Mardi Gras Tournament as seen by Gravy

16 Mama?s made the 13 hour drive to Mardi Gras. Iggy was still injured and could not play, so our roster was: Jan, Cho, Crabill, Kelvin, Pat, Molter, Noah, Kolb, Gravy, OB , Rob G, Max, Railz, Bockelman, and Greg. We were seeded 5th in one of the three power pools behind Wisconsin , Texas A&M, LSU, Florida St. in that order.

Our first game was against Wisconsin , who won College Nationals in 2003. They were a deep team that made us fight hard for everything. Our offense looked okay at times against their strong defense, except that we had quite a few turnovers near our goal line that should have been easy scores. We only had one huck completed (Kolb to Gravy) and didn't attempt many others that I remember. We lost 3-13. They are definitely on a different level than we are at this time.

After a second round bye we faced Florida St . They had just finished a close game with Wisconsin (our final 3 pool games were against teams who had just played Wisconsin ). We came out strong early and took half at 7-3 maybe? They played zone against us for a few points, and to take half Greg ran past their monster (Steven-their best player and definitely one of the best college players in the country) and Gravy hucked it to him. Greg made a great play on the disc catching it near the goaline for what he called a score. Their monster strongly disagreed, so after some discussion Greg tapped it in and threw a score. We made a strong run to open the second half, but we were at game-point while they scored 3 in a row. We won 13-7?

Our next game was against the home team LSU. Once again we came out strong. Jan played strong defense against their best player, sacrificing his nuts on a D in the endzone. Just a few points later they tried to throw this guy a hammer while Gravy was guarding him-not knowing that he reads hammers in his sleep and it was a sure D. We scored a few points in a row, Then OB got a partial hand block that turned into a Molter Callahan to take half 7-3. The second half was a totally different story. We were still playing hard every possession, but we made A LOT of bad decisions on offense and had some execution errors. We only scored 2 points in the second half, losing 9-13.

Our last pool play game was against Texas A&M. We needed a win to be in contention for 2 nd in our pool and a loss could leave us in last. A&M had 2 superstar players that carried their team. We had a lot of good long looks in this game. We took half 7-6 and the second half was just as close. Both teams looked fatigued near the end of the game, with A&M winning 11-13.

Our pool was pretty tough, and every game except Wisconsin was a hard-fought battle to the end. A few minutes after our game had finished and most of us had our cleats off, the TD came over to inform us that we had a play-in game right away against Air Force who went undefeated in their pool in the B division. A lot of us were very fatigued and already sore from our 4 power pool games, so we were not happy that this game was not mentioned on the schedule. There was no captain's meeting in the morning either. In fact I am pretty sure that all of the teams from the A bracket that had to play a 5 th crossover game on Saturday lost that game.

We went and played against an Air Force team that was much more fresh than we were. They didn't have any star players, just a bunch of guys that had decent throws and ran hard, plus a smart-ass coach that seemed to be on the field every-other point to argue with us. We had no long-game at all because we were so tired. We came out very slow and they took half 3-7? In the second half we stepped up the intensity and made it a game. Crabill had just caught his 3 rd score in a row when he was basically tackled at the knees by an Air Force player. Jan was letting them know that they made a dangerous play and that wasn't cool and they just responded by saying “It's a game, people get hurt.” Crabill sprained his MCL? and wasn't able to play the rest of the tournament, which was too bad because he played really well on saturday. We battled back to tie it at 13, making it a game to 15. They scored the next 2 points to win it. Losing put us as the #1 seed in the B Bracket.

Our first game Sunday was against Birmingham St . They ran some zone against us which we owned. Max skied somebody in the endzone. Our trio of rookies made several good plays as they saw a good amount of PT this game. We won 13-5?

Our next game was against Truman St. who picked up a few U Chicago players. We started this game late but it didn't last too long. We won, they had about 3 and we had something between 8 and 13.

Next up was Tennessee in the Semi's of the B bracket. Both teams were worn down but UT just didn't seem to want to run with us. Derek played pretty hard against us, barely coming up short on a couple D attempts while guarding Gravy. Molter played some great D against their top players. Kolb caught several hucks in this game also. We won something like 13-7?

B bracket finals was against Arkansas . Gravy didn't play after the first couple points because he literally couldn't run anymore. In fact many people were hurting and unable to play a lot. They were a very tall team but we kept it close. They won 8-10 after the cap.

We played some tough competitive games this weekend, and our rookies had a great time at Bourbon St . FYI, OB is currently leading the nation in footblocks, so come to Collegiates to see if he can keep his average up.

Gravy

Great Pictures by Max & Iggy