I awoke Sunday morning and nearly fell down the stairs as my right knee apparently forgot how to bend overnight. Not good! I spent most of the morning wondering if I was going to be able to play at all and doing my best to disguise my concern from everyone since we were already short people, I feel like I still gotta earn my roster spot, and Goddammit I ain't going out like that!
After some vitamin I and a lot of warming up, it loosened up and by the 2nd half of our first game, I hardly noticed it. No idea what the hell that was all about! Anyway, we rolled our first opponents and won our quarters match-up against District 5 without too much ado. That game was pretty close, at least until Jeff Graham decided he was going to take over. Then it wasn't. That put us in the semis for a rematch with Slow White.
Similar to our first match-up, we had difficulties generating pressure on D, though we were somewhat more efficient scoring on O. In the end, we fell by a 13-10 margin.
The team itself looks very promising, especially since we were missing 10 people for the tournament and 3 of us had never played for the Ghosts before. As for myself, I was somewhat disappointed in my play. I played decent shutdown defense, scored and threw a few goals, and kept my turnovers pretty low, but only managed an occasional block. I wasn't able to overpower anyone with speed or agility on the weekend, which was pretty much my hallmark so that will be my motivation for training in the coming weeks. My footwork was sloppy, my changes of direction were slow, and my extra gear was not there. Probably more than anything, the supreme comfort on the field was missing. The ability to just take everything in and move and react naturally wasn't there and that really means the difference between excelling and just getting by. Come regionals, I need to excel again.
On a positive note, my legs and lungs held out the entire time, and while I was puffing after a few of the longer points, I was able to recover and get back out there. And though I'm a little sore in spots the day after, for the most part, I feel good and strong and ready for the speed and agility workouts to come.
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