Athletics

Score: Latin 3 Countryside 11

This was the 2nd game vs. Countryside, but this time we took our Middle School players and 9th graders. Fortunately, we have enough players this Fall to split the squad in order to get more playing experience. Sure we take some beat downs, but the goal is for folks to get better in the long run.

On the plus side of this beat down, we got better throughout the game at getting the disc off the line, attacking the end zone, and picking up their players on defense. Some of our younger players--Patrick Paschal, Eliza Rich, John Kreshon, Jacob Scheinson--got play in their 1st interscholastic game.

Next split squad games will be next week vs. Ardrey Kell HS.

Score: Latin 2 Countryside 13

Not going to sugar coat it--we took a butt-whoopin today. It was the 1st time we've been able to play 7s on a big field, but we can't really use that as an excuse as much as I'd love to.

There were some brighter spots. 1) We got to practice playing a real game against real opponents. 2) We got better as the game progressed. 3) We saw some zone D, so now we're better prepared to handle it. 4) Players like Austin Lancaster, Robert Ditmore, Gray Smith, and Mitchell Brexler were able to make their interscholastic debuts.

The hope is everyone learns from this loss, gets angry at himself, and works on getting better in practices as opposed to becoming emotional wrecks in need of some hugs. There will be chances for revenge in a couple of weeks.

Score: Latin 7 Charlotte 3

Third game of the 3on3 triple-header. This three-game series featured the debuts of 8th graders Eliza Rich and Catherine Lim. Also appearing (for the millionth career time) were Matthew Mace, Marshall Rich, and Dan McFalls.

Score: Latin 7 Charlotte 6

3on3 game two of the triple-header came down to universe point.

Score: Latin 7 Charlotte 4

Another Saturday morning of a 3on3 triple header saw Latin vs. a team of pick up players from Charlotte and friends.

Score: Latin 7 One Man, One Disc 2

Game 3 of the 3on3 triple header played out similarly to game 1. "One Man, One Disc" ran out of gas after its thrilling win in game 2, and they proved, once again, to be a cautionary tale to the Latin players about staying in shape when you reach adulthood.

Score: Latin 6 One Man, One Disc 7

Latin fought hard in what was essentially a game of trading points, but "One Man, One Disc's" sudden roster change came through at universe point to triumph by one in game 2 of the 3on3 triple header.

Score: Latin 7 One Man, One Disc 2

The 1st game of a 3on3 triple-header against the always-tough Latin alumni team, "One Man, One Disc" led by wily veterans Harris Swindell and Jamie Hall. Latin was led by Junior Dan McFalls.

Score: 11-8

We beat Omni in a grudge match that avenged the major beat down they laid on us a couple of weeks ago [not reported here]. Heeding Coach Fox's advice of playing hard, not making dumb decisions, and catching/throwing well paid off as we came from behind to win.

Latin's team, at the moment, is (almost) entirely Middle Schoolers (Jack Meacham is in 5th grade) who will be a dominant force in a couple of years. Meanwhile they continue to improve and play a bunch of games. They're the best team at Latin that no one has seen play.

Score: Latin 8 Weddington HS 3

This was the 6th (and final) round game of the 4on4 tournament held at Latin on Feb. 21st.

Latin played the other half of the Weddington team and beat them down. The final goal for Latin was scored by 6th grader Nova Q, who, upon scoring, was crushed by a Weddington player who weighed 100 pounds more than he.

Score: Latin 8 Dreher HS 1

This was the 5th round game of the 4on4 tournament held at Latin on Feb. 21st.

Dreher HS (Columbia) turned out to be weaker than I thought when I was making up the pools. Nonetheless, we took it to them and gave them a good, old-fashioned beat down.

Score: Latin 2 Providence HS 7

This was the 4th round game of the 4on4 tournament held at Latin on Feb. 21st.

We took a good, old-fashioned beat down at the hands of a very good Providence team that featured many players who play in the adult leagues in Charlotte during the year.

Score: Latin 6 MRMS 1

This was the 3rd round game of the 4on4 tournament held at LAtin on Feb. 21st.

The Marvin Ridge MS team is still developing, but they have a good attitude despite being pounded by every other team.

Score: Latin 2 Charlotte Catholic 8

This was the 2nd round game of the 4on4 tournament held on Feb. 21st at Latin. Catholic, who ended up winning the tournament, was strong featuring three players who have scholarships to play soccer in college next year.

Latin's team for the 4on4 tournament consisted of Junior James JB Butler, Freshman Peter Bowman, 8th graders Vic Davis and Andrew 84 Zuehlke, and 6th graders Alec Lambert and Nova Quaoser.

Score: Latin 5 Weddington HS 5

This was the warm up game at the beginning of the 4on4 Juniors tournament held at Latin on Saturday, Feb. 21st.

The tournament featured an experimental format where all games were played to 23 minutes instead of a point total, which is the Ultimate norm.

Because this game didn't count toward the pool standings, it ended in a tie. Latin came back from 2 down to tie this game, by the way.

Score: Latin 8 Omni Montessori 3

This is the 3rd game we've played vs. Omni, a young developing team. They run hard but are a couple of players short of turning the corner. There was a bitter, strong wind this day, which affected everyone's throws and catches. Latin got good play from 6th graders Adam 47 Kirby, Alec Lambert, and Nova Qaoser. Peter Bowman, the token Freshman, and George Boss and Vic Davis, 8th graders, continued their dominance. This game marked the interscholastic debut of young Wills Thomason, a 2nd grader, and Adythia Suresh, a 4th grader.

Score: Latin 11 and 11, OMS 3 and 1

We played a double header vs. Omni Montessori School. Yeah, you're thinking, "Isn't that an elementary school?" No. They're in the process of adding grades, as Latin did back in the early '70's, so they had some 9th graders with them. We matched their demographics by fielding a team of 6th-9th graders.

OMS brought about ten players to our five, so we played a 5on5 game. More impressively, they brought literally over fifty fans with signs and cheering and stuff. Although our four fans were spirited, they just couldn't compete with the crowd noise.

The scores look like we blew out OMS, but it didn't feel like we were that far ahead since their team ran really hard and had some good defensive plays, but they, at this point, just lack our game experience.

Playing for us were 6th grader Cydne Pennington (who scored about 75% of our points); 8th graders Vic Davis, Mitchell "Edge" Adams, and George Boss; and 9th grader super-handler Peter Bowman.

Score: Latin 13 Fletcher 8 and Latin 13 Fletcher 4

We opened our season with away games at Fletcher after being rained out at home last week.

Both schools split our teams so we could play a Middle School and a Varsity game at the same time.

In the MS game, our 6th graders made their interscholastic debuts and although they're still learning the basics, they appeared to know more than their opponents, which is always helpful. Led by 8th grade veteran Mark "Magic" McAlister and the highly recruited newcomer George Boss, we waxed Fletcher's Middle Schoolers in a victory that can only be described as [insert adjective here]. Other stand outs who want their names included in this summary were 6th graders Cydne Pennington and Austin Lancaster. Final score: Latin 13 - Fletcher 4ish

Before the Varsity game, I emphasized that there was no way we would lose this match and we should go into it overconfident and look past this game to a tougher game coming up on Saturday. How often as a coach do you get the opportunity to say that? Well, I was right. So there. But Fletcher returned some veteran players who actually made it closer than I expected, but we still beat them handily 13-8ish.

We have a bunch of Seniors this year who have an aptitude for Ultimate and will go on to play in college and post-college. Seniors in attendance were Kevin Jamison, David Cato, Jack Landseidel, Patrick Adams, and probably someone else whose name I can't come up with at the moment. Making their Ultimate debuts were Freshmen Peter Bowman and Will Dudley.

Score: Latin 12 Catholic 13

In our final meeting of the semester-long series, the battle between the #7 and #8-ranked teams in the Nation, we came out flat and uninspired like Britney Spears at this year's VMA's. We were better attired and in better shape, though. Catholic played a nearly flawless game for the 1st 8 points, and they went up 6-2. Then things went terribly wrong for them as they kept making unforced errors, and we had the presense of mind to capitalize on their misfortunes (kind of schadenfreude, wouldn't you say?) and scored 3 in a row to go to 5-6. They took half at 7-5. After half, we came out strong and actually were up by two, but mostly we traded points until the score was 12-12, next point wins. In an anticlimactic finish, they scored, so we lost by 1. It was a good game though and featured the full-field debuts of 7th graders Mitchell and Cape. Our team consisted of 5 Middle Schoolers (Mitchell, Cape, Magic, Scott, and 84) and 3 Juniors and Seniors (Patrick A, DRob, and Seth). Here's the latest Top 10 UPA national HS rankings. I think the rankings reset on Jan. 1 for the new year: Dec 13 2007 2:04 # RRI Team W-L State 1) 3198 Paideia HS 24-0 GA 2) 3051 The Northwest School-Boys A 20-0 WA 3) 3005 Columbia HS 34-7 NJ 4) 3000 Pennsbury 53-7 PA 5) 2962 North Hills Boys 30-6 PA 6) 2941 Amherst (ARHS) 20-5 MA 7) 2897 Charlotte Latin 7-4 NC 8) 2894 Charlotte Catholic 3-2 NC 9) 2863 Nathan Hale (Boys Varsity) 12-3 WA 10) 2846 Churchill HS Open Varsity 8-2 OR

Score:

Just a general update.

We've played a series of games this Fall against Charlotte Catholic--playing them about every other week--with mixed success. We also played a doubleheader against Fletcher School in October and won both of those.

In mid-October, we lost the services of Junior Superstar David Cato, who broke his collarbone in the 1st serious on-field Ultimate injury in the 20 years of Ultimate at Latin. And , no, unfortunately he didn't make the catch. He should be back after the Holiday Break, bitter and angry at having had to actually do homework during the afternoons for a couple of months.

On Nov. 17, we hosted the 13th Annual 3on3 Tournament, which was attended by 37 teams from across the southeast. In the Juniors division, Latin fielded two teams.

The A team consisted of Seniors Danny Roberts, Seth Tabor-Woodall, and Rob McAlister with Junior Jack Landseidel and 8th-grade future Superstar Scott Haynes, the younger of the fabulous Haynes brothers. This team lost one game in pool play to Atlanta's Paideia, ranked #1 in the nation and defending Nat'l HS Champs. We beat, however, teams from Lancaster HS, harrisburg, and Charlotte Catholic. In the Semis, we dominated Shelby HS before losing to Paideia again in the Championship game.

The B team consisted of new younger players--some playing Ultimate for only their 4th time--Sophomore Patrick Adams with 7th graders Mitchell Adams, Mitchell's imaginary friend Cabe, and Calvert Smith. I'm not going to lie--they took a pounding all day but built some important character and gained valuable playing experience, which, we all know, is far more rewarding than actual wins.

We'll continue to get games where we can this year. The season will climax with the annual 5on5 Tournament in mid-May.

Here are the Top 10 (out of 581 ranked schools) Nat'l Rankings from the Ultimate Players Association website (www.upa.org):

Nov 29 2007

# RRI Team W-L State
1) 3192 Paideia HS 24-0 GA
2) 3050 The Northwest School-Boys A 20-0 WA
3) 2996 Columbia HS 34-7 NJ
4) 2989 Pennsbury 53-7 PA
5) 2936 North Hills Boys 30-6 PA
6) 2931 Amherst (ARHS) 20-5 MA
7) 2890 Charlotte Latin 7-4 NC
8) 2887 Charlotte Catholic 3-2 NC
9) 2882 Churchill HS Mixed Varsity 9-0 OR
10) 2862 Nathan Hale (Boys Varsity) 12-3 WA

Score: 3-15

Our last game of the day was against Hot Sauce, a coed team from Asheville that finished 6th or 7th at Regionals last Fall.

They struck first. Then we battled back to tie the game at 1-1. After that they scored about a billion in a row by throwing a zone on us, which, as mentioned earlier, we've never practiced this year.

The highlight of the game was when we turned it over, then got the disc back quickly on D. Freshman Ross Calhoun grabbed a 30 yard pass from Michael Parks and then turned to throw another 30 yard pass past a desperate Hot Sauce defender to rookie freshman Peter Lewis for a score that brough us within 12. The defender was good-naturedly ridiculed by both teams for misplaying his position so egregiously. Good times were had by all (except for the defender, whom we'll call "Lane," since that's his name).

All in all, it was a good day for us with one unexpected win and lots of playing experience gained. Now all we need is to find some local high school teams to play.

Score: 15-8

In our 2nd game of the day, we faced MAC, a coed team from Winston who had finished 8th at Regionals last year. So, they've played together for a long time, which, believe me, counts for a lot in Ultimate (and other sports, too, I suppose).

They were faster, older, more experienced than we, so we lost a game that wasn't even close after the 1st 5 points. But the good news is we got to play against a zone defense, which we had never practiced before this year.

Score: 15-14

After only around 8 days of practice, we hosted a small tournament featuring us vs. 3 coed adult teams from Charlotte, Asheville, and Winston-Salem--none of which had any high school players. Our opponents' age combined with our lack of experience (we lost 8 Seniors last year) and lack of practice lead us to believe that we'd get beaten like red-headed step-children all day long.

In our 1st game against Charlotte's brand-new coed team, the Frito-Layouts, we traded points to 4-4 or 5-4, when they quit throwing it away and we started choking. They took half at 8-4 and may have scored 1st in the 2nd half to put us down 9-4.

Then our lack of game experience kicked in, and we didn't know enough to panic, so we whittled away at their lead until the score was 14-14--next point wins. We then scored and won. Who scored? Who threw the score? I wish I could remember, but I think Coach Z threw it to Danny Roberts or, maybe, Ross Calhoun. If I'm wrong, they'll probably let me know.

Score: Latin < 11 Opponents 11

This final block of 3on3 scores is for our team of Freshmen, stars of the future, called the Compact Disc Players captained by Happy Jack Landseidel and featuring Danny Summa and Macy Bell.

CDP - 0 vs. Gaston Incubus (Forestview HS) - 11
CDP - 0 vs. Elite Few (Latin) - 11
CDP - 2 vs. South Meck - 11
CDP - 5 vs. Catcher in the Dre-Wry (Latin) - 11
CDP - 0 vs. Hucking Juniors (Latin) - 11

Score: Latin 11 Opponents < 11

This block of 3on3 scores is for our team of Sophomores called Catcher in the Dre-Wry captained by Dre-Wry Isaacson featuring Seth Tabor-Woodall and David Cato.

CITD-W - 6 vs. Hucking Juniors (Latin) - 11
CITD-W - 1 vs. Hangtime (Chapel Hill HS) - 11
CITD-W - 3 vs. Durham Academy - 11
CITD-W - 11 vs. Salad Tossers (Gastonia Forestview HS) - 5
CITD-W - 11 vs. South Meck - 6

Score: Latin 11 Opponents <11

This block of 3on3 tournament scores is for our team of Juniors called the Hucking Juniors led by Andy Benjamin and featuring Steven Pullmaster Lewis and Michael Parks. Here are their scores:

HJ - 11 vs. Salad Tossers (Gastonia Forestview HS) - 4
HJ - 11 vs. Catcher in the Dre-Wry (another Latin team) - 6
HJ - 6 vs. Durham Academy - 11
HJ - 1 vs. Hangtime (Chapel Hill HS) - 11
HJ - 11 vs. South Meck - 5
HJ - 11 vs. Compact Disc Players (Latin) - 0

Score: Latin 11 Opponents <11

Latin had 4 teams in our 13th annual 3on3 Ultimate tournament. Instead of listing every game for all 4 teams, I'll talk about each team's scores in one block each.

These scores are for our top team, named the Elite Few, who have been playing together in this tournament since they were in 7th grade. Fortunately, they've gotten better since then.

After breezing through pool play, going 3-0 vs. South Meck, Latin's Freshman team, and Gastonia's Forestview HS, they faced a surprisingly strong Durham Academy team--who have been working with former Latin Ultimate coach, Betsy Brown--in the Semis and beat them 11-4.

In the Final vs. Hangtime from Chapel Hill HS, the Elite Few scored more on Chapel Hill than any other team in the tournament (which is just a tiny bit of good news leading to the bad news) but lost 11-2. CHHS was definitley the strongest team in this tournament.

Score: Latin 10 Elon 13

The Championship Final feature a rematch between a fired-up Elon team with two Latin alums--Freshman Jeff Benjamin and Senior Tyler Monroe (who had to leave early to attend the wedding of Tara Huber, another Latin alum) and the more-experienced Latin team.

Both teams traded points until 3-3, when we had a lapse which allowed Elon to take half 7-4. With Groves Dixon cramped out in the 1st half and unable to play in the 2nd, we battled hard to trade points the rest of the game. Unfortunately, we were still down by 3 and lost. But we managed to deflate their victory celebration by pointing out, "Big deal, you beat a high school team."

In a humerous side note: The guys from Davidson left one of their teammates. They just drove off without him, so he had to call a cab to get back to Davidson.

Final Tournament Standings
1. Elon - Champ
2. Latin E
3. Furman
4. USC
5. Davidson - Chump
6. Lenoir-Rhyne
7. Latin LE
8. Winthrop

Latin E featured - Alex Beaty, David Cato, John Rudolph, Goves Dixon, Nelson Ho, Scott Hardage, William Moore, Andy Benjamin, Michael Parks, Steven Pullmaster Lewis, Jeremy Goodman, Danny Summa.

Latin LE featured - Dre-Wry Isaacson, Danny Summa, Sean Haynes, Andrew 84 Zuelhke, Kevin Jamison, Jack Landseidel, Adrian Burns, Aleric Fox, Paul Taylor, SiNami Ward, Patrick Dohan, Seth Tabor-Woodall.

Score: Latin 9 USC 4

USC turned out to be much weaker than I expected when I drew up the pools for this tournament. They finished 2nd (behind Furman) in the other pool, so faced the top-seeded more-experienced Latin team in the Championship Semis.

Unfortunately, Senior WilliamMoore cramped hard in the Elon game, which left him unable to play the rest of the day. As it turned out, we romped without him, which put us in the Final in a rematch against Elon.

Score: Latin 9 Elon 8

This was a tough win. Elon brought a good team and gave the more-experienced Latin team a game.

We played very well and won on a suspicious (but justified) foul call by John Rudolph at the time cap. On the do-over, Groves Dixon scored on a 40-yard cross-field pass.

So, going into post-pool play, Latin was seeded #1. Unlike other sports, Ultimate likes to get a lot of games in per day, which requires some extreme athleticism. All the pool play and the bracketing was done on one day.

Score: Latin 10 Davidson 9

The more-experienced Latin team went down 7-4 at half against what was really an average Davidson team.

But, fortunately, we knitted a rope ladder and dug ourselves out of the huge hole for the win in round 2.

Davidson went on to win the Chumpionship Bracket.

Score: Latin 13 Winthrop 3

The small college tournament on 11-05-05, part 2.

The next set of scores pertain to the other, more-experienced half of the Latin team, which was composed of Juniors and Seniors.

Winthrop was definitely outmatched by our viscious attack. I think the score was 11-0 before they scored. Everything we did worked. Even on those plays where the disc was batted away, it would end up coming right back to us. It was almost as if Winthrop had in some way offended God, so She or He went all Old-Testament on them.

Score: Latin 5 Winthrop 0

By the 5th and final round of the day, Winthrop, who had brought only 9 players, decided they'd had enough and bailed leaving the less-experienced Latin team with a forfeit win and a 7th place finish in our small college tournament.

"De-fault! De-fault! The two sweetest words in the English language!" - Homer Simpson in "Deep Space Homer."

Score: Latin 2 Davidson 13

The less-experienced Latin team finished 4th in its pool so had to face the 3rd place finisher from the other pool in the Semis of the Chumpionship Bracket. They threw their 4-man cup zone on us, and we couldn't solve its riddle.

Basically, we'd run out of gas at this point, since the temperature was unseasonably hot. I told everyone to hydrate well, but my message was not heeded.

Davidson went on to win the Chumpionship Bracket.

Score: Latin 7 Lenoir-Rhyne 13

The less-experienced Latin team gained more valuable playing experience as it lost to Lenoir-Rhyne in round 3 of the tournament. And let me say, again, that I have no comment on the allegations of rampant steroid use by the Latin Ultimate team.

Score: Latin 8 Furman 11

The less-experienced Latin team next faced Furman featuring Latin alum Will Hall, who's now a Junior there. Remember when he 1st started playing Ultimate back in 5th grade. He wasn't good then. Now he's really good. We scored 8, which I consider a victory. Furman ended up finishing 3rd in the tournament.

Score: Latin 3 USC 13

We divided the Latin team into 2 teams for the small college tournament we hosted on 11-05-05. This, and the next 4 scores, will be from our Less Experienced team composed of 5th through 10th graders.

USC is not exactly a small college, but I invited them anyway since they're only 1.5 hours away.

We got beat down by them, which we should have--they're college players, fer cryin' out loud.

Score: Latin 13 Fort Mill HS 1

They scored only 1 in the second game of the double-header.

We've been on the receiving end of plenty o' beat downs, so in a way I felt their pain. But in a more real way, we'd much rather win. So there.

After the second game, we mixed our team and theirs and played some pick up. They were good guys. Their coach said that they needed to play us to see how the game is supposed to be played--to give them something to work toward.

Score: Latin 13 Fort Mill HS 2

Following the example of some other sports, we scheduled a new program, Fort Mill HS, to give us some game experience and to pad our record. It's sometimes tough to play other schools--Providence HS-- because they tend to play more "street ball" to our more disciplined attack.

But not this time.

We crushed them like a GI Joe under a steam roller. And I'm talking about the old-school, 12-inch-high GI Joe's.

Then we talked them into playing a second game. [See next score.]

Score: Latin 8 Catholic 11

In the other game of our double-header, our newer players played their newer players. Our players spanned 5th-10th grades, but theirs were 9-11th graders. But the worst part was that they didn't know the rules, and we were too scared to make calls. Had we bothered to make the calls, the game would have been mired in an ugly yelling callfest that wouldn't have been fun to play in or watch.

We had our chances, though, and failed to exploit. Each beat down is a learning experience.

Score: Latin 11 Char. Catholic 0

We took 21 players over to Calvary Church to play Catholic. Fortunately, they had a lot of players, too, so we divided our teams into a more-experienced game and a less-experienced game on adjacent fields. This score was from the more-experienced game.

Our Juniors and Seniors overwhelmed the hapless Catholic team. We played man-to-man. We played zone. We executed correctly. We finally played with pizazz. Pullmaster even had a Callahan score.

In this game were Groves D, John R, WilliamMoore, Scott H, Nelson H, MichaelParks, Steven Pullmaster Lewis, Stuart T, and Alex B.

Score: Latin 4 Davidson 11

The less-experienced half of Latin's team played Davidson's less-experienced half in the 1st half of a double-header. When you get pounded, the learning curve is faster than in practice. We learned a lot.
This game marked the interscholastic Ultimate debut of David Cato, Paul Taylor, Kevin Jamison, Matt Feld, Jack Lanseidel, Adrian Burns, and Sean Haynes--7 out of our 11 players.

Score: Latin 11 Davidson 3

In the 2nd half of the double-header, we played Davidson's top women's team and romped. They played a lot of zone defense, which have never really played against, so we did OK. Winning is much better than losing--don't kid yourself.

Score: Latin 6ish baNC 13ish

This scrimmage on Sept. 10 was more for experience than anything else. It was a chance for our brand-new players to see how the game is supposed to be played by playing one of the top adult club teams in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Score: Latin 9 Davidson 3

In the 2nd game, however, Latin regrouped and administered a beat down on Davidson.

Score: Latin 3 Davidson 11

On Sept. 15, in the 1st game of a double-header, Latin got beaten like a red-headed stepchild after an uninspired performance.