Yale Cup 2009

Our second tournament of the spring! 6+ years up here and I still can't get used to how late the season starts up north.

So briefly, on Saturday we had 7 players, and the format was pool play for 3 rounds, then the 2s and 3s crossover. Therefore, we decided to win all 3 games and thus avoid playing the 4th. Results: 11-7 vs Yale, 11-4 vs NYU (were down 0-3 to start), and 10-9 vs Tufts (we were up 8-4? at half... stopped playing man D).

Sunday we had 2 more show up, and played Brown in the quarterfinals, with a come from behind win of 4 straight points to make it 9-8 and get into semis, which then let us avoid playing 4 games on Sunday. Semis was vs Vermont - they were doing a better job of breaking our zone, and I think our fatigue also started showing a little more because we kept getting beat to the open side in man. Final score 13-7; we didn't score after half.

Things that got better: trap zone D, playing against a zone (trap, 4 man cup), reading, catching. The cup in particular started understanding how to press as a solid wall, and to sprint only when sealing the break. The short deep and wings also learned to take away the easy options and force hard throws to break the zone.

Catching was actually a strong suit compared to other teams. I think both in the NYU and Brown games, our opponents were dropping the disc much more frequently than us. Reading improved as well; I remember maybe one instance only where a player poorly read the disc.

Our offense on a transition also worked a lot better when our cutters would attack deep and then come back under for the big gainers. We had been walking to the disc and allowing the defense to set, but when we started pressing on a turnover, it opened up much more on defense and cleared out poaches.

Things to improve: Endzone when we are trapped, maintaining spacing on offense, man defense.

Endzone in a trap situation had many turns, which I think were due to poor options upfield and looking too late at the dump. We worked on it at practice today, and I think it is dramatically improved. Looks chaotic, but it's pretty effective.

Creating space on offense is a higher level skill which is difficult to teach. We had been doing double cuts, and not clearing properly, or spacing our cutters out to maintain 1-on-1 matchups. Today we worked on it, and I think they did better when cued to face sideways so they could see both the thrower and the other cutters, and also to clear away from the direction of the dump throw.

Man defense... oy. So I have a beef with man defense in general, which I will write about shortly, but at the very least we need to be able to remember the force and to protect the force side as downfield defenders. Too many people were biting on fakes to the break side, or not setting up/maintaining the buffer to the force side.

I also learned this weekend that sMITe does not do well with getting yelled at. Haven't tried it before with this team, but they respond much better to positive feedback. Not a huge surprise, but good thing to know before actually being in an important game.

Overall, I am impressed by how well we played, and how much we were able to learn and improve. I have also determined that it's impossible to figure out how we stand vs other teams this early in the season. Sectionals is going to be interesting since we wouldn't have seen many of the teams in our section.

hatch 2009

Rookie year is up and gone. Now it's time to buckle down and figure out what hatch 2009 is going to accomplish.

This is my vision:

I want to build a team that plays as a team. I want to encourage an offense that is self-less, an offense that rewards players who act for the benefit of the team. I want to reform man defense and create a team that truly plays 7-on-7 defense, where players are astute and verbal enough to help each other out and stymie the opponent.

The cornerstone is communication coupled with field sense, built on a basis of trust in each other.

The last part will develop over the course of the season as they train, practice and play together. As for the first two parts, much of that can be taught/developed, but there has to be the desire and the potential for more. I will thus be looking for players who demonstrate capability with communication and field sense, or show promise in those areas.

Tryouts start in June. What will the future bring?

Defending the dump

The first principle of defense is to dictate: by your positioning and reactions, force the dump in a predetermined direction. That eliminates much of the guesswork involved with playing D and allows you to anticipate the movement of the offense.

In applying this to the dump, your choices generally become defending the up the line or defending the around. If the dump goes up the line, she both gains yardage and has momentum moving into a power position. If you force her to go around, she may have a break side look depending on the amount of separation achieved. Your choice then should depend on your knowledge of the other team's preferences as well as your own team's expectations of what to defend.

For me, I would generally rather give up the behind/around dump than the up the line. That means that I initially set up a smidgen more downfield than the dump, and about 2-3 yards closer to the disc. As the dump makes the cut up the line to the force side, I need to stay slightly more force side than the dump, as well as maintain my positioning between her and the disc.

It's important, too, to check back with the disc. As you pass behind the mark, it's a good time to glance at the thrower to see if they're preparing to throw the disc - or have already thrown the disc. Many a defender has been burned by discs flying sight unseen over their shoulders, all the while thinking, man, I had her covered!

However, I do mean "glance." If you turn fully towards the thrower, you end up turning your hips away from your cutter and thus lose sight of her. You have no idea, for a moment, of where the dump is and where she is going. Is she continuing with the up the line cut? Did she plant and go back for the around? Keep your hips oriented towards the dump, and turn your head to the disc, and all will be accounted for.

So now that you've denied the up the line, the dump is likely going to attempt getting the disc towards the break side. She will probably have a slight advantage going that side, but you have already made the decision to force her that direction. Your next priority as a dump defender is to then stop any further break side flow of the disc. If you have no play on the throw to the dump, then change course and get between the dump and the break side continue, looking to first seal off the around break, and then as you move in, the inside break. It's the same principle as playing a point in the zone cup - look to take away the continue throw, and then move in to set up the mark. Contain, contain, contain.

question this

I've rethought our endzone offense recently. No, I'm not going to detail it on here yet - I'll wait until my teams have a chance to try it out in games first - but there's something that's bugging me.

I think about the game a decent amount. Between playing and coaching, I do a fair amount of thinking about strategy and things like that. So why has it taken me this long to actually question the standard endzone offense?

Endzone as we know it is bunk. Everyone knows what's coming - we have the cut(s) from the back, then it's dump/swing and hit the break from the back of the stack, and repeat. If you're decent at defense at all, the force side cuts are completely covered, and the endzone has to rely upon the dump/swing to open up options break.

I remember how excited I'd get when my team would actually run endzone as dictated. Not because we scored, but because it was so rare that our endzone offense would go as planned. Is that the way endzone should be? No! This is where we want to be 100% - where the offense is clicking and everyone knows exactly what their role is, and perform it. This should have been a sign that endzone needs to be reconfigured.

The thing is, I don't remember a time when I've learned anything else. Everyone, somehow, has settled upon the same sort of idea for the default endzone offense. That, I think, has made it seem untouchable. If the best teams in the nation play it this way, who am I to say we should do something different?

But that's the problem. I'm not doing my players justice if I don't question these things. As their coach, I need to be thinking about how to capitalize on their special qualities, and maximize their potential for scoring. And I think that we all need a reminder that there's always room for improvement - even in the most basic elements of the game.

Setting a trap zone

There are few things I dread more than being trapped on the sideline in zone with a strong crosswind. Add in a large mark and, yeah, I'm a little intimidated. First of all, I've only got half the field to throw to because of the sideline. Then add in 3 other people stationed around me, and pressure on the dump. Cap it all off with wind blowing into my face if I try to break, and it's a recipe for disaster.

That's the beauty of the trap zone. Sure, it's riskier than the normal force middle zone because you overload your defense on the trap side, but the reward is higher as well.

There are several different ways to run a trap zone, but the general principle is to force the disc towards the sideline, and then set the trap so that the offense has difficulty moving the disc back off the sideline.

To do this, the cup must adjust to a more flat orientation, enticing the thrower to take the easy pass towards the sideline, and denying any passes to the break side. We give up a small amount of yardage up the field in order to push the disc towards our largest defender - the sideline. Once there, the cup shifts into the trap formation, and specifically pressures the dump to make it difficult to break out of the trap.

The down field defenders shift towards the trap side as well: the trap wing acts as a fourth member of the cup and takes the sideline in. The short deep covers whoever is behind the cup, and has help from the off-side wing who pinches towards the middle. The deep shifts towards the trap side as well, because while the orientation of the cup allows trap-side hucks, break hucks need to be high and floaty to get over the cup, and therefore she has enough time to make a play if it goes up.

Now, what happens if the cup gets broken? It's just like man - because most defenders are on the trap side of the field, the entire zone needs to be sprinting to seal off the break and taking away the next throw. This creates a defense of 2 speeds - a steady solid wall pushing towards the trap, and if it gets broken, everyone sprinting to recover.

Lastly, trap is also vulnerable near the endzone, as it is not as stringent about denying yards up field as other zones. So make sure you have a vocal deep to call out the transition to man, and call it early.