Results

Regionals

Saturday:

• BoP 5 – Annapolis All Stars 15
• BoP 13 – Monkey Knife Fight 15
• BoP 15 – Duck Billed Platypuses 12
• BoP 11 – Germ Circus 15

Sunday:

• BoP 15 – Love Bomb 2

Final standings (top 2 teams qualify for Nationals):
1. B+
2. Annapolis All-Stars
3. Olio
4. Philly Kru
5/6. Elvis Needs Boats/Donkey Bomb
7. Animal
8. Hooray
9. Nasty
10. Monkey Knife Fight
11. Kitchen Biscuit
12. His & Hers
13. Germ Circus
14. BoP
15. Duckbilled Platypi
16. Love Bomb

Sectionals

Saturday:

• BoP 3 – Animal 11
• BoP 7 – Hooray for Coed 11
• BoP 11 – Adult Flicks 9
• BoP 11 – Your Mom 9

Sunday:

• BoP 11 – Pan Fried Funk 1 (postponed game from Saturday's pool play)
• BoP 6 – Germ Circus 11
• BoP 11 – Love Bomb 8
• BoP 11 – Mixed Drinkers 9

Final standings (top 7 teams qualify for Regionals):

1. Philly KRU
2. Hooray
3. Donkey Bomb
4. Animal
5. Germ Circus
6. Balance of Power
7. Mixed Drinkers
8. Your Mom
9. Adult Flicks
10. Love Bomb
11. Pan Fried Funk

Unknown Legends

Saturday:

• BoP 13 – Guelph Unknowns 2
• BoP 13 – Animal Logic 3
• BoP 5 – Quik 9
• BoP 13 – Boom 4

Sunday:

• BoP 13 – Liquid 12
• BoP 6 – Quik 13

We lost in the semifinals, and didn't play our consolation game, placing 3rd or 4th out of 15 teams.

CHUBBY

Saturday:

• BoP 7 – Columbus 10
• BoP 13 – Lebanon 3
• BoP 11 – Viscous Coupling 5
• BoP 11 – Cincinnati Creamsicles 6

Sunday:

• BoP 11 – Mello Yello 2
• BoP 12 – Cincinnati Creamsicles 13

We lost in the semifinals by one point, placing 3rd or 4th out of 10 teams.

Mars

Saturday:

• C-BoP 16 – Badonkadonk 17
• C-BoP 2 – YounGuns 15
• C-BoP 12 – Nasty 15

Sunday:

• C-BoP 2 – Kiwanos 15
• C-BoP 11 – Pursuit 15
• C-BoP 15 – FUCT 12

Monday:

• C-BoP 13 – Germ Circus 12
• C-BoP 12 – Banyas University 14

PUFF

Saturday:

• BoP 13 – Huckineers 3
• BoP 13 – 2-Bit Ultimate 1
• BoP 10 – Bombing Madd Fatties 13
• BoP 13 – Adult Flicks 1

Sunday:

• BoP 14 – Mixed Drinkers 9
• BoP 14 – His & Hers 9
• BoP 15 – Bombing Madd Fatties 12

We placed 1st out of 10 teams for our first tournament win ever!

Saturday morning play started late in an effort to let the water-logged fields dry out before letting a stampede of ultimate players run wild over them. The delay didn't seem to have any negative effect on us as we cruised to two comfortable victories against Huckineers (Morgantown) and 2-Bit Ultimate (Johnstown).

The third game was the real test, as pre-tournament favorites Bombing Madd Fatties threatened to run away with the game early. Using the same offensive philosophy that we have been trying to develop in our own team – work the disc patiently with the short game, and take the opportunities that present themselves – the Fatties jumped out to leads of 4-1 and 6-2. Balance scored once more before half, and then made a major push in the second half to close the gap to 10-9 but we were never actually able to take the lead away from the Canadians.

Rather than getting down after a loss, we focused on how we had upped our game against a strong opponent and headed into our final game of the day feeling confident. With an efficiency of offense that surprised Double-Entendre veteran Kevin Cramer, we cruised to another comfortable victory. Regardless of what happened during our bye round, we were assured of second place in our pool.

By placing second in our pool, we earned the right to sleep in Sunday morning while the 4th and 5th place teams battled in the pre-quarters. Our first round game was against Mixed Drinkers who were roughly based on Foot Clan, who have beaten BoP in the past. The game opened in entertaining fashion as the Drinkers immediately put up a huck to Drew Hendrickson, defended by Matt Troup. Matt was able to D the huck, and Balance was able to claim the first score. The score was tied at 1-1, but some shaky play from normally reliable Drinkers and more efficient offense helped us take the lead going into the half. The Drinkers stepped up their play, but we were able to maintain our lead through the second half of the game.

Our next game was against the (undefeated) number one team from the other pool, His and Hers. Yes, the same His and Hers who beat us 15-5 at Beth Coltman. The first point was a marathon, eventually scored by H&H, but the Balance sideline was abuzz. "Do you realize how hard you just made them work to score a down-winder?" asked one of the subs going onto the field. We answered with a down-winder of our own, then an up-winder and another down-winder and we held onto that lead until the half. In almost a mirror image of the BoP-Fatties game from Saturday, His and Hers fought their way back to within a point, but Balance eventually closed out the game and advanced to the finals…

…and a re-match against the Bombing Madd Fatties. It looked like déjà vu as the Fatties jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but we put on a run of our own and saw our first lead over the Canadians at 4-3. The game was hard fought on both sides and featured a number of tied scores and lead changes. Eventually Balance's deeper bench started to wear down the opposition and we had the opportunity to score the final point just before the cap would have gone on. Matt Troup was chasing a deep throw to the end zone, with BMF's top defender close on his heels. When both players went down in a tangle it looked as if the disc would fall to the ground, but Matt made a fantastic second effort to grab hold of the score.

And, to borrow a line from Queen, "We are the champions!"

Beth Coltman Memorial Tournament

Saturday:

• BoP 5 – His and Hers 15
• BoP 5 – Air Circus 15
• BoP 8 – Vitamin I 10
• BoP 9 – Germ Circus 10

Sunday:

• BoP 3 – Annapolis All Stars 15
• BoP 12 – 7Express 6
• BoP 10 – Traffic 8
• BoP 11 – Vitamin I 5

We placed 9th out of 15 teams.

The weather was just about perfect: 67 on Saturday, 72 on Sunday, and sunny all weekend. We maybe could have used a little more cloud cover to keep from getting so sunburned. The wind was always a factor, although it varied from a major pain to hardly noticeable, and also managed to change direction halfway through the tournament.

Our first two games were against the top two seeds in our pool: His and Hers and Air Circus. We came out looking pretty bad. These teams had an edge on us anyway, but we were making it too easy for them, committing far too many mistakes. We had some good moments, though, and made the games respectable, losing both 15-5.

Our next game was against frequent rival Vitamin I. Our last three games against them had been hard fought, but we had managed to win all three. We wanted to keep the streak alive. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Marta Biarnes had picked up with Vitamin I for the tournament. We managed to get out of our funk for this game, and had our usual tooth and nail battle, mostly fighting to get the coveted upwinders. Unfortunately, we let them get an advantage by a couple of upwinders, and despite a late game comeback, we were unable to catch up before the hard cap. Final score: 10-8.

Our last game on Saturday was against Germ Circus, a team we beat at Sectionals last fall, and a team that we were fully capable of beating again. This was another game that was all about upwinders. We traded points for a bit, let them get an advantage, and then dug deep to come back and take the half 8-7. We fought a couple of very long points, finishing with an upwind score to tie the game at 9-9, with the hard cap on. This also meant that we were going downwind, giving us a huge advantage. We proceeded to play a marathon point, somehow allowing Germ Circus to slowly work the disc up field, through the wind, time after time. Eventually, we would force a turnover, work the disc quickly to our goal line, and painfully botch the score. This happened over and over. In the end, Germ Circus showed more patience then we did, and scored the final point, taking the game at 10-9.

The first game Sunday was for splitting into A and B brackets. Having lost all of our Saturday games, we had to play the number two seed, Annapolis All Stars. The word was that this was last year's first place finisher in our region, Flicks of Fury, with some better players added to the roster. Yikes. Luckily, this didn't change our drive to play hard at all. We played extremely well, and traded points for the first ten minutes. Our opponents then realized that they weren't going to be able to just walk right over us, and had to pick up their game. We proceeded to learn how efficient a nationals caliber team can score points. Final score: 15-3.

Our first game in the B bracket was against 7Express, a New York team that claimed to have been drinking way too much the night before. That helped, but I think we had the upper hand without or without the hangovers. Final score: 12-6.

Winning our first game of the weekend put us in the perfect state of mind to face our next opponents, Traffic, also from New York. This wasn't a pushover team by any stretch of the imagination. We were extremely well matched, and had to keep our level of play at a peak for the entire game to hold on to our advantage. Final score: 10-8.

At this point, we were riding high on two straight wins, and ready to play some more, even if we were only playing for the B bracket title. We were therefore pleasantly surprised to find that our opponent in the finals was none other than Vitamin I. We had a shot at redemption. We decided on a short game to 11, so that we could both get on the road at a reasonable hour. Although Vitamin I played well in this game, their heart wasn't really in it, and our desire to get some payback was too great. We steadily grew our lead and never gave them a chance to make a comeback, dispatching them convincingly with a score of 11-5.

Our main goals for this tournament were to work on our long-neglected cup zone, and our new three-handler/four-person-stack offense. We weren't able to play as much cup as we would have liked, since the wind died down at times and we only had five women, some of whom were not at 100%. We played our three-handler offense almost the entire weekend, though, and learned quite a lot. We also learned that ending a tournament with three wins feels really good.

April Fools Fest

Friday:

• BoP 12 – Flying MantiCows 15
• BoP 4 – Rosebud 15

Saturday:

• BoP 4 – Donkey Bomb 15
• BoP 4 – REALLY Old School 15
• BoP 15 – Drew Alumni 6

Sunday:

• BoP 10 – Fredericksburg Mothers 11

PADA Mosh

We had a spectacular close to the season at PADA Mosh 2003. Despite being one of the worst organized tournaments I've ever been to, I personally had a great time playing in it, and I hope everyone else who came did as well. For those who weren't there, the weather was very chilly and the fields were very hilly. Soft ground and a lack of rain made it playable, though. All of our games were close and hard-fought. We went 3-1 on the first day, which easily could have been 4-0 if not for a couple of blown opportunities against Goose, who we definitely could have beaten. Saturday closed with one of my favorite games of all time against Vitamin I, where we came back from a 7-4 deficit at half to win 10-8, holding on to our advantage in what is quickly becoming a major rivalry. Vitamin I didn't just roll over and die either; everyone on the team really dug deep and made some huge plays to make that win possible.

Day two brought us worse fields: an uphill/downhill battle that was I think even steeper than the fields at Sectionals. We won our first game against Traffic to go to the semis of our bracket, and then lost another really hard-fought and close game against LID to end the day.

Regionals

1.  FLICKS OF FURY 
2.  B+ 
3.  BRU 
4.  HOORAY FOR COED 
5.  ELVIS NEEDS BOATS 
6.  OLIO 
7.  KITCHEN BISCUIT/NASTY 
9.  ANIMAL/HIS&HERS 
11. DONKEY BOMB/TOPWISE 
13. BALANCE OF POWER 
14. LOKI 
15. JIGGIDY FLOW/YOUR MOM

Sectionals

1. Hooray for Coed Ultimate Hooray
2. Donkey Bomb
3. Topwise
4. Animal
5. Balance of Power
6. Jiggidy Flow
7. Your Mom
8. Germ Circus
9. B-BoP

Unknown Legends

1.  Full Ft's
2.  Guelph University
3.  Balance of Power
4.  Mayhem
5.  Vitamin I
6.  BUC Wild
7.  MacDumb/Big dick Cadillac
9.  WUTT
10. B-Bop
11. GUTS
12. Slipped Disc
13. FLOW
14. MacDumber