Battle of the High Seas - Coast Guard vs Navy

Or more aptly, battle on the concrete fields of Anacostia between the Coast Guard and Navy teams last night with those of the smaller boats but longer hucks prevailing 15-10 as the sun was beginning to set and we were closing in precariously on “Taps, taps, lights out”.

The Buzzards were represented last night by Annette, Bill, Bob, Brad, Howard, Jason, Jeff, Jeana, Karl, Kelly, Leroy, Meaghan, Paul, Reagan, & Todd. We also had somewhat of a cheering section show up…welcome Connie, Elena, Stephanie & her Basset Hound that I’ve forgotten the name of, hopefully she won’t be offended…I mean I did offer her one of the leftover Italian sausages from the grill as we were leaving last night.

Arriving at the field yesterday evening, we found the wind to be blowing fairly well and thought we might have to rely more predominantly on a short passing game. For those of you keeping score at home and who have watched the Buzzards once or twice before you know we tend to like to throw long occasionally. We…well I say we, but really I was outvoted on this…decided also to stick with zone defense which apparently worked phenomenally in my absence Monday night. And it worked fairly well tonight too (more on that in a bit).

With another great turnout we had a full A & B squad for substitutions plus 1 additional women so there was no excuse for getting tired. But we started slow and struggled to find a passing rhythm with the first rotation and at first substitution we were down 0-2. The B team came in feeling energized and quickly got two scores – both to Howard – after needing to learn the hard way that one of the Navy players, Ben I believe his name was, had a wingspan similar to some small planes and was knocking down passes thrown anywhere near him.

At any rate, I heard Howard as we were coming off the field saying “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to say again that I’m so far responsible for 100% of my team’s scoring?”

The A team got back on the field and settled down some and found their scoring groove finally with some nice short passing in the lanes. Jason made some really nice catches in traffic, Brad did a great job last night of cutting back to Karl & Jeff and giving them that extra short option as the Navy did a good job of clogging the middle up most of the time.

On the defensive front, Meaghan was a nuisance all night long for the Navy handlers while she was playing cup and getting great marks and forces on almost every drive making them work extremely hard for their points. With such good pressure at the point we were able to defend the deep really easily and I think they may have only gotten 1-2 points that way all night and both of those may have actually been mistakes as one was tipped and the other sailed over the intended receiver and fell into the hands of somebody else as Todd and I crossed in front of each other in the end zone.

Meanwhile, we were able to connect on a few long passes from time to time to compliment our short passing. Paul also, like Brad, continually gave Todd and I another outlet on the short passing game and opened up the back so that we could find Jeana, Howard, & Leroy at times on the wings or headed into the end zone.

We also saw Annette sneaking open in the end zone several times on one possession. Well, when I say we, I mean those of us on the sideline as apparently her teammates on the field couldn’t see her through all the less vertically challenged players in front of her.

Reagan & Kelly were also giving the handlers great passing lanes to work with even though we didn’t always see them. Todd’s mom, Connie, remarked on the sideline at one point “Is there a reason you aren’t throwing to them?”

Todd and I explained somewhat sheepishly “It’s not really intentional”.

“We just aren’t very good sometimes on our field vision.”

Last night also turned out to be a good learning opportunity for several rules. “Pick” was called a couple times on the Buzzards last night. We had to give the Navy friendly reminders that they were well in excess of the 70 seconds allotted before the receiving team must signal they are ready for the pull. If you are the pulling team you have 90 seconds to release after a score and that was also being liberally extended.

Another rule that we don't often enforce is that the person who retrieves the disc on an out of bonds turnover must also be the person who puts it in play. The Navy called us on that last night and most of our players weren't sure what was going on but they were correct in the call.

We had several sideline and end zone line calls that were disputed to some degree or another with a friendly reconciliation on all but the one end zone call which seemed to get a little testy before we were all able to settle down and agree to replay from the point of the throw. Nobody got verbally abusive and there didn’t seem to be any lasting hard feelings so kudos to both teams for ultimately ceding to the Spirit of the Game.

We finally got off the field last night on a long throw to Bob in the middle of the field that he had to make a great adjustment on and then he threw the follow on pass to Karl in the end zone who had to make another great adjustment and grab to end the game.

The Buzzards again found themselves on the short end of the unofficial tally for best end of game cheers but went home with a win nonetheless.