History: 2008 – 2009 Season

Regular Season Record: 12-5
Series Record: 15-4
End of Season Standing: Tied for 5th at College Championships, eliminated in quarterfinals (14-16 to Carleton)

A season of rain, cold and mud. Three tournaments got cancelled because of rain. Vegas should have been cancelled because of rain. Did I mention there was a lot of cold, freezing rain? Then we cap off the year with our best Nationals performance to date, making Quarterfinals at Nationals and giving the overall winners a game. The season is truly remarkable because despite all of the setbacks and frustrations, culminating in bad attitudes and an embarrassing loss to Cornell in the Regional finals, the team talked it out and rediscovered why we love the sport and Pitt as a whole.

Roster:

Freshmen # 21 Alex Thorne # 11 Allen Rakers # 5 Colin Conner # 9 Jason Kunsa # 81 Tyler DeGirolamo Sophomores # 10 Andrej Ababovic # 7 Julian Hausman # 8 Michael Plunkett Nick Rivers Juniors # 2 Chris Brenenborg* # 43 David Hogan # 23 Eddie Peters # 12 Geoff Zettel # 6 Kyle Baynes Seniors # 71 Brad Bellinger # 25 Mike Pannone # 41 Pat Hammonds # 4 Ravi Ved 5th Year/Grad # 35 Jake Christian # 11 Nick Kaczmarek*

Head Coach: David Lionetti* denotes team captain Assistant Coach: David Vatz, Josh Suskin, Robert Dulabon

Awards:

Metro East Coach of the Year: David Lionetti
Metro East 1st Team All-Region: Nick Kaczmarek (5th Year/Grad)
Metro East 1st Team All-Region: Chris Brenenborg (Junior)
Metro East Freshman of the Year 1st Team: Alex Thorne
Metro East 2nd Team All-Region: Jake Christian (5th Year/Grad)
Metro East Freshman of the Year 2nd Team: Tyler DeGirolamo

Tournaments:

Jared Hirsch Memorial Tournament: New Brunswick, NJ – September 20th – 21st, 2008
Space Bastard BroDown: College Park, MD – October 11th – 12th, 2008
Classic City Classic: Athens, GA – November 8th – 9th, 2008
Alumni Game: – November 22nd, 2008
Trouble in Vegas: Las Vegas, NV – February 6th – 8th, 2009
Ultimax: Greenville, NC – February 28th – March 1st, 2009
College Terminus: Atlanta, GA – March 14th – 15th, 2009
Roll Call: Washington, DC – March 28th – 29th, 2009
West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 18th – 19th, 2009
Metro East Regionals: Princeton, NJ – April 25th – 26th, 2009
UPA College Championships: Columbus, OH – May 22nd – 25th, 2009

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Pittsburgh-B

Regular Season Record: 7-4
Series Record: 4-4
End of Season Standing: Tied for 5th at West Penn Sectionals, eliminated in 3rd Place Bracket (8-14 by Penn State)

Pittsburgh-B Roster:

Freshmen Dan Hausman Eli Gabel-Frank Mackey Lutz # 18 Mike Backman # 12 Ryan Earles # 87 Tony Maromonte Sophomores # 22 Asher Finkel # 44 Bob Charland # 11 Charlie Saunders # 2 Dan Nee # 23 David Gates Jason Kondrat Nate Williams Juniors # 9 David Zettel # 13 Jay Huerbin # 6 Pat McGurrin # 52 Tom Antonacci # 4 Trevor Hughes Seniors # 28 Matt Neupauer # 87 Matthew McCabe # 42 Skylar Brunner* 5th Year/Grad

Head Coach: Wes Shonk* denotes team captain

Pittsburgh-B Tournaments:

Space Bastard BroDown: College Park, MD – October 11th – 12th, 2008
Colonial Ultimate Frisbee Festival: Poolesville, MD – November 15th – 16th, 2008
Arctic Vogue: Cincinnati, OH – February 14th – 15th, 2009
Rutgers B-Team One-day Invite Tournament: Piscataway, NJ – March 7th, 2009
Steakfest ’09: Shippensburg, PA – March 21st – 22nd, 2009
West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 18th – 19th, 2009

Alumni Tournaments:

Steakfest ’09: Shippensburg, PA – March 21st – 22nd, 2009

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Jared Hirsch Memorial Tournament: New Brunswick, NJ – September 20th – 21st, 2008

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Space Bastard BroDown: College Park, MD – October 11th – 12th, 2008

Well, the tournament was interesting, to say the least. Found out Friday on the drive down that fields for Saturday were partially pulled during the afternoon. Maryland had Parent Weekend and decided it wasn’t seemly to have a bunch of Ultimate hooligans around. Probably a smart decision, but it ended up screwing over a lot of teams with early morning games and six hour byes. Luckily, we talked our way into a first round bye and didn’t have to play until 4. Would have been nice to know, as we could have driven out Saturday morning.

Maryland X had little Rubin and Freddy Tsai. We shut them out and moved on to play St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s had no one I’d heard about, but we let them score two off of hucks. One of their scores was a D’ed huck, swilled up.

And that was Saturday. Going full squad to this tournament looked like a mistake, as we usually go to Fall Brawl with split squads and that always ends up with us losing to a full squad team, but at least the competition is there.

Sunday morning looked like better competition, as we faced Georgetown and Penn State before advancing out of our pool.

Pool Play: Georgetown
Georgetown had 2-3 decent players, capable of making plays on us, and they used those players to their advantage, scoring 9. Pitt started off very cold this game, and very unenthusiastic. It should not have been even remotely the game it was.

Pool Play: Penn State
It was good to play Penn State, sectional rival. They gave us our closest game all weekend. They use their handler motion to the best of their abilities, and take their shots deep. They will run ho or stack. They are, however, also very young, and very short. I doubt they’ll be able to hang with the top of the region this year, though I’ve always said Penn State is such a large school they should be back up there within a few years. Win 13-9.

Semifinal: Rutgers
So, 4-0 out of our pool. Format dictates we go straight to Semis. We change fields, eat, and discover we are playing against Rutgers. For Semis, we regained a bit of fire lost in our early morning games. Rutgers as a team was just unable to hang with us, athletically or otherwise. They seemed to consistently throw up risky hucks because they had no options underneath. Glen Poole used some of his experience with Pike 08 to look at least composed while he attempted to run the offense. Towards the end of the game we worked a clam that seemed pretty effective against their sidestack. We won 15-3. Semi’s was a good showing for this team, they’ve improved over the last few years.

Final: Pennsbury High School
We had won pretty quickly, so we got to watch the close Columbia HS vs. Pennsbury HS semifinal on the other side of the bracket. Now it looks like each player on the field has solid fundamental disc skills, can play offense (run and catch), and most importantly each player looks like an athlete. Still no underneath defense though… high school D consists of baiting the deep throw and skying for a D, while offense is all about swings and in-cuts until the opportunity to throw deep opens up (no scoring on short throws is allowed unless after a huck reception). The system makes for exciting games, at least. Pennsbury pulled out the game 15-13.

So we had Pennsbury in the finals, I was excited to play and demolish them after they handed our rookies a universe point loss three weeks prior at Rutgers. We threw our sidestack clam pretty much all game and Pennsbury didn’t adjust until 13-1, when they we horizontal. Game was in the bag at 8-0 half, put in our first all rookie line at 11-0, where they got the easiest looking Callahan possible. At 12-0, Elijah received a huck and threw a hammer cross field for P-bury’s first point. Offense scored and then defense put it in for the win 15-2, or something like that.

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Classic City Classic: Athens, GA – November 8th – 9th, 2008

On the whole we had a good weekend and we learned a lot about ourselves as a team. Our offense needs work but once the work has been put in I am excited to see where it will take us. Our rookies are going to contribute quite a bit this year. Colin and Alex already know the game and just now have to learn that Pitt will be different than any other team they have played on before and needs to be more important than any team they have played on before. The other rookies, specifically Jason and Tyler, need to become confident in themselves and learn the game more. Tyler got beat in over and over again and jogged many cuts, I don’t feel this was him getting lost in the offense or not being as good as the man he’s covering, rather I feel he just isn’t confident yet which will be resolved with more experience and assertion. Jason needs to become faster and more reactive when covering people, he is often beat by the first step and that can be fixed by learning better positioning. Welcome back Pat Hammonds. For the first time in a long time Pat was a defensive force. I don’t know what he did differently this tournament but he better keep it up. If he starts his training and gains a step he could really be an asset for the team this year. We had 2 vets who had a very up and down weekend, but that’s all it was a bad weekend and I have no doubt in my mind that we can count on them. On the whole there were a few times that we were tired and being out run. We can not let this happen in the spring.

Pool Play: Georgia Tech
For the team this game went as expected. Personally this game was rough for me as I got out to a slow start on Saturday. When I first warmed up my quads right above my knees hurt, I worked that out and then bands on the side of my shins and calves tightened up so that just walking around was painful. I probably have shin splints from doing my running in the street. Either way I played only a handful of points because of this and wasn’t much of a contributor when I did. As expected we outclassed this team in terms of skill and athleticism. When our defense got rolling we put them away. We played a solid game and chalked up a W.

Pool Play: Ohio State
Revenge Tour 2k8 in full swing. I wouldn’t call OSU a rival but our games tend to get chippy and both teams get a little rough. From what I remember this was a close game with both teams relying greatly on the deep ball for goals. Pitt got ahead by shutting down their deep throws and really bringing the no under defense. This combination lead to opportunities for our defenders to make plays, and we did. At times our offense struggled with sloppy errors or overly risky shots. Most notably our D-line O struggled to punch it in at the goal line which would become a problematic theme for the weekend. Of note from this game was Weasel yelling at OSU players after the third call on the goal line which negated a Pitt D. OSU sideliners told him to keep it on the field and Weasel told them “You should be fuckin embarrassed by your teammates.” Pitt puts up another W.

Pool Play: North Carolina State
A big stop for Pitt on the revenge tour. This is a game I predicted we would have trouble with due to the usual physicality of North Carolina teams. Either we handled it very well or this was not the NC State that I am used to seeing. Our cutters on offense had no problem getting open at will and Pat and Chris opened up the deep game with both their cuts and throws. Our defense was pretty amped up this game and was able to produce the turns playing man D. I recall chowder dropping some serious bombs to Chris in this game in an unstoppable pull play. NC State tried to throw zone at us a few points but I think we have a more skilled than ever Pitt team this year. We shredded the zone with handler motion and were off to the races when we busted through their wall. Collin Conner tossed up a cross field flick bomb through the cup to Pat who caught it in stride. Having two rookies, Colin and Alex, be contributors really helps soften the loss of the star cutters we graduated last year. We were fired up and excited to play this game, the defense ran up a few breaks on NC State closing out the game.

Pool Play: Alabama
Pitt had been amped up all morning but came out very flat against a team we have never faced or even heard of. Our O-line did not value the disc and made many simple execution problems while our D-line played hard but uninspired D. The bottom seeded Alabama jumped out to an early lead. We were being out worked which should never happen. Coach called a time out. We had been expecting Alabama to hand us this game and give us the disc. Not at all surprisingly they came to ball with some big athletes that could rip down some big throws. We collected ourselves and got back into the game. Our O-line kept punching it in and our D-line got to work. We won this game but more importantly I hope we learned the lesson of not playing down to teams and not expecting anything to be handed to us.

Pool Play: Wisconsin
Our offense struggled against their junk defense. They played what we call a slushy defense having the off handlers in the lanes denying throws to the middle of the field. I feel that we never adapted and forced a lot of difficult throws. Our handlers need to be very mobile when facing this defense. I think chowder was too much of a stationary handler letting the junk set up by holding the disc too long and not throwing and going. Our defense got plenty of turns but was unable to convert the majority of them. We had many bad turnovers this game that were our mistakes but this leaves me optimistic because once we clean up our errors we will be a team to fear. In the end Wisconsin won the game due to the intensity of their defense and their experienced offense.

Quarterfinal: Minnesota
This team came out to play. But Pitt just came harder. Our defense really brought the intensity this game. Whatever we heard about Minnesota didn’t matter, they crumbled under the defensive pressure we brought. I had two lay out D’s. Eddie was eating people alive. Pannone layout slammed a huck. Nick was in the shorts of his cutter. Andre came up with a huge sky D. Julian wasÂ… well he did something. We just blew these guys out of the water. The D-line offense struggled greatly on the goal line again in this game. What can be said is that when they turned it over, they frequently got it back to give themselves another chance at it. Pitt advances to semis.

Semifinal: Notre Dame
Pitt came out firing again after dominating in the last game. We took an early lead but after half started to cruise it out. When we relaxed we started to turn the disc over on offense and ND decided to punish us for it. I believe the O-line was broken 4 times in a row before we pulled our heads out of our asses and essentially traded out the game for the win. The second half of the game was very call heavy, mostly coming from ND. This includes many suspect travel calls, Eddie being called for a foul on a pivot when an ND player turfed a throw, an end zone violation when the handler threw a goal after a stoppage without a defensive check with most of ND calling us cheaters for the violation call, and a universe point foul call when a stall 8 floaty in wind huck was thrown into a crowd of 3 Pitt players and 3 ND players. In each of the situations the ND players screamed and shouted their arguments handling it quite classless manner. While I thought our team handled ourselves well in each situation, we have yet again been slammed in the louder you talk the more people listen world of ultimate gossip.

Final: Wisconsin
This game proved to be more of the same. Wisconsin came with the slushy defense and Pitt struggled to move the disc around it. Really not too much to say about this game other than we tried a few things and had partial success on offense. I am confident when we start playing this D in practice that our offense will learn to overcome it. One serious issue I had in this game was in the second half we had essentially admitted defeat and lost all energy. We continued to play hard but no one cheered when we scored or congratulated their teammates when good things happened. Our sideline energy reflected our attitude and energy in the game. This going through the motions bullshit has got to stop. Pitt loss, 2nd place.

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Alumni Game: – November 22nd, 2008

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Trouble in Vegas: Las Vegas, NV – February 6th – 8th, 2009

For those of you who thought we weren’t ready, you were right and you were wrong. Physically ready (for the most part), this tournament was a breakdown in mental and strategical preparedness. Before I continue, let me say I was proud of the condition of this team. That is not to say we have met our goals.

Pool Play: Oregon
The team I considered to be the best by far in our schedule of games. They have some names on their roster, but as a team Oregon works within a sound offensive system of power position and space throws, as well as continuation to the break. We started this game on a high note, with a Pitt end zone block and good strong, patient offense halfway up the field. Then we turn over a dump in what would be a theme on the weekend. Down 0-2, we score our first point. Three or more dump turnovers later (not mentioning the others), we’re down 2-7 at half. We probably had possession of the disc an average of twice each point.

Our red zone offense was near unbearable to watch. It seemed like everyone was making it so hard on themselves, jamming it on the line, no upline cuts. Weasel says time and time again, red zone offense is the easiest thing in the world. Just set yourselves up, and break the freaking mark. On defense, Oregon scored by throwing over our heads or while we weren’t looking at the handler. As a team, we played lackadaisically on their handlers and cutters, allowing them to throw, cut, and score (or not score in cases of a throwaway) pretty much whenever they wanted. This often occurred all weekend, sometimes it just seemed like we weren’t running hard.

Out of half, the next score I remember is being down 3-8, thinking we don’t have any time left. We didn’t exactly pack it in at this point, but we didn’t really step up to the bat either. Big loss, hard to swallow for me.

Pool Play: Kansas
Funny story about this game, I was talking to my friend Art on the sideline, wearing our sleeveless practice jersey, chatting up about how nice the weather is, a lukewarm day. Then it starts to drizzle on me. Then freezing rain. Then I turn over the disc 5 times in a row because I can’t unclench my hand or snap my wrist. Then Coach benches me and I spend two rounds in the hotel while my teammates play on. Fun, fun, fun.

I chalk this one up to our karma effect, as we hate and condescend Kansas. Friday, I never believed for a minute Kansas would be able to outplay us the way they did. We completely underestimated them. I don’t even look back at this game like I do with Oregon, where I still think we were just playing off our game. No, Kansas beat us, again by outworking us where it counted. In the second half (which they took 5-7), they took one or two players per point and beat us at every point, in/out/handle. We kept playing, but as it started to get very sloppy toward the end, our mental game slipped away. Loss 8-12.

As a side note, this team played a great game against us because we allowed them to roll through us. We don’t let them do the things they were getting away with, and they just start turning over the disc left and right.

Pool Play: Illinois
Half the team was in the hotel. We went up big in the first half. Then conditions and lack of subs got to the players remaining and Illinois came back a bit before cap went off and we won.

I found this Illinois blog (illiniulti.blogspot), who said this about us:

“In the Pitt game, they threw huck after huck after huck. Their throws were crap about 90 percent of the time, but 90 percent of their hucks got completed in the first half. The Pitt longs worked harder to get in position to make a bid for the discs. Their hustle allowed them to come down with 50/50 throws more than 50 percent of the time. In the second half, the Illini adjusted their defense to protect against the deep, but it was too little too late. I’m pretty sure we won the second half, but it’s difficult to win a capped game when you only score two or three points in the first half.”

Nice work boys.

Pool Play: California-Santa Cruz
Revenge tour 2k9 continues. I’ve got another to cross of my list. UCSC is not nearly the team they were last year, losing their best handler. We had fresh legs and the weather was clearing up (until it got bad again), and we were better than them, so we started to exert control. I think it was a massacre, but I don’t really remember much besides the last two marathon points. One O, scored. One D, scored on. I huddled in a port-o-potty for 10 minutes during the O marathon and was happy that I made that decision. Get the picture on how crappy the weather was?

Pool Play: Stanford
Stanford is making up excuses for this loss as we speak, most likely. They were all sick, all injured, Ryan Thompson wasn’t playing. That’s a comforting thought, because it could’ve very easily been us making the excuses right now. Last year god knows it probably would’ve been us (Blowing a lead in the endgame? No! Unheard of for us). We played the beginning and the end well enough to win, but we let them up on us during that lull period in the middle of the game. Down 10-12, we came back 14-12.

Good teams find a way to win, and we finally snapped out of our funk from the day before to play inspired defense and offense during the last 4 points of the game, and two or three offensive points thrown in the middle section. The great thing about those points is that those are what we came to this tournament to find. The sad part, we immediately forgot how to play like that in our next game.

Quarterfinal: Carleton College
Carleton is the team to beat this year, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not very far off. These guys are highly skilled, highly organized, and you can’t come into a game with them lightly. We have trouble with these types of teams, the ones who will throw deep from power positions and pinpoint match ups. Again I can only count the number of missed opportunities and misthrows as a team outworks and outplays us. The only difference between this loss and Oregon or Kansas is Carleton out skilled us consistently as well. They had disciplined offense, patient cutters waiting for the right opportunity, throwers looking to put it on the line.

A team that out skills or out strategizes us, that is going to be the hardest obstacle to overcome, this year.

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Ultimax: Greenville, NC – February 28th – March 1st, 2009

It was raining and it was windy and we handled it fine until we played Duke. Tournament was rained out on Sunday. Huge disappointment about not playing Sunday. We had really wanted to set things right, then and there. We’ll have to wait till Terminus now.

There are a few positives to pull from this though. We played very good defense across the board and got to work on our zones a lot. We’ve got great zone lines, I personally love shadow. We got to spend real time together as a team, and got a better view of where we are. We also have a lot of time left, a lot of practices to nail down our offense. -by Eddie Peters

Pool Play: North Carolina-Greensboro
The UNC Greensboro game was a waste. Not only did we school them across the board, but there were a few situations that put us in a bad mental state for the next game as well.

Pool Play: Duke
For the Duke game, a bunch of stuff happened that set us off on the wrong foot, but for the first point of the game I thought we played excellent defense. In fact, I’d go as far as saying we played better defense than them the entire game. There were points where we completely shut them down, but Duke was very scrappy. They had two tall cutters and one tall thrower who were our biggest problem. We would often hold them to higher than stall seven, where the tall thrower would punt something downwind (like a high release flick huck blade or a moon-shooter backhand). Duke came down with a decent amount of these, and the ones they turned we gave it back to them for positive yardage. It was enough to win them the game. On the flip side, our O players were in a hell of a lot of trouble this game. 3 turns with discs slipping out of our hands and almost a dozen drops, not to mention other problems. It all boils down to the fact that in this game we just couldn’t put it in even from the red zone.

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College Terminus: Atlanta, GA – March 14th – 15th, 2009

This tournament was cancelled for rain on Sunday.

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Roll Call: Washington, DC – March 28th – 29th, 2009

Another tournament canceled due to rain.

Scrimmage: Brown
We had a scrimmage against Brown the next day, Sunday, at a private school on really nice turf. The game was important because it was the first game we’d played in good conditions all season, and allowed us to leave on a higher note than the day before, where we had attempted but failed at having a productive practice and team attitude was at an all time low. The Brown game was chippy. Brad played handler D against Paul Vandenburg phenomenally. If I had to pick out a point last season, this is where Andrej came into his own. We won 15-13, I believe, after allowing Brown back into the game late.

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West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 18th – 19th, 2009

Gettysburg asked to play wiffleball for the first 10 points of the game. I declined. Then they said they were going to make a bong out of the fat bat. I was not surprised.

At this point we’d finished our games of wiffleball and watched our B-team compete against Bucknell. As noted on RSD (I guess from another game), we got a lot of people talking to the mark in the trap zone. That point lasted ten minutes and resulted in four teams rushing the field. I don’t see a problem with the sideline, if anything it only got both teams fired up, as evidenced by Bucknell’s spike on Jay and subsequent cocking.

Then we played an A1 vs. C1 crossover for seed (read meaningless) against Edinboro. This is a game I’d been pretty anxious about for the last few weeks, something I just wanted to get over and done with. This was the game I thought would be the toughest for us on the weekend because while we know what Edinboro likes to do, we usually don’t do a great job stopping it. But here we adjusted well to a style we rarely play against, and ended up taking down quite a few deep shots from the Boro.

We played pretty heavy, and Boro didn’t get chippy at all. It was fun. I later got this text message from Taft, “Yo… Eddie Peters… I’m all fucked up… ripping shots of 22yr old Jose.. Smoked a million bowls… Ur a sweet pitt dude… thanks for fucking me up”

On a side note, Boro definitely managed to keep the pressure on us all game, though, unlike any other team we played that weekend.

At day’s end, eight of us head over to Toot’s house for some grillin’ and have ourselves a feast. Played chess at the swanky Comfort Suites hotel most of the night. Find out we’re playing Pitt B in quarters, which didn’t make sense to me but I bowed to Hogan’s formatting nerdiness.

Pitt B shows up at 8:45 when our games at 9, they treat the game like a warm up. Pat McGurrin made a sweet play after Brad turned a layout D into a goal for B. 15-2.

We play Dickinson next, in a rematch of last years Sectional Semifinals. They seemed just as good, still had that one athletic guy, but the score shows differently. 15-2. At this point the Edinboro TD had realized the mistake in formatting and switched back to the correct matchups, pitting Pitt B against Penn State. Unfortunate, in hindsight we probably should’ve lost intentionally in quarters so Pitt B could beat Dickinson for the Regionals berth. That would’ve been delightful.

Then Bucknell in finals. We hate Bucknell. Tyler matched up on their guy, did a good job, even if he was hesitant and doubtful all game. Did a better job than me at least. But man they couldn’t hang with us at all on defense. There was never any pressure from this game, and we won easily 15-6.

A beautiful weekend, all in all. -written by Eddie Peters

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Metro East Regionals: Princeton, NJ – April 25th – 26th, 2009

Over this last weekend, we came in and saw the rest of our Region for the first time. It seems that even more separation between the Nationals contenders and the rest of the region has occurred since last year. No one came close to touching us on Saturday. We totally shocked them, got to run deep into our rotations. In addition, on the other side Cornell hardly played their starters all day and won out easily. That’s compared to last year, where we played Hofstra 15-9 in a scare for the first half, lost to Delaware in semis, and had to fight Cornell and Boro for a spot in the game to g

Because of the format, for the first time since 2006, Pitt made the finals of the Metro East tournaments. Only 4 out of 20 current players have been in that game before, and each only once. I think our attitudes and play showed how rookie we were. Hindsight is always so clear. The only thing that bothers me is it was Cornell’s first time too. They treated it like something special, and it showed in their play. I think they played as well as they could possibly play in the first half of that game. -by Eddie Peters

Final: Cornell
I am glad that after we went down 8-1 we never gave up on this game. I hate the reasoning that since you went down big you can give up, or that a team is just too good to beat, so you don’t try very hard to rest up for later games. A team should never have that attitude at any point, as it only promotes losing right from the onset. My philosophy revolves around using a game to experience and learn everything you can about yourself and your opponent. If you end up losing big even if you played to win all, you can take something away for use later in the season or even the next year. Either your players get better, get angry, realize a strength, or a more fundamental flaw is revealed. Playing to the end of the Cornell game was a great experience for our entire team. The loss itself might be the best possible outcome for us. -by Eddie Peters

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UPA College Championships: Columbus, OH – May 22nd – 25th, 2009

After losing a few important pieces from last year’s team, Pittsburgh was able to bounce back from a loss in the Finals to grab the Metro East’s last bid. Though this season has been anything but smooth, big wins against Stanford, Illinois and UCSB show that Pittsburgh still has potential if they can fit all the pieces together. -by Chris Spittal

Pool Play: California
Pool C started off with a bang as Pittsburgh shocked a very good California UGMO team. Pittsburgh was up from the start, and Cal looked like they left their game on the West Coast. It was very uncharacteristic of UGMO, with a lot of turns and just not very clean in general – and Pittsburgh took advantage by jumping out to a 6-2 lead. With a few more Cal turns, Pittsburgh’s Jake Christian and Eddie Peters were able to work it downfield with some help from Alex Thorne to take half on a two-point run at 8-3.

UGMO tried throwing a little zone after half, but Mike Plunkett was setting the pace for Pittsburgh’s offense. It seemed Pittsburgh was converting every one of Cal’s turns, as Christian and Peters kept working the disc, and Christian eventually hit Julian Hausman for the upset win. -by Chris Spittal

Pool Play: Texas
In the Texas game, I knew our styles were direct opposites. It was the talk of the Nick-Weasel mental powerhouse that whoever shut down the other team’s “game” best would win. Texas worked a vertical stack, often two handler set which disabled our clam sets. Texas didn’t huck often, and in this game they hucked away the disc multiple times. They had very nice step around backhands to the break space, often being thirty yard swings to neutral yardage. These throws let Texas really roll sideline to sideline and our defense had a lot of difficulty staying with their cutters for so many yards. However, in the first half our defense got crucial takeaways on team defense. Nick got multiple sky D’s from forced hucks, Pat took the disc away with two hand blocks. I believe we were 4 breaks up in the first half, having lost the opportunity on only two or three D-possessions. Again, during halftime we were excited about the level we were performing. However, this game Texas stuck around, a few breaks back until 13-10. I was particularly impressed when a particular play involving Brad Bellinger injured their main player, and they huddled around him and cheered his name. Seeing that player go down, although a minor injury where he came back later in the game, seemed to bolster them. We put in for 14-12, D-line opportunity to break for the win, and we get smoked down the field on small-ball. At this point the heat had really taken an unexpected toll on us as I thought I was hydrated and fed after a long bye only to cramp during the second half. O-line goes in for the win. The pull goes to the back line and Texas throws zone. An ill-advised throw, skipping the apex, gets run through, and Texas gets the quick score. Again, pull goes back line, quick turn and score. Two more amazing pulls and the game changes hands to Texas. In our endgame huddle, Kaczmarek says something along the lines of “that sucks, if we had won it would’ve been a team win, but we lost, and it’s a team loss.” 14-16.

Two games, day over, we go eat at a pizza place on the main street and head back to the hotel to recuperate for our first round game. -by Eddie Peters

Pool Play: Williams
I remember some of our prettiest O-possessions occurred in this game, against a Williams’ zone. Defense just didn’t get much against their offense, an intensity issue, but still was able to roll off enough breaks often enough to put in a solid win. -Written by Eddie Peters

Our next game was at the last round of pool-play, combined with our quick game with Williams that gave us a 5 hour bye. We went to the hotel and cooled off. We slept. The games were basically so far apart that the Williams game was like the day before and we were 100 per cent for Wisconsin.

Pool Play: Wisconsin
We always play Wisconsin. We’ve played Wisconsin in pool play at Nationals every year. Every. Year.

Playing Wisconsin, I was surprised they brought completely different composure from years past. The previous match-ups were all the way back to CCC in the fall, where their best players were coming off of Club Nationals appearances, in much better shape than anyone on Pittsburgh. At College Nationals in 2007 and 2008, they rolled us. This year I felt like Pittsburgh was in better shape across the board than the team we were playing against. Their style, which they used successfully for years, no longer suited them. Their best deep threat (and best thrower, admittedly) wanted the disc underneath too much, allowing us to defend both unders and deeps much better. For the first half, we put up fast, beautiful deep shots and quick breaks to take a two break lead. We maintained the lead to take half 8-6 and then the next score I remember we were up 13-11 where I had my worst-turnover-ever. In hindsight, it wasn’t until they really started taking shots deep that they started to crawl back into the game (momentum-wise) due to the shorter points. O is dragging the team on its back at this point, putting it in for 14-12. Total confidence in them from the sideline, completely shocked to see three missed deep shots later and the loss in the hard cap.

We went to the shade after that loss and had a little sad-fest and then went our separate ways, I don’t know how else to describe it. We had really wanted Wisconsin, the team that beat us soundly in 2006, 2007, 2008, and now 2009.
Coach was furious. I think everyone was furious, but especially Coach. I was excited, because I knew this meant we had Cornell. I’ve noticed I put bad thoughts and bad losses away instantly, and then dwell on them frequently… not the healthiest thing in the world. Anyway, I wanted to talk about match-ups and strategy immediately, Coach wanted none of it but he kind of talked because he wanted to vent and I don’t think he knew what else to do. I think he underestimated how good shape we were in, and how much we all wanted that Cornell game. -Written by Eddie Peters

Prequarterfinal: Cornell
So we move down the hill to the lower site, we were on the showcase fields against our Regional rival, the team that had embarrassed us 15-8 at Regionals the month before, and then posted a highlight reel about it with our song playing over it. We wanted to kill them. Such was the pre-game huddle.

Starting out the game on defense, I was very aware of what Cornell was going to do. Center to Brager, huck to Reinhardt. That was their first play every game, regardless of coverage, to set up the deep game. This game, I told Tyler to mark up on Seth and stop that deep huck. First play of the game, Cornell centers to Brager, puts up a backhand over my mark to a Reinhardt streaking deep past Tyler for the first goal. Second point of the game, Pitt offense puts it in quickly. The first four points we trade, defenses not touching the other team’s O-lines. At 4’s or 5’s, Cornell gets a huge layout D 30 yards out of our end zone and puts it in for the first break of the game. Cornell goes insane on the sidelines and I have a doubt worming around. On defense, we make the adjustment to back their cutters, the first and only time we made that defensive adjustment which so blatantly deviated from our system. We wanted to get the disc out of the hands of their handlers and into the hands of their cutters. It worked perfectly, forcing a Reinhardt cross-field huck attempt turn which we capitalized to break back to even. A few points of trading later, we get a hand block on a dump (observer upheld, Cornell is very upset about this call) from their tallest guy, a non-thrower, which we put in for our second break. We take half 8-7, jubilant. That’s all the breaks that occur in this game, offenses trade out for a 15-13 win in a very exciting game, a crowd-pleaser with huge hucks and big plays by both teams.

I was very proud of this game because of the defensive adjustments we made and also the sheer amount of pressure we put on and upheld. I know for certain Cornell’s best player cracked, because he told me specifically (after skying me), that “he didn’t know how much longer he could do this.” Our O-line put in a great game, allowing only one break against a very talented team.

First time Pitt ever made Quarters at College Nationals in 5 consecutive appearances.

Quarterfinal: Carleton College
The game of the day in the Quarterfinal round was Carleton Cut against Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur, although it might not have looked like it early on. Pitt came out with a couple of quick strikes to go up 2-0, but Carleton quickly picked themselves back up on D and tied it at 2. Carleton’s D quickly became the story of the first half when Christian Foster came up with a big D on the goal line that the Cut offense quickly punched in to go up 3-2. From that point on, the Cut D kept the pressure on and forced a number of turns during a four-point run to reach 6-2. When Pitt scored to stop the streak, Carleton’s offense answered right back and Chris Kosednar hit Grant Lindsley with a 50-yard back hand to make it 7-3. Carleton’s cutters were getting open underneath all day, and they easily took half 8-4.

The second half was a different story for both teams. A couple of mental mistakes, drops and throwaways by Carleton allowed Pitt to close the gap a bit at 9-7, as their offense started to find their legs. Once their deep game started clicking, with a few strikes to Tyler DeGirolamo and Geoff Zettel, Pitt showed that its offense could hang with Cut. Carleton continued to struggle with fundamentals a bit, and a few uncharacteristic, unforced turns allowed Pitt within one at 13-12. After a huck went out the back of the end zone for Carleton, Pitt worked the disc downfield and Nick Kaczmarek hauled in a contested throw to tie it at 13.

After reaching 13s, Pitt started regained their confidence and Cut looked a little shell-shocked that Pitt had finally come to play. After yet another turn by Cut, Pitt’s Pat Hammonds hit Mike Pannone to go up one. Carleton was able to regroup and answer by getting back to basics and allowing Kosednar, Sam Kanner, Jerome Potter and Lindsley to walk the disc downfield, and Kanner found Patrick Roberts for an easy score to tie it. Cut’s D finally returned as Kosednar had a huge layout D on an in Cut, which Pitt answered with a D on a quick huck. Lindsley quickly picked up a poach D about 10 yards out of the end zone, which Cut easily converted to go up 15-14. Pitt began easily working the disc downfield after the pull, but Chris Brenenborg dropped a strike cut at midfield, which Carleton worked down and Kosednar found Lindsley with a forehand to the force side for the 16-14 win.

“The D started off great,” Kanner said. “We had a few mental slip ups and a lack of focus on the O side. We give up some turns in our own backfield that gave them quick, easy scores that let them back in the game and made it a little more exciting for every-body. But it was gut-check time and we gutted it out with a few breaks at the end to finish them off.” -by Chris Spittal

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Pittsburgh-B Tournaments

Space Bastard BroDown: College Park, MD – October 11th – 12th, 2008

Roster: Asher, Andres, Bob Char, Dan Nee, Pickles, Odie, Eli, Jason, Backman, Nate, Big Pat, Richie, Axberg, Tony, Trevor

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Colonial Ultimate Frisbee Festival: Poolesville, MD – November 15th – 16th, 2008

Roster:Asher, Andres, Dan Nee, Pickles, Eli, Jason, Jay, Kevin, Mack, Matt, Earles, Axberg, Steve, TCT, Tony, Trevor, Tyler

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Arctic Vogue: Cincinnati, OH – February 14th – 15th, 2009

Roster:Asher, Andres, Bob Char, Charlie, Pickles, Jay, Kevin, McCabe, Backman, Nate, McGurrin, Rob, Skylar, Tony, Trevor

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Rutgers B-Team One-day Invite Tournament: Piscataway, NJ – March 7th, 2009

Roster:Andres, Asher, Bob Char, Charlie, Dan Nee, Pickles, Odie, DZ, Eli, Jason, Jay, Mack, Nate, McGurrin, Tony

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Steakfest ’09: Shippensburg, PA – March 21st – 22nd, 2009

Roster: Andres, Asher, Bob Char, Charlie, Pickles, Odie, Eli, Jay, Mack, Neup, Nate, McGurrin, Earles, Skylar, TCT, Tony

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West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 18th – 19th, 2009

Roster: Asher, Bob Char, Charlie, Dan Nee, Pickles, Odie, DZ, Eli, Jay, Mack, McCabe, Neup, Backman, Nate, McGurrin, Earles, Skylar, TCT, Tony

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Pittsburgh Alumni Tournaments

Steakfest ’09: Shippensburg, PA – March 21st – 22nd, 2009

Following the win in finals over Central PA Club, we were served delicious victory steak.
Attendance:
William Shonk
William Brotman
Michael Yanchak
Brent Bellinger
Sean McComb
Benjamin Ristau
Reed Verdesoto
Camilo Ward
David Ninaci
Kevin Moldenhauer
Josh Suskin
Frank DeFazio
Robert Dulabon

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