What a beautiful day we had for our senior game with MacDuffie! The weather was dry and sunny, with just enough breeze to make things interesting. As most of our readers know, Ultimate is played 7 on 7, but MacDuffie was gracious enough to let us begin the game with ALL 8 of our seniors on the field. One of those seniors, captain Jerry Huang, had a sprained ankle, so he just made a cameo appearance with a beautiful opening pull. For the rest of the game, Jerry offered a stream of supportive suggestions from the sidelines.
The opening minutes of the game were not pretty. It is true that we had one strong play with Zhexuan Li’s assist to captain Forrest Gao for a goal, but the early score of 1 (us) to 4 (them) suggested we needed to focus in and learn more about the opposition’s play. As we adjusted (and switched our defense), though, Deerfield pulled up close, traded points back and forth, and then slipped ahead for a halftime score of 8-7. Halftime shoutouts go to “Outdoor” (a.k.a. Alejandro Simon) for always getting open in the backfield, and to Lily Lin for great catches in the endzone (Lily got 2 goals today–YAY!!). Shoutouts also go to Jeff Wang for lockdown D, for “spirit of the game” when he probably technically stalled out the opposition, for running hard on every point, and for not slowing down even after his glasses were broken early in the game. “Everything was a blurr,” he said, but still: he kept homing in on those endzone throws. Was it a sixth sense? Hidden heat sensors? Echolocation? Sometimes it’s better to not ask too many questions when things are going your way.
The second half was our game. Captain Forrest Gao, coming off of a knee injury, found his flow and played like a pro. Even before the half, Forrest had been key in scoring, with 5 assists or goals. He continued with that positive energy into the second half. Kass Gifford was also on his game, assisting with or finishing up 10 of our 15 goals over the course of the game. Some people associate Kass with his cow hat, but he’s really the Energizer Bunny. Kass had too many memorable moments to mention, but the final goal was particularly spectacular. Jeff threw to Kass, but Kass wasn’t quite in the endzone when he jumped. Kass sprang into the air to catch the disk. He thrust his feet in front of him (classic long jump move), made first (foot) contact in the endzone, and then landed in a sitting position on the field. Game over.
You were thinking that this game writeup was also over, but there is more! We had a LOT of improvement over the course of the game, especially on offense. A big part of our team is the senior class, and it was a great senor day. Senior Sunshine Chen, for example, was a key player today. She played the whole game and stepped in, time after time, to pick up the disk as handler and set the play. We love you, Sunny!
On a final note, we must acknowledge excellent team play on goal #14. Kass had the disk, and he surveyed his options. Allyson Xu was open. Kass trusted his teammate to catch his toss. GOAL!!! That’s what this game is all about. Thank you, Deerfield, thank you fans—Go Big Green!