Crikey. April's almost over, and the weather here is still a little uncooperative. We had a Regionals for ultimate yesterday and today at UC Santa Cruz, about an hour southwest of here. They have the most beautiful campus ever, nestled among redwoods at the western foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains. The fields we played on were atop a small cliff overlooking the ocean and, beyond that, a curving arm of the bay. Because they're on the west side, though, they're right smack in the rain shadow—which makes for beautiful vistas of fog rolling over mountains during every point, but also a whole lotta wind and dampness, especially during yesterday's morning games. Not too bad, though.

There were only 10 of us at the tourney yesterday, which dwindled down to 8 functional ones as Molly hurt her hip, and Wilson her knee and ankle. Though Wilson only cut back on the number of points she played, not sat them out entirely, and stepped in with some awesome D against Santa Cruz. We got bageled by Humboldt and Superfly, the latter of which incorporated the killer bee offense at their game point. In other words, Brooke picked up the disc while the rest of us buzzed around the Fly girls and "stung" them, until when the count got to five and one person took off for the huck. Jenny made a valiant attempt, but we didn't quite see it through.

Then, we had a nice long bye during which I took a nap in my sleeping bag (yes, I'd brought it; it looked a little ridiculous, but not enough so to make up for how warm and soft it was...), and then got psyched for the PLU game. They were ranked below us, a rather impressive feat, and we were really really excited by the possibility of beating them. We started off the game okay, but they started off better, and led for a few points until we scored a beautiful point, and then some more, until we were leading 7-4. I think that made them determined for a comeback just like ours, and they got it up by two more on their side after that. Then a soft cap was called: the game would end at 8, so that's just what we did. Yes. Win. It was sublime.

We only had two subs for this game, but it helped that they were a team at our level and, hence, didn't run as fast, leaving us with considerably more breath even after playing several consecutive points. It's nice to play a team right at our level; opponents like Superfly make us treat things, perhaps rightly so, as a joke, but teams like the Berkeley Tarts and PLU make us go all out. I think all of us were inspired to play out best against PLU partly by the stakes and partly by all the verbal motivation from Brooke, Jenny, Joyce, and everyone—saw lots of awesome layouts and dives all over, especially a few point-scoring ones from Erica. I laid out a few times, too, and my body's so sore today, but it was worth it.

On ultimate: it's the rad-est game ever. It's fast, it's exciting, and it's 99% about being on the field and playing the game, not any silly marketing or advertising fuss. People just have fun playing. Take, for instance, the Humboldt and PLU women. It was the last point of their last game of the day, and they decided to play skins-n-shorts (Humboldt) vs. sports bras-n-underwear (PLU). There was no wimpifying just because of their new (lack of) apparel; both teams played just has hard and laid out just as much as they did in previous points. Every single other game on the upper fields called a time out. It was crazy and looked painful, but also really, really funny.

I just wish I could be better at it. I'm getting a little better at faking and cutting, which is fun, but once I catch a long bomb I have trouble passing it off in an advantageous or even possession-keeping way. My throws are better than they used to be, but still just aren't very stable under pressure. I know it's largely attributable to my not being there for practice all the time, which sucks both on a personal level because I don't get better and a team one because it means we can't simulate 7-on-7 strategies. To some degree, this fairly rampant absenteeism of lots of players both from practices and from tournaments is an inevitable fate of a B team, but now that I've committed to it, I should really follow through. Next weekend would have been an awesome B-team tourney between us, Berkeley, and possibly San Diego, but a SOOP trip is that weekend, so...

Anyway, next year I'll pick fewer things to commit myself to, and I'll be there for the ones that I've chosen. Like ultimate.