Spring 2023

The Bigler Bugler

Spring 2023

After the rains and wind at regionals.

When last we saw the men of happy valley…. We showed up at 8 pm the Monday after spring break, ready to flex, and of course, Club Sports forgot to show up and open the gates.  We did rally the troops and scurried over to West Turf for some ‘pickup’ play. And away we went.  Mostly. There were definitely a couple nights that admin forgot to let us into the fields, etc. But it was nice to be on a full field.

Next up we played the Atlantic Coast Open. Saturday was big windy, and sometimes very rainy.  Like, I’m not sure how they were able to continue to use the fields but they were pretty sandy and drained quite well.  We rolled on Saturday against the George Mason, Richmond, Navy and Johns Hopkins. On Sunday we hit a speed bump in the quarters vs. Virginia Tech, digging ourselves a hole to go down 8-4 before mounting a furious comeback that would fall just short 13-12.  VT would go on to lose to Duke in the finals 13-12. We won out in consolation to go 7-1 and finish fifth. We struggled with execution in the game, and frankly VT played pretty well. 

West Penn Sectionals was held here on April 21 and 22, 2023.  With heavy rains forecast for late Saturday, and Sunday, we worked to get the tournament done in 1 day. This lead to a very fun night game vs our good friends from Morgantown (WVU).  By this point we’d had more practices (17) at Bigler in one month of spring practices  than we’d had the entire 2.5 months of winter, and the work showed.  In our 15-3 victory over WVU we played arguably our most complete game of the year. We had a total of 6 turns, and our offense had only 1, a first point miscue that we corrected en route to a 100% hold rate.  Defense only failed to convert 1 opportunity and only had 5 turns while scoring 12 goals, running 3 completely even lines – the smash bros. (™).  And we followed it up in the morning with a 15-0 run against Edinboro to set up our 2nd game of the season vs CMU. 

For Context, CMU had defeated us in pool play in 2022 sending us into the dirt road.  We may have thought we were better in 2022, and paid the price (though we would get further down that dirt road to finish 4th in the region in 2022).   A win would likely secure the two seed as CWRU had upset OSU the week prior in Sectionals. Having handled them easily in the wind of Fishbowl, and flush from our run through WVU and Edinboro, we may have been a bit big for our britches coming into this game. And certainly, the forces of nature provided served as a harbinger for our hubris as light rain but steady wind  kicked up right as the first pull went up. 

Hindered by a series of unforced errors, we got dragged down into the mire of some ugly huck and hope and had turn after turn. We had 18 turns in a first half that saw us down 6-2, and 7-4. We had plenty of miscues with the disc, and then in transition were slow to orbit and paid the price as CMU capitalized with an aggressive long game that scored frequently, and when it missed, forced us to work the length of the field.  A loss in this game would set us into a dirty dirty regional battle. Down 7-4 at half, with a time cap looming because of the short rounds for the single day format, our backs were against the wall.  And, in my opinion, this was the moment when the 2023 team truly found it’s identity, and this might have been the first signature win of the season for us.  We didn’t waste a lot of time with the rah rah, we just knew we’d have to do it on D. By this time we had a pretty diverse defensive package, but if memory serves we just locked them up, and then ruthlessly scored when we got the disc on the way to scoring 5 straight breaks in windy, now rainy conditions.  We’d talked all season about how ‘we some dawgs’. But in that moment, to quote Jerry West, 

"I was not afraid. Everyone talks about being a 'dog.' Well, I was a wolf. I used to eat dogs." - Jerry West.

Last on the day was National powerhouse Pitt.  For context 10 of the last 15 national titles have been won by Carleton, UNC and Pitt, and while it’s been a few years for Pitt, 15 - 20 years of regional dominance, and 2 national titles is nothing to scoff at.  The game was not particularly tight (15-5) but they felt our bite. Long, multiple turn points forced them to play their starters for the game, and I treat it as a sign of respect that at the very least they treated us as worthy of that. And we held our heads high, and fought the whole time.  We weren’t happy with losing, or accepting, but we were growing as a team every moment.

Regionals May 6,7 2023, Columbus Ohio.
Alums - hit me up for a good story about the kind of dodgy hotel we stayed in at regionals.  It’s a good laugh.

We rolled into regionals as the 2 seed1 overall, in a pool with Lehigh, Westchester and Toledo.  We’d done some pretty radical line re-tooling post sectionals as leadership was in agreement that we were kind of bumping up against our ceiling, and to have any shot at nationals we needed to take a risk.  So we moved some Oline/Dline guys around acknowledging that it could lower our floor, but that it was time roll the dice. (And we were hardly in panic mode - we’d worked 10-12 guys through on O at times over the season, and everyone on our team new our defensive packages). 

And Regionals was our time in the sun.

We knocked off Westchester 13-2 on 11 turns, and Toledo 13-4 on 8 turns.  Our O line went 8/8 with 2 turns for a 0.25 turns per point scored. Our 3 even d-lines (Charizard, Mario, Sonic) rolled, giving every player valuable playing time, and letting us treat the weekend as a campaign.  The even d-lines did have some turns, w/ a 1.1 turn per point scored vs Westchester, and 0.7 turns per point vs Toledo, but our depth rolled.2

Lehigh would give us a test. We’d not seen them since Fall Phlng where they played loose, and poorly.  At regionals however they came in as the 7th seed (and would finish an even more respectable 6th after defeating CMU in consolation). We were probably 2 point favorites, but they’d clearly spent the season defining roles, and developing an effective zone and a stingy core of kill line players.3 O-line had 8 turns on 9 goals; and a super stingy lehign team playing their top guys both ways capitalized. We completed 98% of our passes for the O-line, they just forced us into a lot of throws against a well honed zone line, and we were perhaps a little softened up after the toledo and westchester games.  Down 5-6 we finally woke up and ran off 4 straight before just trading out to end the game. We’ve never done saturday hotel meetings, and didn’t break that pattern, but did talk after the day that we needed to come out hard vs. CMU in the quarters.

Quarters was warm, but steady rain, and breezy. But we were ready for CMU’s ‘huck game', and focused as a team. The hucks, and the conditions led to some turns and not the cleanest play, but we were game for the situation, and our O-line had a perfect 100% hold rate, and the D-lines 34% break rate lead to a comfortable 15-10 win.  We were a bit sloppy, w/ 1.2 turns per point scored for both O and D, but that reflected the conditions more than anything. 

The Semis had us facing CWRU. While we were the on-paper favorites, no one in the country saw us as favored over either Case or OSU. They’d lost a star early in the year, but were lead by an incredibly talented duo in Mikey O’Brien and James Kennelly.  Their large and vocal sideline would be supported by their women’s team and plenty of parents. Ane none of the Clevelanders seemed particularly interested in staying back from the sideline. Spank took a 6-4 lead before CWRU started consistently loading their lines up.  3 turns later  later, and we went into a time shortened half down 7-6.  Case broke again out of half.  We countered by trotting out our d-line to play O, down 8-6 (callback: this d-line had lots of guys who’d played O all year) who stopped the bleeding, before we unleashed a flurry of our own. In the second half we rolled, outsourcing CWRU 8-3 on 3 total turns. Case was very good.  But we played a great game.  Despite holding at only 70% because of Case's quick strikes to take their mid game lead, our O was very efficient with only 5 turns on 7 goals scored for 83% turns per point; and our d was equally efficient, with 0.88 turns per point (and a 55% break rate).  The final was 14-10.4

Unfortunately we fell short in the Finals, losing 15-7 to a pitt team that would eventually be upset by Vermont  in the quarters of nationals. At the end of the day, that loss stings, but growth is not linear, and the guys have a lot to be proud of. There were time in the season where we could have folded (CMU at Sectionals, Case at regionals) but we really battled through it.  A winter of being stuck on indoor turf doesn’t inherently  make things fun, but these guys worked to build systems and depth, and most importantly, they really grew to support each other and become a team that looked inward to focus on ourselves, and learned to avoid distractions.

We finished 24-9 on the regular season, with our only losses once we were able to practice outside coming to VaTech, and Pitt. While nationals was the goal, we did get some nice individual accolades with Shane Donaher making all region (From Ultiworld: “A selfless switch to the D-line helped Spank punch in key breaks at regionals and showed off impressive defensive abilities as well.”), and a second team nod for Mike Dzelzgalvis, as well as Ohio Valley Rookie of the year Doug Hoyer (“Thrust into a starring role on offense and defense at times, Hoyer’s athleticism stood out as he made plays in the deep space all season long.”).

Which brings us to 2023-2024.  The 30th anniversary of the team name.  The theme: Unfinished business.  (At least that’s my working name.  The guys got to stoke their own hype train).

Thanks Seniors!

1 Ohio State was the definitive 2 seed in the Ohio Valley for the season.  They’d traveled to the big tournaments, and clearly hoped to ‘win a bid’ to nationals in the beloved, but sort of specious rankings system USA (formerly UPA) uses.  But they’d come up short after a disastrous easterns campaign, so the OV would have one bid.  Then at the OHIO sectionals, they’d gotten shocked by a really talented CWRU team with 3 kind of all-american types and a solid commitment to the bit that also had nationals aspirations early before losing a key player and spending all season working in new players. Because case beat OHIO, we got the 2nd regional seed as the 35th ranked team in the country, CWRU got the 3rd seed as like the 45th ranked seed, and OSU would be in the 4th position ranked around 25th in the country.  Them’s the breaks.

2 Starting at ACO, we really embraced the ideology that we are a d-out team. Every single player on the team had a defensive line, and a defensive role, as we had 3 d-lines of about 9 each. So the O-line guys got some rest, but also got to use their teeth and claws. It also helped get breaks.  In general seemed a successful unifying plan..

3I hate the rankings. I think they just don’t have the true connectivity outside the top teams since ‘the have-nots’, and teams that are resource poor struggle to raise in the rankings in the late season to earn bids. I’m a voice crying in the wilderness, but my model would be to use gerrymandering software to redistrict the USAU every year to be 8 regions with 2 auto-bids (shrinking from 10), then use the algorithm to allocate the remaining 4 bids so you do get that ‘top’ talent that can be pretty even.  

4Funny story about the time cap, and an injury delay  in that game.  Ask me later.