Hi Everyone!

B-Mo played at the Stanford Invite this weekend in Palo Alto, CA. It was a wonderful weekend for us as we experienced great housing, food, and weather, as well as the best competition college ultimate has to offer. With that said, though, things didn't go exactly as planned.
Due to a lot of local rain in Bay Area in the last few weeks, the first day of the Stanford Invite was cancelled as the fields were unplayable. So, after frolicking around San Francisco on Friday (including a trip to see the seals by some!), we found ourselves with Saturday free as well. What should we do? Sleep in? Bask in the sun and get golden tans? Go to the Ghirardelli chocolate factory again? Go to the zoo (my favorite)? See the seals? Again? No, we had to play ultimate. Our captains and Ben Galeota-Sprung '05 set up a round robin tournament on fields we discovered near Oakland with Wisconsin (the Stanford Invite's #3 seed), Georgia (#4), and Carleton. And thus "The Brown Invite" (in California, of course) was born.

We started off with Wisconsin, one of the favorites for this year's National Championship. In a gritty, hard-fought game we pulled out a 12-10 victory. While we didn't play our best in this game, we pushed our way through some early season errors (this was our second time playing this spring!) and earned a satisfying win. Things looked good for B-Mo! However, we came out flat in our next game against Georgia and never recovered. Our defense was a step behind and didn't mark well, while our offense was spotty. A late 'Jojah' surge gave them a 15-12 win and our first loss of the season. Our final game was against Carleton and it was great success because it was a team effort. As had been the case all day, everyone got in the game and contributed, and after jumping out to an early lead we cruised to 15-9 victory. In summary, I think this round-robin was tremendous for B-Mo as all our guys (from savvy veterans to ultimate newcomers) were able to play a lot and experience the speed and excitement of college ultimate.
On Sunday we played in a modified version of the Stanford Invite, with two pool play games (it was really strange) and then a quarterfinal bracket. B-Mo's first contest was against Chico State, and after a slow start we found our rhythm and legs in the second half and won 14-10. Our offense was very efficient in this game, converting easily almost every time it had the disc, while our defense was a bit sluggish but played better in the second half. Next we faced Florida, the second seed in our pool. After starting the day slowly against Chico we came out strong in this match and, with both the offense and defense playing well, earned a 14-9 victory. So on to the quarters. Our quarterfinal matchup was against Kansas, a strong team who we had defeated at last year's Nationals in pool play. We played our best game of the tournament and they never really had a shot. Our offense scored easily, working it patiently up both the force and break-mark sides as well as over the top with hucks. Our defense shut down their cutters and forced tough throws and made some nice D's; once the D-team had the disc, we then, just like our offense, scored easily. It was a sweet victory with great play by all. This win gave us a semifinal rematch with Georgia, who'd beaten us at the Brown Invite the previous day. Despite working exceptionally hard in this game and making some great plays (a great layout D by Reid Hopkins and the phenominal offensive play of Josh Ziperstein come to mind) we ended up losing a close one to our newly discovered rivals (this is a friendly rivalry, mind you). We had our chances both offensively and defensively but couldn't seem to get that vital score or break and were a bit rushed and went away from our game plan in the 10-7 loss.

Overall, despite losing in the Stanford Invite semifinals for the third consecutive year, we had a great tournament. We faced some tough competition, learned a lot about ourselves and our team, and enjoyed a beautiful, sun-blessed weekend. We head to Centex in two weeks and hope to do better.
Thanks to all the alums, families, and friends who came out and supported us as well as the Safdie's and Mr. Neville for housing our smelly (only after playing, of course) and dirty selves. We couldn't have done it without you!

Best wishes to all,
Colin