Swagga' Swagga' Like Us

Robyn's Account of Centex 2009.

In a four-day layover in Eau Cleazy, SOL gets sick of waiting for their plane, and hops in the car to drive 20 hours south to the Lonestar State. The only state in the union that can legally fly their flag equal to the US flag. Everything's bigger here. One can succumb to their cravings for ginormous burritos the size of one's head at the seemingly 40,000 Chipotles in Texas.

Centex 2009. Where bitches are owned and babies are eaten. Where the strong feast on pizza buffets, and the weak eat old jell-o and tapioca pudding at the old folk's home.

We have spent months training for this tourney. And days training for our dance.

My car-ride was filled with N'Sync, Daddy Pat dance moves, miraculously fitting between three seats and sleeping on the floor in the car, torrential downpours in Oklahoma, pissing off gas station workers, meeting creepers in the gas stations, and drooling on my arm several times. We drew lots of pictures of motivation for our SIS...and Daddy Pat too. Alas, we roll into Austin and drop our stuff of at Mark's house to explore Austin a little. Lovin' the vibe in the town, Cole and I grab the statue inappropriately. As our team snaps shots, a city bus pulls up, and immediately its passengers start taking pictures.

After a little exploration, we head to the social mixer. (It's actually located across the street from the nomba wan church in all of Austin.) We roll in and it's crowded, but not jumpin. We decide to get things started in Eau Cleazy fashion. Everyone was lookin spiffy. We looked like we just got out of the car from a 20 hour car ride. With our hair all greaze-tastic and our under-eye bags glowing like Tracie's glow-worm she had as a young child, we decide to mingle with my retractable blade plastic knife I found in my captains pack.
UC-SB comes up and starts a little conversation.

UCSB girl: "Where are you guys from?"
Robyn: "Wisconsin-Eau Claire"
UCSB girl: "Is that the University of Wisconsin?"
Robyn: "No, not the Bellas."
UCSB other girl: "Is that like Carleton?"
Robyn: "No. We're by Carleton, but in Wisconsin. We're from Eau Claire, it's like an hour or so out of the Twin Cities though."
UCSB girl: "Oh, gotcha"
(No she doesn't)
UCSB girl: "Want to play some flip cup?"
Robyn: "Hell yes we do."

Robyn, Brit, Lauren, Cole, and Roxie rush to the table with their cups of iced tea and water, ready to rock the show.

Rule of advice. Don't challenge a team you've never heard of from WISCONSIN to a drinking game. Just because you've never heard of us, doesn't mean we won't beat you. Especially without alcohol.

Everyone=chug. One and done. Except for Roxie. She was sipping too slowly for my liking. Roxie, this isn't a sippy cup. Some people in other states don't have enough to drink. Luckily she's decent at flipping when the cup is far enough off the edge for her...it only took her a few minutes to get it there. Okay, maybe an exaggeration....but she was no "one and done" champ like the rest of us were. Regardless, Eau Cleazy 2, UC-SB 0.

USC taps me on the shoulder as we walk away victorious from the table, looking for a challenger from the Central Region to take them on in pokey. Our team, full of pokey newbs, accepts, winning all of their matches. I, however, did not own the trivia contest.

We leave the mixer to practice our dance and return home to learn the skeez.

Wake up on Saturday to be greeted by the rest of our team rolling in at 8:51. We started at 9 am. We played some SICK zone D and field position O to come out over Illinois. They may be one of the most enjoyable teams to play. Such great spirit, great attitudes, great sense of humor. And, "listen," they crash the zone like no body's business. Their handles have sick fakes. Watch yo'self Great Lakes region. Menace is on a rampage to kill your babies, boil them, and create a baby stew. Seasoned with love from puppies and mystical pegasus wings. Eau Claire win, 12-3.

After Tracie's dad got tatted up with the rest of us, we were ready to rock for game number two.

Our next game was against Florida. Their offense was run primarily through their handler in the orange leggings. She tried hucking deep to her 6'1'' receiver. I may have been licking my chops a little bit, baiting that throw just a little too much, but I definitely was jumpin' reeeeal good that day. "Oh Shit." was called. We shut down their hucking game, and they had few options under, because our zone was bomb-diggity. Boom-shaka-laka-laka. Martha even skied a girl who was 6 feet tall. Sick rake. UWEC win, 15-4.

Our last pool game was against the dinosaur lovin' Greenshirts of Clairemont, Even though they were wearing blue shirts...their jerseys were bad fuckin ass. It was like a bag o' dinosaur fruit snacks spilled out on their shirt, and they said, "This is bomb enough. We'll take 20 of them." Led by handler Erika Baken, they had some chill O. Their strong swings were not enough for the SOL zone and UWEC won 15-2. I threw Kate Peot on my shoulders and she made dinosaur noises. We did construct a scale-size model of a brontosaurus. It was cool.

In order to qualify for the championship bracket, we had to beat Pitt in a play-in game. Pitt went 0-3 in their pool. Coming off a long break, we were ready to get the game going. After scoring two quick points, Pitt went on a huge run. Poor spirit and body checking by Pitt's handlers were throwing our girls to the ground. We got a little discouraged....our first higher caliber tournament and having to deal with bullshit. Not a ton of fun, especially for our newbs. Some missed layout D's and misplaced dump/swings, caused some points for Pitt. They took us to half 7-2. But we came back all engines firing at 10-3. Soft cap went off. We went on a HUUUUGE run. In less than 10 minutes, the score was 10-8. The last point, a marathon point, ended in Pitt's favor. We lost 11-8.

Centex Danceoff 2009. Biggest heartbreak evah.
We practiced, rehearsed....for 3 days. We did not succumb to the dirty dance fest that was catchin' on. Rather, we went for the more challenging, formation-approached dance. Pyramids, line switching, double cartwheels with broken fingers, tumbling passes, the worm, river dance, Daddy Pat's river dance solo, swagga' swagga' fly bomb moves. We were all hitting our cues, right on key....yet we did not win. We tied for 2nd. That sucks.

We woke up early on Sunday, ready to play. We went up against Georgia 4-3. Then, more poor spirit displayed by the Georgia coach...that took the form of yelling at me and Daddy Pat over a mis-interpretation on her part of the rules. (It was confirmed by the guy running the observer clinic that we were indeed right) Effected by the yelling on the sidelines, it was a bit hard to focus. After two especially bad calls at the end of the game in the deciding points (a trip in the endzone with no play on the disc over Iansa, and a non-foul sick shoulder high legit layout D by yours truly) we lost 10-8.

We headed over a field to face the Betty's of Kansas. One of my new favorite teams, these girls have heart, soul, and sweet dance moves. I'm really stoked that they received the FIVE ultimate growth sponsorship this year. I could not think of program more deserving of the Bettys. They uphold spirit and are at the top of the up and coming teams that I've seen around. They play hard, and with smiles on their faces. Love them.

After a victory over Kansas, we faced Illinois again. We were tired. We were beat. But we didn't roll over and die. We fought it out with our fav. team at Centex. But lost a hardfought game.

We forfeit our last one to Arizona to get a head start home and to stop at a Chinese Buffet that Pat found on his GPS. We get there, it's not open. So we roll down the street to the other one that is open. We walk in and there is no nomba wan Chinese buffet on Sunday. Just regular food. However they totally accommodate and make us the "all star buffet" featuring the very best of every buffet. It was glorious.

We played a little game called "if our team was trapped on on a desert island, who would we kill first." Order of the first 3 deaths:
1) Kate Peot...good size bones for weapons
2) Tracie Anderson...tall, lanky....good for a skewer.
3) Anna Hettler....undisclosed reasons

People we don't kill:
1) Paula Meyer...she can kill, clean, and cook anything.
2) Daddy Pat

Ride home:
We run into a caravan of softball players who were like 12 years old. Their windows painted in team motivation. Go Emma! So we write a sign, roll up creepily next to each van, beep wave, and yell "Go Emma!" Daddy Pat and I in the front seat, see a guy with a tentacle arm. We immediately make up a dance. It's the new craze sweepin the nation...more so than deforestation, furbys, pogs, and lincoln logs.


Highlights:
-My shoulder high layout D called foul...bullshit...but it was legit.
-Anna Hettler schooling many with a broken finger.
-Paula's thigh tats with the suck it dance. Classy.
-Daddy Pat knowing his stuff, and totally being on top of the rule b.s. during the Georgia game.
-Zone defense.
-"Swagga' swagga' like us"
-Flashing the HOT pink SOL in our Centex Dance
-Brit Gartner owning up on other noooobs in the Rook Showcase Game
-J-Wo's "Listen" cut off that she rocked in the Illinois/Eau Cleazy game
-Kansas Betty's awesome dance moves
-Double cartwheels
-Toll workers wearing gloves
-Our names not being screened on the FIVE apparel for Centex...we get discounted correctly printed merch...
-Getting our womens initiative shwag and sportin' it for our Girl Scout Camp in 3 weeks.
-Bling. Bling. Blang.


Ready to strike at sections.

In Georgia, We get Crazy.

Martha here, filling all you curious folk in on our Jekyll Island action on and off the field, known as a glorious celebration most might call Spring Break. After a rough week of class for most, Sol and our men's team EauZone congregate to form SOLZONE and jump into 8 vehicles and begin a 25 hour quest to Georgia. As each car competed for the best pictures and souvenirs on the way down, everyone seemed to be running into awkward, funny, and interesting situations. Robyn's car, consisting of herself, Brit, Dassow and Isaac somehow ended up in South fucking Carolina? Dassow's fault of course, thus the phrase "dassy downy" was born. Noone was more scared than Isaac. Their unnecessary route took us all for a loop, but somehow beat my car which arrived dead last. My vehicle was made up of Tim McNeal, his girlfriend Veronica, and the injured Chris McCrory and myself. Our disfunctional family barely made it to Jekyll Island alive. I colored for 7 HOURS on the way down. My little ponies. My coloring got worse as I went on. How does that happen??

Anyway, we arrive on Saturday afternoon to our two houses on the beach. They were sick. Most immediatley hit the beach and the booze pretty hard.. why everyone was so excited? It's hard to say. Instead of describing the evening, maybe a picture will sum it up. Making the coolest pyramid ever. There may have been some late night streaking on the beach. Hard to say. Sunday was a day to sleep in, do whatever the hell you wanted, until our scrimmage vs. Columbia at 2 pm. I just want to say that this was the first time we had played outdoor ultimate since October. I also must say, that we did pretty darn well. We practiced a lot of new strategies, while trying to maintain intensity in the 90 degree weather. The talk of this game had to be Cole's faceblocking of the disc. Which resulted in a a hideous black eye. Of course, she played out the point and even scored. Most bad-ass bookends in SOL history. After the intense scrimmage, we played out some fun games, myself winning WAH and the vegetable walk off of..shitake mushrooms..I believe. That evening led to more unexpected festivities. Isaac began entertaining the group of 38 with homemade epic songs. The most popular being "The High Fire Danger: The Ballad of Hib-Jib-Jib", with Robyn's bottle solo, and Brit's bomb dog kazoo solos. Robyn and Isaac decided have fun with Carlos. And sadly, this is what happens: SOL Boobies. Unfortunatley I can't fill you in on what I know about this evening.... It happens. I'm 98% positive that everyone had an above average time though.

OK so let the REAL ultimate begin. As we arrive at the foggy fields of Jekyll Island bright and early, SOL waits around trying to find a way to play in the hat tournament that we are not officially signed up for! With less than five minutes to game time, Robyn makes a shady cash transaction drug deal for a random bag of colored shirts. We giggle at the hilarity of what happened, and quickly scatter to our respective teams. Cole and myself were placed on the same team, pepto bismal was our team name we created, playing accordingly off of our azalea pink shirts. "Heartburn, naseau, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!" was the pump up cheer for our team. Great times. Some UNH men on our team were kind enough to invite Cole and I to their house a few blocks down to swim in their pool for our two hour bye. We were greeted by a palm tree full of empty beer cans, a pool swarming with floating schools of beer, and two lawn flamingos that honestly looked like they were doin it. My I'm glad we made the decision to go there. It was perfectly hot that day, something that everyone enjoyed. Our hat team played extremely well that day. I have to say that I enjoy, and play better when I play mixed ultimate. I don't know why...Nonetheless, our team did not win this tournament. All star from our men's team James Hron and hotty with a body Jess Haller from SOL were on the same team, and played in the championship game. However, they lost. All in all this day was incredibly exhausting and the real tournament had not even started yet. I had copious amounts of fun during the hat tournament and is an awes way to meet cool people. These should be held more often.

We head back home for our first theme night: Hawaiian! Most took it easy this night....I'm going to point my fingers at Isaac on this one. I also want to mention Isaac does not play ultimate for our teams, but is rather Robyn's roommate and possibly the funniest ultimate groupie anyone could really ask for.

Tuesday morning: first real day of the tournament. Our team was ranked pretty low coming into this whole thing, little did many teams know that we came to bust ass and start some commotion. We took Vassar B 13-0, Smith B 13-0, and Rowan 13-2. Our second game was an intense game for us against Colorado State. As SOL struggled to keep a consistent flow, we finally figured out our shit and won 12-10. The first half of this day was the only time during the whole ultimate filled week that it was remotley cloudy or cold. During our two hour bye this day, SOL huddled and cuddled for some nap time, and watching open time. How Anna found the fetal position in a camping chair comfortable, I'll never know. Our men's team came and supported us the second half of our day, sporting their green St. Patricks Day attire. The evening was taken up a notch from the previous one, as people's rowdiness levels kicked in in order to celebrate this spectacular patron saint of Ireland. DOING DISCS? Alright so when it comes to disc, there is one, and only one person that can do it better than anyone I know. Our very own handler, Miss Shannon Abbott holds a record of 43 seconds. I KID YOU NOT. However, this was meerly a rumor or stupid joke to me at first. Many of us needed proof. As people assembled their teams , everyone gathered around like giddy leprechauns not knowing what to expect. Shannon finishes in 52 seconds. So, there are teams of 4 freaking people that can't even finish a disc that fast. What the fuck right? I swear she is pulling some David Blaine shit on us, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt right now. I'm watching you Shannon.

Good thing we all had games at 8 am the next day! I think Scotty from the men's team was unable to play. Too much zombie rage. I don't think I've seen a team dance as much as SOL does. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly teams out there with some respectable moves, but I feel we dance almost as much as we play ultimate. I know I do. If you know me, I sometimes like to combine both. As we roll in that morning, we start off the day again by dancing to obnoxious songs with obnoxious moves. We sort of fueled ourselves that week from early morning gyrating. I think it worked. On a more ultimate related note..it is now Wednesday, and we played Smith A, Macalaster, and Minnesota-Duluth. With some swift movement of the disc, an awesome zone defense, and great puts by our players, we won each game 13-2. I reunited with my long lost friend from my hometown of Orono, Neal Hanke who now plays for Iowa State. I must say he does like to heckle that Paula Meyer of our team, but I think she loves it and pretty much is asking for it with all the wicked attire she wears during our games. I'm sure he wants her to, no big deal though. The best part was that we were done by noon. Now what??!! Our convoy headed back to the houses and proceeded to chill on the beach, lay on the front lawn, play games, eat food, relax, you know, all the fun lazy stuff you do on spring break.

That evening was our ghetto night.... Much of the usual forgetful festivities went on, this may or may not have been the night the deck of "I've Never" cards got whipped out. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about Tim and Veronica, who were sitting right next to eachother, sometimes the same time..and sometimes not. I learned a lot about many members of both teams that I think I will have to leave at that.

Robyn will have to update about how the rest of this night went..for her and some other folk traveled down a couple blocks to where the Rutgers were staying...

((Robyn's post-edit: So I get a text from my hat tourney teammate to come check out the fun at the Rutgers house. I round up some SOLmates, and walk into a room full of guys. We sit down, and jump right in to some fun and games. Of course we represent. There were some, um...events, that will be un-named for the time being *cough, cough* Matt Dassow *cough, cough* but sure did make for some good spring break memories. We roll in late, and Brit and I sit outside in the most uncomfortable chairs to talk about life and ultimate...well the they are two in the same for us. When the alarm goes off early the next day, we are rather tired and happily welcome the early AM dance session in the parking lot to wake ourselves up))

Thursday was our final day of ultimate on Jekyll Island. All of us were feeling the last couple days, and playing pretty well regardless of how we felt. Our first game vs. Princeton was a bit shaky. This team only had about 9 players but were keeping up with us all day. We were very surprised at their endurance and at the way they played their game. Not sure what the score was however (not posted on the UPA like all our other games wtf?) so, I know we played our game and came out on top. Next was a rematch vs. Minnesota-Duluth winning 13-0 to go into the championship game vs. Iowa State. It has been a bajillion years since we played Iowa State last, but we knew our games we won versus them before were not easy. A decent breeze was blowing this day, and we used all the zone we could. This teams transitions were sick and their handler Gibs was making D's all day. We were pretty shocked at how much we needed to pick it up when the score was 3-12, us down. We refocused our strategy and with some serious sideline help we came back with 4 points at the end and, were having fun, and played real SOL ultimate. Unfortunately it wasn't soon enough and and they finally brought their last point down ending the game 7-13, Iowa State. Those girls have gotten priiiitty clutch over their season so superior region should stay on their toes. All in all we were satisfied about our second place victory and learned a lot and improved from five straight days of ultimate. Alas, it was time to take off our cleats, give our skin a rest from all the sun and sweat, and enjoy the rest of spring break.

Thursday night was the night to celebrate. This was our formal evening where the most attractive mens and womens teams of all time join forces and celebrate by grilling out...except for myself and a few others. Lamest move we could have pulled, but the tired issue at this point was outrageous. OF COURSE my trusty fellow blogger Robyn will recap on the rest of the night, for she was there. And tells it, oh, so well.

((Robyn's post edit: I ended up hanging out with Isaac, Chris Schasse, and Alex Engel (from Milwaukee) on the beach for a bit. We went on a walking adventure. My feet got attacked by cacti. I almost punched Isaac for leading me into a cactus patch...we went on some more walking. Ended up at the Rutgers house, where I was informed that I was with a legend: Mr. James Hron, himself. Everyone wanted to hang with James Hron. He was the man. Everyone on every team was like, "HEY! Are you the guy with the red bandanna?" He got lots of free stuff from everyone. He "befriended" a 1, and got lost again. But he was back at home when Charlie and Skibs went over to the other house, after raiding our fridge for sandwiches.))

I do remember being woken up in the middle of the night by Charlie Randall coming into my room asking why I wasn't awake and why I wasn't doing anything. My response is simply.."because its 4 in the morning Charlie.." Charlie comes back with.."WRONG! its 5 in the morning Martha!"

.............alright Charlie you got me. I had to literally kick him until he left. As I fell back asleep I heard him and Hron arguing about who made out with who, that turned into ultimate talk, which turned into rustle and tumble in the hallway, which finally died down into what I hope was Charlie tucking Hron in.

Now we are getting to the good stuff. Friday is the day SOLzone heads to Savannah, Georgia. The town full of testy townies, ghost tours, and no law against open containers. Cigars were purchased by men, while the women hustled to the oh so awesome candy shop. I could not believe my eyes at this shop. Cole and Heather rushed to make purchases of taffy and preline, along with others who were stocking up a bit less. This place had the BEST praline samples I've had in my entire life. Enough said. Gelato and other goodies were consumed as we all met up by the bay. Back to that whole law about you can totally drink on the streets of Savannah. Well, that is exactly what of agers proceeded to do. Wet Willies-the COOLEST margarita/daiquiri bar of all time. The wall behind the bar was covered in pull down dispensers of flavors such as "Call-a-Cab". Tim spilled his drink on the dirty street, but because it was 8 dollars, he could not let it go to waste. He took his straw to the sadly spilled rita-mess and began to suck.

SO after some sipping on excessive amounts of margaritas, chilling in the streets, bonding, telling stories of memories past, jumping over one another, and taking silly photographs, listening to a man play guitar and sing with his crazy voice, we finally head to a restaurant for a team dinner. Now, things could have possibly taken a turn for the worse when the beer sampler was purchased by a couple members in our group. Fear not, people shared their samples and chaos was..well, MAD chaos was avoided. Everyones food was down right delicious. One thing worth mentioning: Tracie and Shannon are crazy. Also, Tracie has the best facial expressions on the planet. Overall, our dinner experience was rowdy and amazing. We ate, made funny faces, made new friends, and the best part was that it was only 8 o'clock.

Our group now split up into two, one on a ghost tour and the others who wanted to explore Savannah. Myself, Robyn, Cole, fellow Eauzone members, Matt Dassow and Alex Kensgaard, Chris McCrory, Eric Wallendal, Charlie Randall (who did I miss? did I add someone who should not have? sorry..) stayed behind and returned to Wet Willies for more and a wide open dance floor. After attempting to tear it up on this floor, we wander the streets looking for anything happening. Of course it is still too early for things to start up, and we had to meet our group at eleven. Things went a little wrong near the end, for one van lost its keys, and the other was locked in a parking ramp all night. Few hours later..we all made it home in one piece. Go team.

And so the long journey home began after cleaning both houses to make it look like we had never entered either. Chris and I played Zelda:Ocarina of Time the whole ride home unless we were sleeping.

So, I'm sure I skipped a lot, but maybe that is a good thing. This is long and could potentially bore many. I think Robyn and I are getting too much of a kick out of this though. Anyway, SOL was then off to Austin, Texas for some Centex action after a 4 day daze of trying to do school work after break, but preparing to get in the car for another ridiculous drive. BOOM. Peace out girl scout-(Brit Gartner)

Martha

Tats in the Middle.

After weeks of conditioning on the track and in the pool, we decided to test our mighty strength at the St. Ben's indoor tournament. St. Joseph, MN: home to Paula Meyer and her 5,000 siblings, home cookin,' Helen Keller wannabes, and Sparklefest. 5v5, we decided to split our squads X/Y and play the beautiful game.

Robyn shows up Friday night to Steph's house with over 3,000 temporary tats. Thank you Target boutique.

Using our limited space for warm-ups, anonymous SOLmate nails the plasma screen tv worth my entire semester of tuition. Luckily, made out of unbreakable materials, it does not break, and we bail.

Eau Claire X, sportin' the new black jerseys, handily beat St. Olaf X, Macalester, and Minnesota, winning out their pool. Taylor Jenkins shows up after an early am hockey game, plays a few games, then drives home for more hockey. What a baller. Melissa Jordan's lickin the floor cuz she wants to keep owning some bitches.

Led by Anna Hettler, Eau Claire Y shows up in ballin' white. They beat St. Olaf Y in a nail biter, St. Bens, and lose a hard one to St. Thomas.

This sets up the X/Y match-up in the championship bracket. Robyn gets concussed in the scrimmage, and the teams decide to rock-paper-scissors it to see who wins the rest of the game. X beats St. Thomas in the championship, Y beats St. Bens in the 3rd place game. Ballin'

Highlights:
Sexually seductive moves by SOL
Martha's ridc awkward layout. Brit says she looks like a swastika. It's true.
Whit's return after a long hiatus from the college ultimate scene
Iansa's arms that took several hours to wash the tats off of.