Wooster Winter Warmup, etc.

First off, the Mardi Gras video is done. Far too large to upload or even get on to DVD because my computer is a piece of garbage. Maybe one day it'll get online or on to DVD. Regardless, it's completed and I'm really proud of it. I hope anyone who wants to see it can get a chance to view it in some capacity.

To preface the Wooster Winter Warmup I'll divulge a little about how we ended up in Ohio this weekend. Originally we were slated to be in Wilmington, North Carolina for College Easterns, but had to drop the tournament. When we planned our spring schedule we figured that Sectionals was going to be on the second weekend of April (like it's been every year since I've been here). However when we found out it was the weekend after Easterns, Snaps and I got worried. Easterns was clearly going to be a grueling tournament, we worried about injuries, and it's over a 12 hour drive each way. Having a tournament like Easterns right before Sectionals didn't seem like the right call. So we decided to let the insane Ohio weather beat us around for another weekend.

We stayed at Nate's house while we were there and it was sweet. Every video game system you could imagine was there. We had bumper pool, 800 TVs, a gorgeous, finished basement, and family hospitality. Awesome.

A bye first round led a luxurious wake up. We get to the fields and immediately realize why North Carolina always trumps Ohio. The ground was soaked, muddy, and it suctioned your cleat on every step. I had not anticipated the fields were going to be as bad as two years ago, but they were terrible and remarkably similar to those conditions. In warm ups we got our cleats drenched and Chuck constantly reminded us of why Wilmington would be so much nicer.

Regardless, we wanted to come out and make a statement in our section. We did. First day our scores were as follows, 13-1, 13-0, 13-6, and 13-0. We took on a much more jovial attitude because coming in we expected we'd do quite well. So we were having a lot of fun doing endless call and responses and ridiculous cheers. Just having a good time in shitty Ohio conditions.

Sunday was a mess. We get there in the morning and I was completely unnerved at the playing conditions. I had never seen such terribly fields. The muddy mess from Saturday had frozen over night and it was a hard, bumpy, and an altogether unsafe catastrophe of a playing field. We talked to the TD and he moved us to a somewhat better field. We talked it over and despite our apprehensions over fields begging for injury before Sectionals, we wanted to finish what we started. With caution, we took the field and played Ohio Wesleyan in the quarters. They had 8 guys and we had 16 guys who were hungry for a tournament win. We took the game 15-2.

Our semi final game was against the #2 seed overall. It was an unconventional set up, the 1 and 2 seeds meeting in the semis, but we didn't care too much. You have to be ready to beat the best teams if you want the tournament win, so we didn't complain about the matchup. The semis was against "Wooster Alumni." It was really a combination of Madcow, LouEvil, and Wooster Alumni. It was a decent mix of experienced club players, so we knew we'd get a challenging game. There was some trading, a few swings in momentum, and then a late game surge by Miami. We pulled away at the end to close out the semi finals 15-11. This turned out to be the only close game of the tournament. It was a hard fought game and we stepped it up for a solid win.

The finals was against Bowling Green. We had played them on Saturday and beat them 13-0, so it was interesting to see them in the finals. We wanted to make a statement in the finals and did. We won the game 15-3.

All in all the playing conditions were miserable, but the weekend was a blast. Some examples of our call and responses: "Cattle...Prod" "Blue...Pants" "Texas, Texas...Yee-Haw" "Whirly...Ball" and "Call...Response." They were goofy and overall just to provide a fun atmosphere for us over the weekend.

Some other highlights... Coming back and making amazing ice cream shakes on Saturday night. That was killer. Some sick beats from DJ Scratch and Sniff. Nate's family. Nate's basement.

The lowlight...Snaps ruining any chance of playing with Nate's dog. Screw you Snaps. You ruined everything.

If there's enough enthusiasm, I might make a Queen City/Wooster highlight reel. Combine the footage and get a highlight reel out of it. I'll also try to get the Mardi Gras highlight reel up on Google Video. I'm making no promises though.

The College Series starts this upcoming weekend. I've been waiting 4 years for this...