Ok guys,
It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for since the end of Winter League back in March, or maybe since you moved to town or even just heard about ultimate for the first time - it’s the first practice of the year for the 2008 Club Open Fall Series! If you’re interested in playing with Grit or Crude this Summer and Fall or if you’re just interested in checking out what we’re all about, please come out to Fort Worth next Saturday, May 17th, for our first practice of the year, followed by a cookout and pool party at the home of Justin Burk and John Gotwals in Fort Worth. Practice will start promptly at 1:30PM and last until 4:30PM, after which, we’ll head directly over to Burk Ranch for a cookout, some film watching from Texas Shootout last weekend in Austin and some swimming. Please bring your significant other to the cookout, as well as adult beverages if you choose to drink. There’s plenty of floor space at Justin’s if you need to crash out there, just make sure to bring a sleeping bag or whatever you’ll need.  Directions to the practice fields and to Justin’s place will be posted on this site in the calendar.

A little background about the Club, there are two competitive Open teams in the DFW Metroplex, Dallas Grit and Dallas Crude. Grit finished up last year tied for 7th at Regionals, after coming in 2nd at Texas Sectionals in the UPA Fall Series.  Crude finished 7th at Sectionals and were eligible for Regionals, but logistically were unable to attend. It was a very exciting year and both teams are looking to greatly improve this year. If you’ve ever played ultimate, competitive or otherwise, please come out to practice and checkthe teams out. This is a one-time special practice time and location, we’ll move practice back to our regular time and location at JJ Pearce High School in Richardson, on Saturdays from 10AM-1PM after Memorial Day (practice that week
will be on Monday, May 26th, because of the holiday weekend, also at JJ Pearce). Don’t worry, we’ll send a reminder email about it.

Please feel free to contact either myself or Mark if you have any questions.  Looking forward to this season.
Thanks!

CW Sheehan
Dallas Grit Captain
cw.sheehan(at) gsmortgage.com

Mark Graham
Dallas Crude Captain
markjohngraham (at) yahoo.com

Keith provided a quick write-up of our games last weekend in Austin, it’s included below:

Saturday Game 1 vs. Pike:So we all get out to the fields, its a little chilly, wet, and there was a strong crosswind on our field. The Pike team looks a lot like the team they brought last year, looked like they were missing one of their handles that made a number of plays for them last year, but the dozen they had looked familiar. Both teams came out very sloppy, unforced errors on both sides of the disc. Our team was a little rusty on defense getting started but after the first few points we started to put some pressure on them which gave us a lot of chances on offense. Problem was the core group we brought was a defensive squad, and if we had 3 handles on the field we tended to be very stagnant and the stack was too far away.

Pike rolled to an easy win 13-7 (maybe 12-6), the game ended at soft cap but I’m not sure if they closed it out at 13.

Saturday Game 2 vs. Johnny Bravo:Like the Pike team Bravo did not have a huge team, maybe 15 or 16 guys. They didn’t run a drill before playing us, looked like they were going to just take the game in stride, but they came out fired up. They definitely set the example for confidence and we didn’t handle that well. After a good team huddle we brought our H-stack in a lot closer to the handles, and with the help of Schmubb we put up some some nice deep shots. The score did not reflect our performance at all, they had a number of bounces that ended up going their way.  We made a number of defensive plays with highlights from Daniel Bess with a nice lane poach 15 yards out of their endzone resulting in our first score. And Paul Burt with a handblock in the cup in the 2nd half. Our zone defense proved to be really effective against this team. Final score was 13-2 but the offense started to get a little more consistancy, better stack, still clogging, and still not much handler movement. This was an up-wind down-wind game and their upwind scores really sped the game up.

Saturday Game 3 vs. Doublewide (X):Doublewide was split into 2 tryout squads with about a dozen each, both teams had pick-ups from Seuss (LSU-Alum) and a had no college players. This was another crosswind game like the first. We went down by a few early, but the offense started to come together and we tied the game at 4-4. After a Doublewide run in the first half it was 7-4. We made a run to start the 2nd hald and closed the gap to 9-6. After a timeout on our goal line we had a drop in the endzone and they came back and scored to make it 10-7. After that we let the game get away from us and lost 13-7.

Saturday Game 4 vs. Doublewide (Y):The other split-squad had some stronger handlers and beat the (X) team in the 2nd round. We continued to make improvements in this game and after getting broke on the first point we took the next 2 and had an early 2-1 lead. The break was upwind and both teams managed to score their next 3 consecutive upwind points and we had a 5-4 lead. Doublewide made a run to close half 7-5 and we could have easily caved at this point. We found ourselves in the exact same position as the last game at 9-6 and scored to make it 9-7.   They went on to win 12-8 in soft cap but mentally it was much better than the previous game.

Sunday Game 1 vs. GOAT:Goat showed up late and seemed to be resting a few key players.  We had some fresh legs with the additions of Brindley and Rollo to our offensive line found some new life. Personally I think Saturday was great because it forced a lot of us to take on roles we aren’t used to on this team. And when we got a pair of handlers in the mix the offense cleaned up a whole lot. We ran with this team the whole game and had the game within 2 points in the 2nd half. I don’t think we had the idea we were going to win, which is something we need to work on, but we gave this team a little bit of a scare and had a number of good offensive and defensive plays.  Goat won 12-8 at soft cap but a lot of players gained confidence in this game.

Sunday Game 2 vs. Pike:  Bravo decided to blow the Doublewide (X) game and save their legs for semis, with the Doublewide (X) win the Pike team fell from 4th to 5th and we got the privilage of a rematch from our first game of the weekend. Thanks to Glenn Burr we can all watch this game in a couple weeks and see the improvement we made. Pike did not roll over in this game, they are a National calliber team and they wanted to end on a win. They took an early 2-0 lead and were getting fired up.  We went on a huge run with consecuctive scores and breaks to take a 6-2 lead. Pike rallied to bring the game back to 6-6. Our offense was giving up unforced errors and they capitalized by alternating the under and over game.  We could have rolled over but scored then broke to take half 8-6.  We pulled to them in the 2nd half and broke to take a 9-6 lead, we traded the next few points and had a 13-10 lead when soft cap was called. We scored the last point on a long huck from Phil to Bethke against a zone, which closed the game out at 14-10.  That was a big relief considering the 3 point lead we gave up in the soft cap a year ago to this team.

It was a great way to end the tournament. no one cramped up which means we have learned to take a little better care of ourselves. No one got too drunk to play Sunday morning. Everyone was making plays and using their heads in the last game. I hope we can take the confidence of beating a team that went to Nationals into our upcoming scrimmages and focus on WINNING Solstice. This is the biggest win for this team since beating Doublewide as JNOR in 2004, we have to keep moving forward. Our defense looks good but our offense needs a lot of work, namely the block and creating space.

-Keith

UNT scrimmage.

April 21st, 2008

They are just a college team.  I love them, but they are just a college team.  In just over 24 hours we will be scrimmaging this college team.

I hope that they win Regionals and make some fierce noise at Nationals. 

We can help them most by uncovering and abusing every hole in their game.  So be prepared to do that tomorrow.  Get it in your head, that you will take every advantage in our scrimmage, that you will work over your matchup and show them how much harder they need to work.

Help them make Nationals.

And remember, though we may love them, we don’t lose to college teams.

 -Casey

Mini-Group Update

April 21st, 2008

Mini-Group Update:

 Last Thursday the Village/Uptown MG met at Fairfax park and got in ladders, plyos, a break mark drill (different than the one we’ve been doing), a weave drill, and some sprints and throwing until it got too dark.  Hugh, Neal, CW, Bethke, Caleb, Danny, and myself were all there, so we had a good group.  The Fort Worth MG worked out at the TCU gym, I’m not sure what they were up to.  Justin, can you post it in and who was there in the comments?

 Tonight is the Plano/Richardson MG, I’ll update the calendar as soon as I find out when and where it is.  Only 11 days until Shootout, guys!

 ****Plano/Richardson MG is actually on Thursday at JJ Pearce****

UNT wins the Texas section, 12-7 over UT.

 Go Green!

 - Casey

Good Luck Guys

April 10th, 2008

I just wanted to throw in another good luck to all the guys headed to Austin this weekend.  They’ve been busting ass for most of the year already, and I’m excited to see what they can do.  In case you’re curious, these are the teams and their current seedings:

UNT - #2 seed
UT Dallas - #8 seed
UT Arlington - #9 seed
TCU - #11 seed

Right now it looks like the top 6 teams will qualify for Regionals in Baton Rouge, LA the weekend of April 26-27th. 

If you happen to be in Austin this weekend and have some spare time, games will be Saturday and Sunday at the IM fields on 51st and Guadalupe. I’m sure the guys would love to have some support out there.

Take care of business at sectionals this weekend.  Dave has some great fire for ya’ll below.

“Never did like Texas. Can’t stand Kansas. Don’t think much about Texas State. All but forgotten aTm. Arkansas and LSU are like annoying siblings. As for the rest of the lot, who cares? …The road to Nationals begins at 9:00am this Saturday. It’d be a damn shame to let all the hard work go to waste. Set the tone early. Leave everything you’ve got on the field. ”

– General Patton

Mini-group Information

April 10th, 2008

A lot of people have been asking when and where are mini-groups for each area.  Here’s what’s started up so far:

Uptown/Village/Lakewood Area : Thursdays, 7 p.m. Fairfax Park on Beverly and the Tollway. 

Fort Worth : Normally Thursdays at 6:15 p.m. at IM fields on Berry by TCU.  This week it was moved to Tuesday. 

Other than those two, Plano/Richardson is trying to get things started on Mondays, and the Arlington/Mid-cities one needs more participants before they can figure out what day is best.

Check the calendar for points of contact, maps, rain info, and date/time changes.  Post in the comments of this post if you have any additional information.

 

My better is better than your better.

my better

Come out to competitive practice and pickup and you just may better your better.

Getting Ready for 2008

April 9th, 2008

As some of you may have heard, the 2008 season for Dallas United is already getting started.  A group of individuals from last season - primarily Regionals attendees with a few newcomers thrown in - have been invited and are currently training hard to compete at the LiveLogic Texas Shootout May 3-4th in Austin, Texas.  This tournament will kick off the year for the club, with full organized practices beginning sometime in mid-May.  Rosters for Grit and Crude will be set in June before we go to Summer Solstice.  This year is going to be a fun one for both teams, with a nice slate of tournaments and a motivated core of players that are excited about taking the club to new levels.  Tuesday Night Pickup is already getting us familiar with each other and back into playing competitively, and conditioning mini-groups have sprung up all over the Metroplex to begin building strength and speed, and help get rid of that winter gut.

One thing that will be different this year is that this website will be much more of an everyday resource for our players. All team events, practices, tourneys, and social events will be on the calendar under the schedule link.  If you’ve never used Google Calendar before, take a minute to check it out, you can open an even from the calendar to see specific details such as dates, times, and even a map to the location of the event.  Please use this to make sure you’ll be on time.  If you already use Google Calendar and would like to add this calendar to your own, do a search for “Dallas United Schedule”, it’s a public calendar.  Useful information, ultimate news and knowledge, mini-group/practice reports, and tourney write-ups will be available on this page, posted in a blog-like format.  Photos from tourneys will be made available and there’s even the possibility of hosting some highlight videos when we manage to wrangle a video camera out to the tournaments.

Going forward, there are three things you need to be sure that you are doing if you are interested in being a part of Dallas United this year:

  • Sign up on the dallasunited yahoogroup to get all relevant emails and announcements.  To do this send an email to dallasunited-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  .
  • Get Out and Throw – Don’t wait until practice to see if your forehand has improved over the offseason, it hasn’t.
  • Conditioning – Come to the first practice ready to compete and make the most of it.  If you’re not currently improving your conditioning you’re already letting your future teammates down.  Mini-groups and Tuesday Night Pickup are great places to start.

The leadership of the club is excited and motivated to make this a successful and fun season for everyone, and we all hope you’ll be a part of it.

Sincerely,

CW Sheehan - Grit Captain

Proudly powered by WordPress. Theme developed with WordPress Theme Generator.
Copyright © dallasunited.org. All rights reserved.