Today was a long day by virtue of having DDC in the evening. The plan was to start the day off with two rounds of Accuracy, then do two rounds of Speed Flow (not an official Overall event) and then the first three rounds of DDC, King of the Court style.
I can do really well in Accuracy or really poorly, depending on how well I focus and the quality of my warmup. My first round was 9 and I had a lot of close throws (as is typically the case). I refocused and had 14 in my second round, which was good enough for a tie in 4th, which means that I made the Accuracy finals! It’s similar for everyone in that a few inches can be the difference between a 16 or a 10, but I’m confident that I’ll be able to improve on my 14 and put myself in a good spot to win. I do enjoy Accuracy so I’m hoping to perform well.
I do need to give a huge shout out to my friend Beth, who broke the O55 Women’s Accuracy World Record with a score of 11/28! This bests the previous record by 2. Well done Beth!
The Speed Flow event was up next, run by the legendary Jens Velasquez. He’s one of my favourite people and I’m so happy that he came down for the Overall. Sam and I partnered up again and the last time we played together we won Speed Flow at Virginia States a few years ago. The way the format works is all 12 teams compete and the top 6 move onto semis, and then the top 2 move onto finals.
Each round of Speed Flow is 60 seconds and you basically play catch with your partner, standing 14 metres apart. A regular catch counts as 1 point and a trick catch counts at 2 points. The gameplan was for me to throw accurately to Sam, have him trick catch, and throw it back fast to me where I would regular catch so I could get the throw off to him quickly, and get as many points that way as possible. Our first round we made a few errors and only got a 40, which fortunately was enough to make the top 6 and move into semis. Our second round was much better and we scored a 57, which was enough for top spot, and advanced us to the finals! Although Speed Flow is not part of the Overall, it’s still a lot of fun and is an easy to understand game of throw and catch.
The final event of the day was Double Disc Court (DDC), King of the Court Style. The way DDC normally works is to have a team of two and then we have pools, playing round robins, and depending on how you finish determines who you play and where you finish. The problem with DDC being a team game is that the Overall is all about determining who is the best single Overall player so what the tournament staff proposed this year is to make DDC a King of the Court style, so instead of having a team, everyone basically plays one game with everyone else in their pool.
I went into the first round ranked 17/26, moved up to 10/26 in the second round, and after the third round, I’m now ranked 11/26. I didn’t play well in the first round as I was getting settled into playing DDC again (I don’t get to play much) and also getting used to playing with new players so I finished 4th in my pool. I did much better in the second round and went undefeated, finishing 1st in my pool. It was a great pool, and I had a ton of fun with Lori, Craig, and Rick. In the third round, I was forcing too many throws, and threw way too many out, losing all 3 games, and finished last in my pool. I’m hoping to play more consistent in the semis and try to work my back up a few spots. After today, I think King of the Court works well for pod play with your local crew, but it’s not great for tournament play and certainly not for the Overall.
I had a great discussion at lunch today with Jeff, Sam, Tom, and Mike about the Overall and I have a few ideas that I’m going to propose to the WFDF Overall Committee and work into my business idea I’m developing with the goal to get more kids into frisbee.
I also shared some of my ideas, lessons learned, and future plans with them today, and have been sharing with more people this week so it’s exciting watching those ideas start to develop a bit more each time I talk about them and get feedback from my frisbee family.
Tomorrow is a big day as I get to compete in my two favourite events (and the ones I’m best at and the defending world champion in), Distance and Self Caught Flight! I’m hoping to put up some big numbers, throw like I know I can, and above all, have fun and enjoy the (hopefully) nice Florida weather!
Results are posted daily online at: http://overalldisc.com/tournament.html?id=33.