Stanford Invite 2009

The Stanford Invite has not traditionally been Carleton’s best tournament with early exits the last few years. So when the team heard that come 9th weekend we would be missing some key players, those playing realized a high percentage of the workload would be on their shoulders. With senior Jerome Potter out with a shoulder Injury, junior Adam Fagin out with a foot injury, and senior Dan Mammel and junior Peter Karian not making the trip due to work related reasons (AKA emergency jazzercise practice) the numbers would be light. We started the tournament with 15, and at various moments got down to as low as 11, but regardless of the situation, the players were ready to play. We all vowed to not make excuses and still play up to our full potential. Rookies were well aware that this was the chance to prove themselves, and returners realized that now was the time to step up their game. Landing late Friday night the Fagin family was nice enough to host us all. We had a first round bye Saturday, but given the hour and a half drive to the fields we still were up bright and early greeted with a delicious Fagin family feast.

We arrived to the BEAUTIFUL green fields in Ripon a little late and after the long car ride we warmed up pretty slowly. We jumped into our first game against Arizona not ready and the results showed. Arizona gave us chance after chance and we just couldn’t capitalize. We traded until 5-4 and then finally got the 1st, and only break of the half to make it 6-4. Half was taken 7-5 and we brought it in upset with the 1st half and ready to get our legs rolling in half 2. Well the halftime speech woke us up as we started the 2nd half with 4 consecutive breaks including 2 goals and an assist by Junior Luke Powers. From there we finished the game out 13-8 finally getting our legs moving and feeling ready for the day ahead.

The next game pitted us against LPC, which turned out to be quite bitter sweet. Our legs were rolling and they were not ready to step up to our level. We came out hot taking half 7-1 with freshman rookie Hai Ngo stepping up big playing great handler D. The 2nd half was characterized by more of the same dominance as the lines opened up and we ended up winning 13-4, but unfortunately our small roster got even smaller. Junior Adrian Chow banged his head and neck hard on a HUGE bid, and sat the rest of the day (returning Sunday) with a minor concussion. Sophomore Patrick Roberts wasn’t so lucky as while laying out for a grab he came down hard on his shoulder. He ended up with a broken collarbone and will be out 3-6 weeks.

This brought up the University of Washington, a recently very hot team. The low numbers began to get to us, as our legs were not ready to punish the less athletic UW team. The 1st half showed us playing solid O (with 1 turn and no breaks), but lazy D. The first half went by without a single break and UW took half 6-7. The 2nd half was not much better as our D was just not forcing turns. Once again though our rookies stepped up big as sophomore James Munson got a great poach D to spark the breaks, and sophomore Ben Sullender scored back-to-back goals for breaks. The game was close as it was 12-12. But our O held to make it 13-12, and our D finished the game with a big break to win 14-12.

This brought us to the last round against the 3-0 Wisconsin Hodags. As we brought it in for the pregame huddle, ‘95 alum and now coach of the Oregon’s women team Lou Burruss showed up in our huddle to tell us a story of Hodags’ of old. It goes without saying that the speech did the trick and we came out ready for Wisconsin blood. We traded to 1-2, and then a stupid execution error led to the Hodags getting the first break 1-3. The O immediately got back on track to make it 2-3 and then the D got that break back to tie it at 3’s. After giving up another break via an overthrown huck, Wisconsin broke once more, but the D would not let down as they were getting layout D after layout D which led to 2 more breaks before half to end up taking half 7-6. The 2nd half was all CUT, as we were able to come up with 2 more huge breaks and the O stayed solid the rest of the game with great play from senior captain Chris Kosednar. We finished the game with a break to make the final score 13-10. This capped Saturday and we headed back to the hotel in Ripon to hit the ice baths and get some food in our belly to prepare for another day. With the light numbers the legs were feeling a little unstable but the team wanted badly to prove that we could succeed regardless of the conditions on Sunday.

Sunday morning we started with Washington University of St. Louis. We came out hot to go up 5-2, only to get overconfident and begin coasting which led to Wash U taking half 6-7. The 2nd half we vowed to not let slip away. Junior Christian Foster got a huge layout D on a huck, which sparked the team for the half as we ended up winning 13-9.

Apparently our 1st half problems weren’t over as we came out slow against Georgia. Our offense was turning it over stupidly left and right and our D was just not generating breaks. Georgia took half 4-7 and it appeared as though the long weekend, hot sun, and limited subs were getting the best of us. We took the extent of halftime to hydrate, rest, and warm ourselves up right. Well it seems like we like 2nd half comebacks as we came out of half with 3 straight breaks to tie it at 7. Juniors Sam Kanner and Dan Curme connected for 2 goals as we continued to trade to 10’s. The D line refired up with an amazing layout D on the goal line by Luke Powers and we broke 3 times to finish 13-10.

This brought us to the finals and who were we to meet but Florida. We had seen them at Vegas, and we knew how they played so we had some strategies drawn up for the game. The O just had to keep the disc moving, beware of poaches, and just run as we knew the Florida defenders were not ready to work. Defensively we played a lot of straight up with the handler defenders sagging the lanes to help stop them from hucking it. We made sure that there was always a last back and had thrower calls whenever their big guys had the disc. After trading to 3’s the D got a turn on a huck, and Christian Foster threw a big forehand to Dan Curme for the 1st break. We got another one to make it 6-4, but then problems start. Florida scored on O to make it 6-5, and then rattled off 3 breaks to take half 8-6. We got a break early on a great grab by Grant Lindsley, and then traded to 10-12. We were occasionally getting D’s, but once again we were giving it right back on drops and throw aways. Florida had adjusted to our poachy D and was taking the big unders we were giving them. We however were having trouble adjusting and getting back to our more traditional shut down man defense. At 10-12 the problems continued and we got broken to make it 10-13. Points were traded to 11-14. But we were not done yet as we had proven that we liked comebacks. We came right back at them with shutdown D and smooth O. Florida received their 3rd TMF so we were able to bring the disc up to their brick and punched it in to bring the game to 13-14 we were pulling. Florida sent their big guy deep but the huck got D’d and we had a chance to tie the game up. We worked it up to the 1-yard line but a miscommunication on the handler set led to a goal line turnover. Florida’s big guy immediately picked up the disc and jacked an 80-yard flick for the game-winning goal. The defeat was crushing, as we knew we did not play our best, turning the disc over carelessly with countless unforced execution errors. Though it would be easy to chalk the loss up to a lack of personnel, fatigue, and other uncontrollable excuses, the post game huddle was filled with an understanding that no matter what, we should have won the game. The loss has only fired us up even more.

After the finals we headed back to the Fagin’s for a BBQ and then headed to the airport for the red eye back to campus. Finals were in full swing when we got back, but I’m here to report that we all survived and are now in lovely Austin Texas practicing for Centex this coming weekend.