Capitals in Florida - Day 1

I had started a big post about our road to the UPA championships, but then I ran out of time to finish it and we're now heading into day 2, so here's an abbreviated version...

Let me introduce myself: my name is Courtney White and I play for Storm, the competitive Montreal women's team, in the summer. I've been playing competitive ultimate for 10 years, and This will be my 4th time at UPAs, with previous trips in 2001, 2002, and 2003. So far I've racked up two 9th place finishes and an 11th place, and I'm definitely hoping to top that this time around. Coming off a fantastic summer for Storm, this fall I got the opportunity to play with Capitals, a women's team based out of Ontario. Capitals was formed shortly after Canadian Nationals, with a goal of qualifying for UPA championships in Sarasota Florida. The team has a roster of 26 girls from 5 different teams (Stella, Lotus, PPF, Flo, and Storm), though I think we're down to about 23 for UPAs.

We won our section handily in a one day tournament with only 3 teams. Regionals was a tougher challenge for us. We ended up third in our region, with losses to Godiva and Brute Squad. There were 4 spots for our region, though, so Ambush also joins us in Florida.

I couldn't catch a flight out of Montreal on Wednesday night because of work, so I was up bright and early for a 6 am flight. Of course this meant that I missed the first game completely and arrived in the later part of the second game. We played Ambush first and beat them 15-7 (I think), and then we had Rare Air. This was the most important game of the day, because it meant the difference between staying up in the power pools, or dropping down to the bottom 8. When I arrived we were up 9-7, and scored the next point to go up 10-7. They were playing a 4 man cup on us, but one of our captains, Ali Flynn, was putting cross-field hammers & scoobers over it to completely open up the field. We got another break & won the game 15-10.

Last game of the day was against reigning UPA & World champions, Fury. I'll cut to the end first - we lost 15-3. Those girls are amazingly good. They lead with their throws so far that it looks like it's way out of reach, but then the disc sits and they run onto it. Their long throws are perfectly timed. They had several layout d catches that were incredible. We had a couple of d's on them, but for the most part, if you turn it over, they score.

Anyway, I have to run because we're heading to the fields for Day 2. We have Godiva and Backhoe for sure and then maybe (hopefully not) a pre-quarterfinal game. I'll report back tonight.

-Courtney