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I was recruited by Michelle Ng and Without Limits to write about my experiences in my final season of College Ultimate. 2011 has many possibilities...let's see how they pan out. E-mail me (robyn-fennig@uiowa.edu)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Recapping The Weekend From Hell

After an extremely stressful weekend, I have some insight to what those folks at USAU deal with. Quite honestly, I can’t imagine the stresses I had multiplied by like 40 conferences. Serving as a coordinator for the West Plains Open D1, West Plains Open D3, West Plains Open Developmental, Western North Central D1 Womens, and Lake Superior D1 Womens conferences (count it, that's 5 tourneys)….it was nuts. Weather in the Midwest is fairly unpredictable at this time of year. This weekend’s challenge was being able to keep a level head so I could execute on the field, meanwhile running a million other details. I mean, I had a guy yelling at me about his field location while I was about to pull the disc in our finals game vs. Iowa State. I didn’t need that. Thankfully, Mikey was there to talk him down.

Personally, I got a lot of negative feedback prior to the weekend about choosing Northern Iowa as my location for the West Plains and Western North Central tourneys. Personally, all those doubts were erased once everyone realized we were the only conferences playing on Saturday in our region. Noah Kramer (Site director) was amazing, and adapted to whatever we needed. UNI's staff was second to none, and even offered their indoor football dome to make the tourney happen. We didn't need it and got to play outside, despite the morning snow storm. We miraculously fit in 4 rounds between 1 and 7 pm with no problems other than 25-30 mph winds (with 40+ mph gusts throughout the afternoon). But seeing the sun as it was setting at 7:30 was great. I took a great amount of enjoyment calling Michelle at USAU, and telling her good news.

Reformatting the women’s LS was ridic. Some may say a nightmare to do from another state and dictate the changes to all 7 teams who were in their hotels in Appleton, WI. I’m happy it all worked out…somehow.

Recap of the weekend…well, my memory is significantly worse than it has ever been when it comes to recalling a tourney. We played amazing on Saturday, like those 30 mph winds weren’t there. My main memory of Sat. was of Hannah Rohret was hucking upwind Outside-In forehands like it was her job vs. UNI. It was ridic.

On Sunday, we have no excuses. We could not catch a disc in finals. We could barely throw. There wasn’t even a lot of wind. It’s good to know that fundamentals are important. Iowa State played a great game and capitalized on our mistakes. We were able to bounce back on Sunday in the backdoor game vs. Carleton. We had some fun and got back to the basics. Pulled out a W.

Main stories of the weekend:
-ISU proved they were a team for everyone to take seriously. Not saying we didn't take them seriously. I'm saying all the haters outside of our region. Our region clearly deserves AT LEAST 3 bids.
-Winona State. Holy cow. Played the whole weekend with SIX (yes, 6) players. They put up some impressive scores, and pulled out some wins.
-Nebraska makes their series debut. Emily Langland anchors this team with some athleticism and great throws from a new team. Laying the foundation of a future powerhouse.
-Women’s teams are more thankful for when you bend over backwards for them.

Looking forward to life as I knew it prior to going to Boston. I also look forward to sleep....lots of it.

2 comments:

  1. Those gusts and snow were terrible in Decorah too, but I would like to add that Women's North Central DIII also played on Saturday, thanks to a lot of flexibility on the part of captains and players and great coordinating by Conference Coordinator/TD B.G. Green (of Eclipse) and the Luther women who hosted. To whoever suggested sweeping off the fields with a broom, I admire your spirit. Midwest weather might demolish our forehands, but it will never crush our spirit...?

    Best of luck at Regionals, Robyn and Saucy.

    Paige Hill
    Grinnell College Women's Ultimate

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  2. Thanks Paige. Yeah, I'm so happy with B.G. She really stepped it up huge for our Region. Mikey and I loved working with her this year. I'm also proud to see Eclipse and Grinnell going to the big show :-) Congrats! I wish that D3 was in Wisco this year again. I hope they bring it back to the Midwest so I can watch! One of our players is from Buffalo and says that the field site you'll be playing at is really nice.Thanks again Paige for helping me get your mens' team contact info!

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