Glory Days

We came into Glory Days as the #5 seed out of 35 teams. There have been few tournaments in my career where Miami has actually gotten respect in a large tournament. We had some expectations to fill.

Our first game was against Kentucky. In my 3+ years in the East Plains Section (which includes Kentucky) I have never seen a UK team at any tournament or entered in the College Series. We came out sloppy and ended up winning the game 13-8. It was a slow start, filled with an excruciating amount of turns.

The second game pitted us against SLU (Saint Louis University). The same story applied from the first game. We did not look too great but started to put some things together. The second half we started to look like solid ultimate players and closed it out 13-7.

Third round was a bye. I hate byes.

The fourth round gave us a game against University of Illinois-Chicago. Never played them, but apparently they had a guy from Machine and a few other talented players. They didn't have many players and then one got hurt, so we ran them and came out with a 13-6 victory. We had streaks of well played points and then streaks of painful ultimate. We still hadn't fused the two together.

Our final game was against Illinois Y. Illinois came with three teams to this tournament and all three finished quite well. They will be a hell of a team come spring time. Illinois Y was a tight contest. We couldn't put together an entire game and paid for it. We lost 12-10.

We ended up winning the pool on point differential. UI-C, Illinois-Y, and Miami all finished 3-1. This set us up as the 7 seed in the 16 team A bracket.

We went back to the Martins and got absolutely pampered. Much more than we deserved. Much appreciation to an amazingly accommodating family.

We woke up in the morning to be greeted by Magnum. We were not going up against a bunch of Michigan splits like at BOTM (they sent one team to this tournament), so we expected a more polished Magnum squad. It was a close contest the whole way through, with both teams succumbing to a few turnover ridden points. Aside from that, it was a good game that found Miami coming out on top 12-9.

We beat Michigan and put ourselves in the Quarters against another Illinois split. We went down 7-3 at half and tried to get fired up out of half. We got the score to 8-6 and started to put the pressure on. Miami couldn't get the breaks necessary and ended up losing 12-10. It was hard fought but in a losing effort.

We had two more games to play out for 5th place. Miami rallied after a loss and took the last two games in decisive fashion. We fought to hold seed and did it. The Boogiemen finished 5th out of a field of 35.

This tournament was another team effort. A big roster of guys all contributing to a solid 6-2 weekend. Now we're gearing up for fall break in Columbus at Fall Brawl.












All photos by Izzi Bikun.