DoG 2005: It’s a blog world, after all

Month			Tournament	Finish	Notable Wins/Losses
	Comments
March			Terminus	5-1, 3^rd/4^th	L to Potomac
	The team picks up some Twisted Metal players to sweep pool play and then lose in the semis.
May			White Mountain Open	3-3, 3^rd/4th 6-1, 2^nd	L to TMU (3), Chuck Wagon
	Chuck Wagon joins the ranks of Brooklyn and Amherst in the “These guys beat DoG?!?!” class. The team splits into two, each with about four DoG guys and a bunch of tryouts who wouldn’t make it to Easterns. Twisted Metal beats each half en route to the title.
			Pike Invite	4-2, 3^rd/4^th	L to Pike, Potomac
	Don’t know, didn’t go.
June		Easterns		6-0, 1^st		Beat SZ by 2 in semis, Pike by 1 in finals
	We are 10 yards away from winning the game when Casey calls timeout just in time for a thunderstorm to touch down, causing a 45 minute rain delay. After another 10 minutes of warm-ups and 30 seconds of play, the game is over. I begin to suspect that our once-fearsome long game is no more when we can’t complete 75% of long passes downwind in a drill where there is no defense. First tournament victory ever for Kevin (and #98 for me). There was one point in the quarters with at least five turnovers per team. Later, Lyn was trying to ingratiate himself with Alex and me, and noted, "Well, the important thing is that the three of us weren't in that point." "No," I corrected him, "the important thing is that Alex and I weren't in that point. It's ironic that you weren't in that point." Al and I chuckled like schoolgirls about that one.
August		Colorado Cup		5-3, 2nd		L to Bravo (2), Kaos
	Jim’s Callahan goal sparks us to a close win over SubZero in the de facto semis, then we lose a meaningless (other than yet another team removed from the “Phil Mickelson” list) last round pool play game to Kaos. Bravo beats us pretty good in the finals, although one punk on their team thinks it’s cool to try to throw a thumber huck. One month into his marriage, FCM “accidentally” leaves his wedding ring on the rental car keychain.
			Chesapeake Open	4-2, 5^th/8th	L to Ring, Chain
	And Chain finally beats DoG after 11 years of trying. Their previous best effort, as anyone ever remotely associated with Atlanta ultimate will tell you, was at Tuneup in about 1995 when Stu sorta almost calls a timeout but doesn’t, Mooney sorta thinks he does, and Steve calls the play back after they go down the field and score. Chain turns it, we score, we win a close one. Just say, “How about that timeout call” to Rob and see his squirm. Big loss to Ring in the quarters.
September			Labor Day	3-3, 4^th	L to Sockeye, Doublewide, Condors
	Similar to Colorado Cup, in that our final placing is acceptable but our record and some other peripherals are not. Benefitted from a weak pool and a weak Furious team (only guy I recognized was Al-Bob) to make semis, where we played our worst game ever (only contender was the 17-6 Regionals loss to Cojones in 1995) in the semis, losing to Condors 15-4. On the bright side, my 84 year old aunt and my cousin got to see their first-ever ultimate games after hearing for years about it. I got to demonstrate to them from about five yards away what an open-side point block looks like, in fact. But the true bright side was that no matter how we did, the other teams looked eminently beatable.
			Sectionals	5-0, 1st
	We open up a 2-3 goal lead over Twisted and gradually expand it to 5 before giving a couple back at the end. Nth consecutive Sectionals championship for the top-seeded Boston team, dating back to probably the mid-80s.
October			Regionals	4-0, 1st
	I was actually a little fearful that we wouldn’t qualify for Nationals, right up until we actually won. Twisted has the lead on us late in the first half, but we get a break and then open up a few goal lead. Final score was the same as at Sectionals, but it seemed closer. Twisted then beat Goat for the #2 spot.
November			Nationals	4-3, 3^rd/4^th	L to Sockeye (2), Furious
	We actually could have won this thing. We fell apart late against Furious on Day 1 and lost a tight one to Sockeye on Day 2, while winning potentially losable games against Chain and Twisted Metal, along with the first drubbing administered by DoG at Nationals in some time (15-3 over San Diego). This put us up against perpetual quarterfinalists Johnny Bravo in our first elimination round. The O scored to start, the D ran off four in a row, and with the exception of consecutive upwind breaks late in the first half, the teams traded out for a 15-10 win. The D played a great first half, while the O didn’t turn it over in the 2^nd half (and only once in the first) to provide our closest approach to a good full game. In the semis against Sockeye, everyone struggled going upwind, and a little downwind, too. The game was 10 times closer than the official UPA writeup would have you believe, but we ended up on the short end. Sockeye would go on to have a terrible game in the finals and lose by 1 or 2 (who can keep track anymore?), although not as bad as the Mixed or Women’s teams.
49-18, 3 victories, 2 finals loss, 5 semis losses, 1 other Blogs become common to ultimate. It feels like a successful season, but the record was the worst ever, and there was really only one big victory, a quarterfinal win over a team that always loses in the quarterfinals. I didn’t think this team was going anywhere for a long time, but we pulled through just fine. Lifetime:  609-102, 63 titles, 21 2^nd, 17 3^rd/4th, 9 other.