Thursday, February 26, 2009

Attn: Alumni

Hey former squids,
As some of you know, I'm making an attempt to capture all of squid history in writing. Any alumn (b or a) please contact me if you haven't done so. Every piece of info helps (esp emails of older squid). I know you older squids have more to think about on your minds besides frisbee (unlike me), but your contribution would be greatly appreciated.

<3 eric hsu 'monstro'
ejch8456@gmail.com

in the mean time, check out this clip of our new red head squid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edaJP3Lp0Gg

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Stanford Invite Schedule

This year, Stanford Invite is a 72 team tournament in Modesto put on by Cultimate. Here is the schedule (courtesy of Pumba):

UCSD vs

Sat Rd 1 (8:30) - Pacific Lutheran

Rd 2 (10:25) - Washington

Rd 3 (12:20) - British Columbia

Rd 4 (2:15) - BYE

Rd 5 (4:10) - Western Washington

Sun Rd 1 (8:00) - UC-Santa Cruz

Rd 2 (9:55) - BYE

Rd 3 (11:50) - UC-Davis


We also have a fungus to watch out for called Coccidiodiomycosis. Symptoms "range from a minor flu-like illness to life-threatening respiratory conditions and serious disorders outside of the pulmonary system". If it's sunny, we're relatively safe from the so-called "valley-fever". If it's rainy and windy, these buggers will proliferate and release spores into the air.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Pres Day 2009

After a strong showing at the Santa Barbara Invite, we entered Pres Day this year as the second seed. UC Berkley, who won in Santa Barbara, was the first seed. A week before Pres Day, the weather looked terrible. One of the biggest storms of the year was headed to So Cal for the weekend, but as the week went on, the weather reports started to look better. The storm ended up being delayed and really hit Monday, so we were able to shift some of the games around to finish up on Sunday afternoon.

In our first game of Saturday, we faced USC. We started with some hard man defense and a new offense: the horizontal stack. This new offense is run by 3 handlers, rather than the usual Spread offense that is run by the 4 downfield players. This new offense looked nice and crisp and opened up the field for lots of handler initiated swings and hucks. On the final point of the game, Mark “Dibs” Johnston chased down a full field huck and laid out in the end zone for the win, 13-5.

The next game, against UC Berkley’s B-team, was a great chance for the fish to show us their potential. On offense we continued to run the ho-stack, and on defense we ran a vertical stack. All our younger players looked solid. Murphy “Soda” Hitchcock showed great maturity and poise. Borland also had a great layout catch to keep an errant huck alive. We ended up closing this game out, 13-2.

The next game was against USD, where the wind picked up a little. They had a few experienced players and a good zone. We made mistake after mistake and were down by a point at half. In the second half we collected ourselves and were able to convert on offense and create turns with our 4 man cup. We were finally able to end this game with a win, 13-9.

Our final game of the day was against Cal Poly SLO under the lights. This was the first showcase game the Squids have played in 2 years, and we were excited. SLO has had a breakout season so far, with a great showing at Sean Ryan during fall quarter. Rumor has it they didn’t graduate a single person last year. Starting the game, it was evident that their ho-stack offense flowed through 2 solid handlers, who would hit any of their fast young receivers. Great aerial plays from Eric “Biel” Abhold and Yui Takeshita led the way for a solid Squid offense. We ended up winning the game in front of a friendly home crowd 13-7.

Our first game on Sunday was against UCLA. These guys beat us earlier in the year at Sean Ryan, and we’ve been hungry for revenge for 3 months. The game started out terribly. They run a strong man defense on our downfield cutters, but a poachy zone on our handlers, making it hard for us to move it from our handlers to our downfield players. They started with a couple D’s close to our own goal and were able to convert quickly to go up 4-1. It was obvious that our new handler run ho-stack wouldn’t cut it against their D, so we switched to the good ol’ squid spread. Our handlers were able to work it around in the back and eventually get it downfield to our core group of cutters: Guy “Kattan” Hughes, Eric “Biel” Abhold, Mark “Dibs” Johnston, and Alec “Hutch” Miller. Once the disc got past the handlers, we were off to the races and scored easily with the 4 man downfield spread. We also switched defenses to a box, led by fronts Justin “Bobble” Elliott, Brooks “Cork” LeComte, and middle mark Anson “Duffy” Brune. This box got us to half with a one point lead. The second half was hard fought, and Eric “Biel” Abhold really took over on offense. We ended the game on defense with a score caught by Michael “Coppa” Yu for the win 13-11.

The final game of our Power Pool was against Chico. Again, we tried to open the rotation and let our younger players shine. Mike “Hyzer” Tilghman showed his dominance in the air as well as his vision with throws that were years beyond his experience. The fish really stepped up in this game and they all looked really impressive. We take it 13-9.

We had a meeting with the coaches/captains of most of the teams and decided that rather than wait for the storm to come on Monday, we should take the top 4 teams into the semi-finals. That set us up against University of North Texas. UNT was led by a crew of 4 or 5 tall and talented players. They all got more talented as they got taller, but luckily, this is generally true of our team as well. Justin “Bobble” Elliott and Guy “Kattan” Hughes played great offense and defense against their best players. The first half was all about offense. Neither team was broken. In the second half, our Box was able to create some turns and we were able to convert almost every time. It seemed like there was so much space on the field with our Spread offense. Guy “Kattan” Hughes and Mike “Hyzer” Tilghman both had some great plays in the air against some of their best players, and Yui had the layout catch of his life in the end zone. We ended the game 13-8 and only had 3 turnovers the whole game.

The final against UC Berkley was a tough game. They move the disc extremely fast on offense and were able to stick extremely close on D. They also had a zone D that was hard for most of our team to break, but Brooks “Cork” LeComte was always able to find a hole. We tried for most of the game to run the Box D that had worked so well all day, but they were patient and always able to break it down. We also had some mistakes on offense that they took advantage of. They ended up winning 11-15.

Overall, I think this tournament was a success, even though we were unable to break seed. Taking 2nd at our home tournament is something the Squids have not done in a long time. I really want to thank Stephen “Pumba” Hubbard for his time. This tournament was a success because of all his hard work. The next tournament we’re looking forward to is the Stanford Invite, on March 7th and 8th.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The goods

Props to dibbs for coming up with the design for the jerseys. We're going with a new company this year called Spin ultimate. They're based out of Atlanta, Georgia and sponsor Chain Lightning... the jersey's aren't as silk like as Patagonia, but rumor has it that they make u jump higher and run faster.




pres day in a week suckas

cheers- giant whale

Monday, February 2, 2009

Introducing the Fish

Out of the 35 fish, 9 were taken this year (similar, to the amount of fish taken in the 06-07 campaign).

Here's a quick blurb on the fish in no particular order

Soda: Probably has one of the longest stories for how he got his name. Really fast, former cross country/ track runner in high school. He shows a lot of potential (not to say that any of the other fish don't). He's loudest person on the sidelines, even if he doesn't play a single point. Watch out for this kid in the future, he picks up things fast.

Threeve: Notorious for reciting poetry in trees, and hitting on girls with a box on his head. Played HS ultimate in Burlingham, under the coaching of a former Blacktide (booo) / current Jam player. Has a really smooth around flick. He also does a great chewbaca impression. Also known as BITUSA's friend

BITUSA (born in the USA): Named after Bruce Springsteen. Played HS ultimate with Threeve. He's probably one of the best known fish, because of his promiscuous actions with a psycho's sister (who is still in high school) *on a side note, Duol may have been behind that turn of events. Another thing BITUSA is famous for is his ability to eat an immense amount of food. He almost ate 10 doughnuts in 15 minutes... keep in mind, this was after he ate a California burrito 10 minutes before. BITUSA will be the next Bobble.

Heyzer: Tall guy from Colorado. He somehow has time to play for the squids, even though he's on the UCSD golf team. He's your complete player he will play receiver, he will jack it, he will bid, he will eat your babies. He threw a game winning backhand huck to Balco on DGP against SDSU in so cal warm up. There's talk of him being a possible FOTY. Besides his deadly frisbee skills, his looks are able to cause any psycho to fall in love with him. Watch out for this kid whether it'll be on the PGA tour, frisbee pitch, or the next Zoolander movie.

Scoops: Heyzer's appt mate. Former soccer player turned frisbee fanatic. He has a good field sense, and will learn to pick up the game well. He caught a nice layout bid against SB in sean ryan. He's currently training with the members of squid rice (coppa and myself) to develop low deadly pinpoint throws.

JohnC: Short, fast, white boy from the OC who is infatuated with Lil Wayne and Akon. Like soda, he was a former track stud in HS. He has accelerates very well and is a little ball of energy. Keep an eye out for him (it's going to be hard considering how dam small and fast he is).

Didj: Defensive stud. Basically a white Balco from Texas who can hold his own. He bids with no regard, and will own anyone he marks up on. Unlike Balco, he has a dam good flick. His IO breaks have been known to cut grown in half (wtf do they put in the water in Texas). Fun kid to hang out with, he has mono right now though... probably cuz he won the party from last weekend.

Borland: This kid didn't know he was on A-team until 1 month after the roster was posted. Despite his missed training time, his learning curve is pretty fast. I like the kid's name, because I used to watch home improvement.

Foley/Pebbles/Pubbles: Comes to the Squids having played High School ultimate locally at University City. Like Threeve, he has nice throws for a fish. Once he gets "kill mode" instilled in him, he'll get really dam good. Like scoops, he is being trained by squid rice and will begin to utilize those dirty low IO throws.

- Giant whale