The Waterloo team had to be rebuilt, as we lost several of our key players. Tryouts were intense and we scrambled to put together a team in time for Regionals. Many of our players were first years and we got a taste of the future of this sport and our team. With recognized players like Ben Pries and Hugh Bousfield from Toronto's Overdrive as well as many high school champions, we felt fairly confident that our team would learn to notice each other's strengths and build a solid foundation for the years to come.
We took a right turn onto Woodbine Road and felt the excitement building as we inched closer and closer to Woodbine Park. The car pulled into the parking lot and we could see some of our teammates making a quick dash to Disc-Central for a snack before our first game. This year, like last, we sent in two teams to represent the Warriors from Waterloo. I'll share with you my story with the A-squad at Regionals on the weekend of September 18th and 19th at Kingston, Ontario (why so early this year?!)
The Waterloo A-team (6th seed) was in Pool C, with Queens (3rd seed), Concordia (11th seed), and Toronto B (14th seed). We had our first match against Torontula B (many of whom I have played with in the past). It started off quite balanced as both teams were taking advantage of a strong downfield wind. We utilized our Monster-Zone defence on all the upwind points and it seemed to work effectively as we won the game 14-5. Next up, Concordia, a team we had defeated at Nationals last year. But, what happened in the years before does not affect the outcome of the current year. Concordia had just upset Queen's in a 9-5 win in their very first game. They came out strong and showed their athleticism. They were seeded third in our pool and ultimately went undefeated on the first day. Our final match of the day was against Queen's. I heard comments from the other team that their roster was set up only the Thursday before and were missing a lot of their key players. I guess that other teams, including ours, suffered from the same condition. This was ideally the match of the day, since both teams were fighting hard for second seed in the pool. The excitement went through the roof when Andrew Carroll denied the disc from one of our players cutting in and proceeded to huck, when our very own Carson Bott (Mr. Stone Hands) got a huge foot block!
We went off to Boston Pizza for a team dinner and reflecting on the day's work. That night we rested, with the full intent to come back stronger than ever before. Some of my teammates were tending to their wounds from the battle of the first day and were determined to play hard the next day.
The sun seemed to have risen a little early, that's what we all thought as we exited the hotel. As a repeat of last year, our A-team and B-team had to face each other. We decided to play a shorter game and preserve our strengths for the more difficult games ahead. Waterloo A won the match 15-5 and proceeded to face Guelph. It felt like an uphill battle from the start. Before we knew it we were considerably down. Carson Turner, one of our strongest players, was injured and was pushing himself to the max. We had to refocus and called all the timeouts we could, but to no avail. We ended up losing the match 15-5. Unfortunately, Carson Turner had to withdraw from playing on the field due to his injuries, but provided encouragement and dedicated sideline support.
In our final game, against uOttawa, our team found itself and was able to feed off the trust in each other. We played our best game against uOttawa. With unbelievable athleticism shown from both sides, this was surely a match for the records. Daniel Huynh, one of Waterloo's aces, showed that he could play the role of handler and cutter as he shredded some of his defenders with creative throws. We were all in awe of Carson Bott's performance, especially in that last game. He was actually moving! Jonathan Templin, captain and administrative genius, worked well despite his injured knee and got several layout-D's. We ended up winning that match which placed us tied for fifth with Western.
Our team learned something important that weekend: to trust in each other. Come Nationals, it'll be exciting to see how our trust fosters successful results.
