untill after 1 PM.
Before I get into our games, it is important to know our situation at the time. For the 5 teams in the 4th league, there are 3 automatic bids for the C-Religation in the following year. If you don't get an automatic bid, then your team has play in the qualification of their regional league (north or south) where there is 2 bids per region. The top 3 teams from the C-Religation play in the 3rd league in the same year. The goal of most teams is to play in the 3rd league or higher, because all 3 Championship tournaments are held together on the same weekend in the same city with the 1st and 2nd league woman’s championships. It is a really large frisbee fest and a lot of fun. The fourth league is usually separate and much smaller. Since we finished 4th this year in the southern regional qualification in Munich, we didn't get a bid for the C-Religation this year and had no more chance of playing in the 3rd league tournament in Kiel. That is why we were playing in Aachen last weekend with Frisbee Family (Pempelfort), Bibären (Aachen), Rotatoes Potatoes (Braunschweig) and Isostars (Augsburg). Our new goal was to have fun and finish 3rd or better to get an automatic bid for the C-Religation in 2005. We played round robin, so we had to win 2 games outright or hope for a crazy 3-way comparison.
Our first game was against Pempelfort, the top seeded team of the tournament. It was pretty even at the beginning, even though they kept a small but secure lead. We were, however, too nervous and too serious. Eventually we had too much trouble with their many extremely tall men. We only had Frank as a tall man, and that wasn’t enough, because they had 5 men who were taller than him! All in all, they through and caught better than we did and simply out played us. In the end we lost 8:13. We could have done better, but we didn’t want to think about it too much. So we got ready for our next game.
Our next opponent was the hosting team from Aachen. The Bibären is the new name for the B-Team from Aachen. Their A-Team was playing in Kiel in the 1st League this weekend. Even though we played what we thought was a better game as against Pempelfort, we were dominated. Both teams played a great defence, but in the end they stopped us more than we stopped them. We lost 4:13. Things were not looking good for us. We absolutely needed to win the next 2 games. We needed a tournament come back!
After a break, we were pit against Hot Rot Pot. This was also a close game at the beginning. Braunschweig kept on going ahead by 1 and then we kept tying it back up. The game was to 13 with a Cap 2 and a 15 point maximum. We finally were making secure points and our offence was slowly rising to the level of our defence. At 10:9 we finally had our first lead of the game, but they scored 2 right afterwards to make it 11:12. Again we tied it up at 12:12, they scored, we scored, and they scored to make it 13:14 for them. We drove it down the field one more time and Sylvie caught the tying pass in the end zone to bring it to a 14:14 and a sudden death point! Thanks to an amazing defence effort from Matthias, who had been playing a great game, we got the turn. Secure handling brought the disc once again into Sylvie’s hands in the end zone and Matthias collapsed on the floor from pure exhaustion! 15:14. Our first victory of the day!
Well it definitely wasn’t over yet. Our next opponent was a tough one. We had recently played against Augsburg in the Qualification and beat them just barely. This time they were out for revenge. Again we had to use or hard defence and try to pick up the points were we could. Unfortunately, we were still quite tired from our previous game and couldn’t keep the mental euphoria from the victory going. Bythe time we had made 3 points they already had twice as many at 3:6. After a good half hour or more of struggle, the Isostars kept building upon their lead steadily until it was 8:12 for them. One more point would end the game in their favour and end all our hopes of getting a bid for next years C-Religation. There is, however, something special about the numbers 12 and 8. These 2 numbers aroused a memory in deep down in Matthias’s brain… a memory that we had all tried to bury and forget. Last summer we entered the final of the Mücken Cup in Magdeburg undefeated and were pit against the Hallunken from Halle. We were also up 12:8 in a game to 13 and ended up losing 12:13. This horrible memory awoke in us all when, on the long walk back to our line after Augsburg’s 12th point, Matthias shouted out “Magdeburg!”. The Isostars didn’t know what to make of this, but we were all lit on fire from that one word. We drove down the field for a fast point, one of the first ones of the game without a turnover. 9:12. Then a great defence and another point. 10:12. 11:12. 12:12! We forced the Cap 2 rule and the game could no longer be ended with a single point. Boom! Another point. 13:12 and the ghost of Magdeburg was defeated. We still had to get a 2 point difference because of the Cap 2 rule. This was my chance to defeat another ghost, one that haunted me personally from Kaiserslautern last year. In Kaiserslautern we were also in the final. I had the chance to score the tournament winning point, but I dropped the perfect pass in the zone because I was too excited. This time it would be different. We through to Augsburg to start play. 1-2-3 Turnover! Pass, Pass, Pass. TWP with disc on the right side of the field near the end zone. Carl runs into the zone on the right side with defence and makes a sharp cut to the left. It was our classic overhead corner drill. TWP launched an overhead almost as an involuntary reaction. My defender and I both jumped and I came down with the disc (barely!). This time I held on and counted to 3 before I through the plastic away! We won! 14:12!After earning our automatic bid for the C-Religation 2005, we broke out the Kölsch and headed for the showers where we sang and were happy. We went out to eat and then to a nice club because there wasn’t any Frisbee Party. They played good music that we had never heard before, but we all (yes even I) danced until we were exhausted. It was a good time, but it was overshadowed by the theft of Sylvie’s wallet and Andreas’s Digital Camera. This was the second time in a few weeks that our team (especially Andreas) had been robbed. You can’t trust anyone these days.
So, the German Championships were over for us on the first day. The second day we decided to play a HAT tournament. We mixed up the players from all 5 teams according to birthday and made 4 teams. The Winter, Summer and Fall teams each had 1 Drehst’ner. The Spring team had 5, including Matthias, Sylvie, Robert, Andreas and me. Together with players from Braunschweig, Pempelfort and Aachen we had a whole lot of fun. It was the perfect way to complement a rather intense and serious day of ultimate the day before. After 3 very close games, our spring team ended up undefeated and one the Sunday HAT tournament. Fun, Fun, Fun.
After another team shower and an awards ceremony we hopped back in our 9-seater and sang our way back to Drehst’n with guitar accompaniment from Andreas. It doesn’t get much better than this.
| Opponent | Score | Result |
| Pempelfort | 8:13 | L |
| Aachen | 4:13 | L |
| Braunschweig | 15:14 | W |
| Augsburg | 14:12 | W |
| 1. Pempelfort |
| 2. Aachen |
| 3. Drehst'n Deckel |
| 4. Braunschweig |
| 5. Augsburg |
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Drehst'ner Discs are everywhere! |
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Tactic Discussion |
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The end of the Indoor Season |
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