Welp, with the end of the Eau Claire Chillout also came the end of our Fall season. It seems too soon for that! Three tournaments in the record books and now we start looking forward to the indoor season to prepare for Spring! But for now a recap!
Hucktoberfest- October 1st- 2nd (Neenah, Wisconsin)
Club Regionals and other life commitments assisted in taking away some Sol women for this tournament, sending the ladies of Eau Claire with less players than we are usually used to. I am probably not the best person to write this recap since I wasn't there... BUT from what I have heard it was an opportunity to finally put together all the skills we had been learning up to that point in the season. We even had new players (like Oliva Lee) handling without ever having practiced at all! Ultimate is great and all but I think the thing I personally was most sad about missing was being apart of all the shenanigans that went down this weekend!!! As of last year our team has heavily gotten into pranking, and apparently all the new girls are ALLABOUTIT! Foreshadow: this year is going to be nutzo. Bad news: Schneids MC got pretty beat up and will be out till next Fall and one of our new players, Kim, severly fractured her ankle.... But I am most confident they will both continue being huge assets to Sol while they focus on healing themselves!
No Wisconsequences- October 15th- 16th (Delafield, Wisconsin)
For the past few years this has been the premiere Fall tournament in the Midwest, so once again we looked forward to seeing many different teams and really putting our newly learned zone defense to use! And that we did! It was awesome to see how quickly all girls, new and old, picked up on learning different positions in zone D. It is really awesome to see all the new girls finally get tournament experience under their belts and see returners step up from being a n00b to an experienced player.
Saturday
During pool play, we were able to go 2-2. With losses coming to half of the Saucy Nancies from U of Iowa and Northwestern Gungho. We were able to beat one of the Madison Bella Donna teams as well as Michigan State! Our pool was crazy- the 1 seed lost to the 3 seed, the 3 seed lost to the 4 seed, the 4 seed lost to the 5 seed, but the 1 seed beat the 2 seed. Main point: Fall seedings are rarely accurate. It's a lot of guesswork trying to determine which teams will be better than which so early on! Michigan State was most impressive with few ladies and lots of athletic moves! They seem to be a really fun and hard working group of women. After a long day of Ultimate with many small victoies under our belt, we headed back to the Haller residence!
A HUGE shoutout to the Haller family will be necessary. Now in my 4th year at Eau Claire I have been lucky enough to stay with this family at least once a year and they are way too nice to us EVERY TIME! They are generous people and we owe them a million thank you's. Their hospitality is outstanding! All the Sol family and friends that we have been so lucky to stay with have been too nice! Only a handful of Sol folk (including our new Coach Dan Kaler) went to the always fun tournament party. Most of us were wayyyyy too tired to make it out the door!
Sunday
Wisconsin- Eau Claire Sol vs. University of Iowa X Saucy Nancy
Feeling well rested after mostly staying in Saturday night we hopped in our cars and zipped over to the fields. First up we were to play the other half of the Saucy Nancy team. We lost by a few points the previous day to the other Saucy team, so going into this game playing better right from the start was a priority. We were able to fight for a decent lead and were able to keep them from scoring for a bit! It ended up being a close game- we won on UNIVERSE POINT! That always makes for an exciting ending and gives you a lot of momentum going into your next game!
Wisconsin- Eau Claire Sol vs. University of Illinois Menace
Up next we had Illinois Menace, a team I don't think Sol has played for some time. I must say I was for real surprised by how good this team was! They were very athletic and their throws were solid. I don't remember the final score of this game, but I think we lost by something like 3? Menace seems to be a very fun team. It looks like more of their players are starting to play Club- which is always great to see! Illinois went on to lose to one of the Wisconsin teams in the semi's, well done!
Wisconsin Eau Claire Sol vs. Winona Bad Monaz
This was another team that caught me off guard with how good they were! It was a really back and forth game as the wind was mostly upwind/downwind. Their throws were very solid against our zone. We did a really good job of adjusting on the fly with many things-especially our new players! They showed so much versatility in what they can do and were open to trying new positions they weren't as comfortable with. But hey, you learn more when you are outside your comfort zone (and learning how to play Ultimate provides plenty of opportunities for that). We ended up losing this game and finishing 7th- not too shabby with 26 women's teams in attendance!
After an eventful stop at McDonalds to celebrate our weekend of no more severe injuries (lets keep that trend going) we were on our way back to Wisconsin's most beautiful campus (Eau Claire of course). Although injuries are the least ideal thing, life always goes on. In the event of injuries I think people are given another reason to push themselves even harder. Everyone loves Schneids and since her first Sol practice she has been extremely dedicated (not an over-exaggeration). Now that she can't play for a little while each Solmate should always remember that if you feel like giving up tell Schneids that you can't push it anymore. If you could look at Schneids and tell her that (as she would probably do
anything to be able to play over the next few months) you cannot do another sprint, or another push up or another rep of a drill then it is believable that you have pushed yourself as hard as you possibly could have. If you aren't to the point that you would be able to tell Schneids that you can't try harder then try harder and do it for Schneids. And remember, sometimes injuries are blessings in disguise.
