My exposure to competitive Ultimate, a D3 tournament in Beloit, WI, vaulted me down a fast-track of learning, loving, and living at levels rarely experienced previously. In 10 months I transformed from a bare-foot pick-up player, running around aimlessly with his high-school band friends, to a college regionals competitor who spent most all of his free time watching game footage and highlight reels, writing blog posts, and reading Win the Fields every morning with my coffee [thanks, Zak!]
Within those several months were particular events that will stick with me forever: winning the game-to-go to Regionals, my first tournament experience, countless interactions with new teammates and friends. There was one day, though, where I witnessed something that turned my sports world upside down. It came on the weekend of my college’s [Northern Illinois University] indoor tournament.
Again, I’ll start by stating that I am by no means a stats expert and that these stats are subject to human error.
That said, I think my methods were more efficient for this game [compared to the game featuring The Philippines], and I also took down more information.
Additionally, on this free WordPress blog, I don’t have access to Table plug-ins, so the information can’t be displayed at an interactive level. I will leave a download link to the spreadsheet of stats, however, so people can look at things on their own and create tables, create new stats with the provided numbers, and so on.
Lastly, this is going to be a very fluid piece: fixes will be made, charts updated, and insights added. Other people will provide different opinions/information that can and will be included.
As I sit in my Air BNB bedroom-for-a-night, my mind is stamped with images of 2015 Oregon Fugue Callahan nominee Beth Kaylor laying out huge for a catch. She would find contact, but the catch fell off her fingertips.
The play represent the game in it’s entirety: Portland Schwa, while falling behind to Traffic 8-5 at half, had the game within their reach, eventually tying it at 11-11. They would fall short, as Traffic got their act together, and found another two breaks to close the game out and win 15-12.
Easily the best game of the day, Schwa and Traffic played wonderfully, especially on defense. I can count on one hand the number of “free” cuts/catches/throws each team had. There was high pressure being applied by every player on field. Schwa showed a ton of talent in their second half efforts, and I’d say they have the second highest ceiling in the region, performance wise. The problem is, they don’t play at their peak as much as Traffic does. While Traffic had several unforced turnovers in the second half to open the door for the Schwa comeback, the rest of their game was really solid, holding on offense really quickly and efficiently, and forcing several punts/high stall bailouts from Schwa on defense. It’s an interesting dynamic, from both teams, and it will be interesting to see where it nets them tomorrow.
Outside of that game, the day saw just one upset: Wavz beating Elevate 12-10. Every other game went heavily in favor of the higher seed.
Now, we have our Sunday scenarios:
Championship Bracket
Again, I’m high on Schwa’s talent if they play the best game of their lives, but that will be hard to do on the first day of a Sunday against World Champions Seattle Riot.
Traffic / Underground will be a good indicator of Underground’s status compared to Schwa. Can Underground challenge Traffic the same way Schwa did? That could give us some insight into the probable 3rd/4th place game-to-go.
I didn’t see Riot play at all today, and if word on the sidelines was correct, they are missing Jaclyn Verzuh and Gwen Ambler. If that’s the case for Sunday, maybe Traffic can push for the title themselves, but Riot is definitely the favorite.
Probable Outcome: Riot over Schwa, Traffic over Underground, and Riot over Traffic for the region title.
3rd Place Bracket, and Game-To-Go
Grind/Wavz could go either way, although Wavz only had 9 players on Saturday, and will probably struggle to close out games tomorrow.
LoCo/Elevate should go to Seattle, as they had the better showing today, but Elevate has only gotten better with time.
Regardless, the winners of the first rounds of the 3rd place bracket will run (likely) run into Underground and Schwa, which probably spells the end of those four team’s chances at third. But, crazier things have happened.
Finally, the game we are all waiting for is looking more and more probable as the tournament progresses: Schwa vs Underground in the 3rd place game.
Probable Outcome: Schwa over Underground in the 3rd place game.
How many times did I say “probable” in this piece?
‘In a Position to Win’ is a three part series discussing defensive positioning in Ultimate Frisbee. Part one, ‘Why it Matters’, is an introduction to the concept.
Not only does good positioning fight against the inherent defensive disadvantage (see: Part 1), but it also uses the force created by the handler defender to generate it’s own advantages. It is a proactive approach to defense as opposed to the reactive approach; the “follow the leader” defense that less experienced players employ by simply chasing their mark around the field.
Without good defensive positioning, there is no reason to have a force. Why force someone to throw it to the right side of the field if the down-field defenders are playing on the left side of the field?
With a combination of a force and defensive positioning, the defense creates opposing forces for the offense to overcome: the handler can only throw this way, while the cutters are being forced that way. This idea is the basis of the next In a Position to Win: Part II – Opposing Forces.”
The Goal of Defense
In playing defense, through all sports, players must recognize one simple fact: you can’t stop everything that an offense can/will do. It’s simply impossible. This is particularly important to realize in Ultimate because we play the sport with a really unique piece of equipment: a disc. Players can learn to throw this object in dozens of different ways, and there is no way that we can stop anyone from doing at least one of these throws. Also, as cutter defenders, if we decide to use defensive positioning to not allows the offense to cut to one side of the field, we are then allowing them to cut to the other side. There is always a way for an offense to beat a defense. That will never change, and we must recognize and embrace the idea.
The true goal of defense in Ultimate is this: make things difficult for the offense. Make the player with the disc throw the it where they don’t want to, or throw in a manner that is uncomfortable or risky.; make the offense throw the disc backwards instead of down the field for a yardage gain; make the cutters run to a space that the disc is difficult to get to; make the cutters run hard and long to get to the places that they want to be.
If a defense can make catching and throwing hard, it has a chance to earn the second most important objective in the sport of Ultimate: a break chance. The most important part of Ultimate is scoring goals in general, but where games are truly decided are when the defense can force a turnover and have a chance to score a break. This is essentially a two point swing: the opposition loses their potential goal, and your team gains another. Break points allow teams to score continuous points, or “go on runs”, which can play a huge emotional/psychological role for both teams.
With the opposing forces created by our mark and defensive positioning, we can make this game of throw and catch measurably more difficult.
Opposing Forces
To better understand the idea of opposing forces, let’s take a look at some illustrations of the most common defense in Ultimate: the forehand force.
This first picture shows the basic setup of a forehand force: the handler defender (the ‘mark’) is in a position that is forcing the player with the disc (the ‘handler’) to throw to his forehand side (for a right-handed player). A throw to the forehand side is going to be an easy one for the handler, because the mark is letting it happen. We call this a throw to the ‘open side’. Alternatively, the cutter defender is in a position that forces the cutter to either cut to the other side of the field which the handler can’t throw to (the ‘break side’) or make a difficult move past the defender to the open side. Now we have our opposing forces.
In this scenario, the cutter decides to make a cut to the break side of the field. As shown in the picture, the cutter might be able to create space between himself and the cutter defender, leaving him open for a pass. The handler, however, must now throw the disc around the hands or over the top of the mark (a break throw). While certainly not impossible, this type of throw is more difficult for a handler, and that is what we want as a defense.
In this scenario, the cutter decides to make a cut to the side of the field where the handler can make an easier throw (the ‘open side’ of the field). While the throw might be easy to make, the target is now much more difficult to hit. The cutter defender can’t completely stop a cutter from running in any specific direction, but he can make it hard on him by being in the way of where he wants to go, and the defender is now also staying right with the cutter and would have a great chance of knocking away the disc should it be thrown towards them. Again: making things hard on the offense.
Other Forces
While the forehand force is the most common in Ultimate, it is far from the only defensive strategy. Here are a few of the other defensive forces:
Backhand – forcing the disc to the backhand side [to the offense’s left]. The inverse of the forehand force.
No-Under* – forcing cutters to make deep cuts; not letting the cutters run to the space underneath you (between you and the disc).
No-Big* – forcing cutters to make under cuts; not letting cutters run to the space behind you.
* – these forces require specific marking methods on throwers. Usually, this will involve a “straight-up” mark. This means that the handler defender takes one step off of the mark and is straight in front of him, rather than being on one of his hips when applying a forehand/backhand force. This allows the mark to react to any big throw that the handler might look to make. It allows more space to swing the disc or throw around the mark, but makes deep throws much more difficult.
Advanced
I have been graced by the Canadian gods of Ultimate by having what might be the single best Ultimate strategy/theory video about defense released while writing this post. Alex Davis of Canada’s Furious George created a presentation on defensive positioning for Melissa Witmer’s URCA Conference (Ultimate Results Coaching Academy). It takes almost every thought and topic I have in my head about this topic and visualizes/explains it wonderfully. I’m glad to have it take precedence over the more beginner-based series of posts that I am working on here.
Enjoy:
Conclusion
With opposing forces created by defensive positioning, the defense can achieve it’s number one goal: make things hard on the offense, and create turnovers/break point chances. Opposing forces makes throwers want to go one way, and cutters the other. Without proper positioning, these forces cannot be applied, and the offense is allowed to make easy cuts and throws.
The diagrams show these forces in a simple fashion. However, there is an obvious flaw in our learning so far: we are only involving two people on defense. What happens when we involve seven players on both sides of the disc? Does anything change? If so, what? This is the topic of the next and final installment in the series: In a Position to Win; Part 3 – Team Defense.
There wasn’t the slightest sign of the sun through the dense northwestern fog on that Sunday morning. The artificial turf held in the moisture like a sponge, seeping into my pants as I sat down to lace up my cleats. Despite the characteristically dreary Oregon conditions, I could not be discouraged.
Sunday was my first every competitive Ultimate tryout. I didn’t have to try out for my university team, and I have never attempted to play club Ultimate (yet). My first ever experience came from a professional team located in a city I’ve only lived in for three weeks. As daunting as the scenario may seem on paper, I couldn’t have been more relaxed, because there was just one important goal that I had for that day. It was not to make the team, but rather just to learn.
To understand fully, here’s a little about myself [more can be found in the About page above]: At [nearly] 25 years old, I’ve only been playing college/competitive Ultimate for about 17 months. I’m basically a sophomore in the sport, despite being a little older for such a title. While I am plenty confident in my abilities, I understand the amount of talent around me and the lack of experience that I have. So, I’ve decided to dedicate this year to experience. I am not going to set goals that aren’t reasonable or that are out of my control (like making a professional roster in my first ever tryout). I’m living in a new place and playing a sport at a new level, so this year, I’m just going to sit back, enjoy it, and take away as much as I can.
Anyways, about the tryout:
Not surprisingly, my preparation gave me exactly the information I needed. At the end of the day, I wasn’t surprised or caught off guard by any of the activities the coaches had us do that day, and I was ready to perform for each one specifically.
The day started with dynamic warm-ups as a single unit. We all lined up together and performed each movement together. As a new user of Tim Morrill’s Functional Performance Training modules, I had been studying and performing such movements for a couple weeks, as well as doing daily SMR work. By knowing the purpose of most of the movements we were doing and having done them before, I was able to hone in on the exact muscle groups I needed to engage and put myself in an optimal position to perform that day.
In preparation for tryouts specifically, I’ve spent a lot of time scouring the internet for information from other tryouts; searching for what I could expect to find myself. Reddit yielded a lot of good information. /r/Ultimate is a great resource, and if you aren’t using it for information/entertainment, you damn well should be. The biggest resource, however, was The Huddle’s Issue No. 2: Trying Out. I read each submission very thoroughly, and summarized the issue here. The opinions shared in The Huddle helped me tremendously in finding out what I wanted to accomplish, and how to go about doing so.
Another great preparation was the consumption of Tim Galloway’s The Inner Game of Tennis. This is a game-changing read for athletes of any sport. It really changed the way I approach my game, my practice, and my entire approach to Ultimate. I recommend it to anyone, sport player or not.
After a series of drills and a couple sessions of 7-on-7, the day was over. I think I really succeeded in playing within my own game. Turnovers was my biggest [and only] stat that I cared to record. I had one in a 4-on-4 game, and honestly, that one turnover bothers me. One turnover for an entire day is pretty good, but zero is better. Although I played the game I wanted, I didn’t really show off. I promised myself I wouldn’t go fishing for plays, so I didn’t, and none found me on their own. Again, this is something I am completely okay with. I made safe cuts that needed safe throws, and I played safe defense. In the end, I am truly satisfied with the effort I put in, and I really did enjoy myself a lot.
But I didn’t make the team.
And that is just fine.
I’m happy to be a part of the Stags organization, even if it is just from the stands, and I’m glad I got to be a [small] part of the professional Ultimate scene. Maybe next year I can be a bigger part. But that’s another entry for another day.
Not A Handler 