As long as anyone still in the program can remember, Northern Illinois University’s ultimate frisbee club team has never qualified for Regionals, though not necessarily from a lack of skill or talent. One way or another, it just hasn’t worked out.

Coming into this year’s Illinois Conference Championships, our goal was to break this streak and qualify for Regionals. Although statistically probable, with seven of the eight teams qualifying on the weekend, the fact that it had never happened before was enough to treat a big to Regionals as a weekend victory, regardless of wins and losses.

This is one man’s story of NIU’s 2014 Conference Championships weekend.

*Note: Only nicknames will be used in this re-cap write-up, as I think it adds a fun, entertaining value to the aspect of storytelling. If you are a member or peer of NIU Ultimate, you’ll probably recognize most all of these names*

Friday, 11 April

Most of NIU Ultimate heads down to Normal, IL to stay the night before the morning of the games. Sunburn [notorious for getting sun-burned in any weather. He got really burned this weekend, obviously] and The Ringer apparently traverse the streets of the college town on a party bus. The word stripper was thrown around several times. I have no comment on the events of said bus.

Other than that, the night is quiet, as the team has a long day ahead of them tomorrow in what the forecast says will be a terribly windy, albeit warm day.

Saturday, 12 April

Game day. The last car with Sideline [an alumni coming to help on the sideline (and drink UV-Palmer)], Seabiscuit [the team’s workhorse cutter], Rockford [the team’s “rock”, consistent in cutting and handling, who lives in Rockford], Costco [ace handler, you’ll have to ask him personally about the nick name], and Old Man River [now 24 year old rookie on the team] make their way down, filling themselves with McDonald’s and Pop-Tarts.

The team arrives to a gorgeous, warm, mostly sunny day, with 30 mile per hour winds that would end up lasting the entire day. The burden is immediately worsened as we know every other point will be a fruitless battle into the wind.

Regardless, the day must go on, and we shall face our first opponent.

Chicago

A team we played at No Wisconsequences in the fall, we knew they were a beatable team. But, in almost vintage NIU Ultimate fashion, Chicago breaks twice in a row, and NIU goes down 0-2. The game continues in Chicago’s favor as NIU would end up beating themselves with many unforced turnovers and poor plays. Coming out cold, NIU falls to Chicago.

NIU – 7, Chicago – 12

We’ve been here before.

Illinois

One of the top teams in the Nation. We knew what this team is capable of coming into the game. And we played like it. After a couple of breaks and a few more unforced errors, we entered half down 7-4. That’s when S.W. [“Salty wiener”; you’ll find out later] took control of the huddle. “Do we want to make this a practice and work on things, or do we want to win?” We wanted to win, unanimously. So, we came out hard. Both teams held serve out of half, but then Illinois broke us upwind to go up 9-5. Then, The Ringer put what would later be called the throw of his career, a remarkably clean IO break upwind to hold serve upwind. We were pumped. We then broke Illinois with the wind at our backs, and held serve the next two points, putting the game at 10-8 Illinois. We were within two. But those would be the last points we scored.

NIU – 8, Illinois – 13

Although we lost to Illinois, we played one hell of a game. S.W., who knows and plays with Illinois coach Walden Nelson, was telling us that Nelson was ripping into his team since we were playing such a close game with them. Turns out we gave Illinois the best game of their tournament, aside from their Championship win over Northwestern, which ended 15-13, if I’m not mistaken. The fact that we did the best against Illinois out of anyone besides Northwestern is huge, and something we could hang our hats on. But the tournament was far from over.

The game did take a big toll on us, however. Seabiscuit was suffering from an illiotibial tract strain, and couldn’t play any more. We would have to rest him the rest of the day to try and have him ready to play tomorrow.

Eastern Illinois

This was the most crucial game of the tournament. If we lost this game, we would be last in our pool, and we would have no crossover game, and we would have to win our first game Sunday morning, or go home. If we won this game, we would get 3rd in our pool, and we would play a crossover game that would guarantee us to be in the 5th/6th place bracket. With seven of the eight teams advancing, this was pivotal.

Luckily, we won the disc flip, and were able to start the game with the wind at our backs. If we could just hold serve, the hard cap would win us the game.

It was chippy from the start. There were probably two different calls in the first point, and at least seven throughout the game, which almost never happens in NIU games. But this game was everything for both teams. Eventually, Eastern broke us, and we were down two breaks. Eventually we’d break them back, and the game would go back to serve, and many minutes later, the hard cap went off with the score 9-9. The wind was at our back, and we were receiving the disc. We turned the disc, and they would work the disc up the left-hand side-line. Once at half-field, their handler released a high stall OI huck riding the side-line. S.W. and Costco are both there in traffic to contest, but after the initial four players mis-played the floaty, windy disc, a third Eastern player flew in and caught the disc while falling out of bounds. The “out-of-bounds” conversation went on for over two minutes, and the disc was eventually returned. After working the disc closer to the goal again, and a time-out from Eastern, play resumed and a throw went off to a wide open Eastern receiver to break us and win.

The receiver dropped the disc. NIU quickly pushed the disc down-field, turned in the endzone, and got the disc back on a brilliant and accurate hand-off call from Freshman [I’m calling him this because although he is a freshman, he is an incredibly talented handler that can school players of any age]. NIU punched it and and won the game, advancing to the crossover game and making the weekend infinitely easier on us.

NIU – 10, Eastern Illinois – 9

Are you kidding me?!

– Eastern’s handler after committing the hand-off.

Loyola-Chicago

After losing the disc flip and feeling the pain of three games already, we were content with the idea of not winning this game. We would have to break a good team up-wind twice, and Loyola had already had great success breaking teams up-wind all day. As it turns out, this was one of the best games of the day, only giving up one up-wind break thanks to a lay-out D in the end-zone from Old Man River, one of his four total layouts in one point.

NIU – 9, Loyola-Chicago – 11

The day was over, and the team was tired. We circled up to stretch and talk about our successes and downfalls of the day. Almost no one could come up with any huge team flaws, and there was a slew of amazing plays throughout the day, including Costco’s self-proclaimed “best throw ever”, a break-side scoober that floated beautifully over two defenders to a casually back-pedaling S.W. and the previously mentioned IO break from The Ringer. The team also got a team disc from Loyola, so Cap decided to have an MVP vote, which gave Old Man River the disc as a reward.

I’ve never felt more like a team before.

-S.W. while we talked about the day in our stretching circle.

So… uhh… wanna suck my salty wiener?

-Also the obviously named S.W. on our way to get food after the last game.

The crew headed back to their respected places of rest for the night, mildly celebrated the day, and went to sleep, anxious to see what tomorrow held for them.

Sunday, 13 April

The struggle is real.

Seabiscuit wasn’t healthy after a night’s sleep; Old Man River’s nagging knee injury was prevalent, and was struggling after a night of sleeping on the floor with no pillow/blankets/sleeping bag; Boombox [named for following his name’s tradition] looked like he could vomit at any given second.

NIU’s team was only all at the field with 15 odd minutes to warm-up for their game: DePaul University. They also learned of what the outcome meant for them: lose, and fall into the 7th/8th place game, where the final seed would be determined; or win, and automatically advance to Regionals. The answer was obvious. We were going to win this game. Right now.

The day was much calmer, although the forecast called for just as heavy winds and a load of rain. Neither were present for this first game of ours.

NIU won the disc flip, and would be receiving with the slight wind at their back. After an admitting weak line was called to start, DePaul broke us twice, and we went down 0-2. And not only that, but the second point resulted in Hoes having to be taken off the field with bruised ribs. Sound familiar? This is exactly how our day Saturday started, and we never recovered from that first game against Chicago.

But this game was different.

With the win at our backs, NIU held serve. 1-2. With the wind in our faces, we broke DePaul. 2-2. With the wind at our backs, we broke again. 3-2. The game would then hold serve until a score of 7-6, NIU’s lead, and we pulled into the wind. After a turn, FireRape would end up catching the break throw to put us up 8-6 at half.

We never looked back.

Shortly thereafter, The Ringer would throw a short huck to Old Man River in the endzone, which ended up floating pretty badly, and a tough get from a standing position would have to be made by the Old Man, if it wasn’t for S.W., who crashed the disc and made an uncontested grab nine feet in the air to score our 15th point.

NIU – 15, DePaul – 11

Regionals.

That was it.

With our ailing bodies, we coasted the rest of the day, our goal already accomplished. We would lose to Loyola-Chicago again in an quick game [although delayed by lightning sightings], and then played Eastern’s rookies, since they had also already qualified, where we had a lot of fun, and our rookies got a load of playing time and logged some sick plays of their own. We ended up winning that game 11-1. A good cherry on top of the weekend.

The team had a group dinner at Olive Garden, casting our final MVP vote where Endzone lost to Old Man River by just two votes.

And that was the end of the weekend. The car groups all left for DeKalb, where most all of us had work to do to prepare for upcoming finals. Old Man River, Rockford, Sideline, Seabiscuit, and Costco ended up talking about Ultimate almost the entire ride home, reminiscing about the incredible weekend. Seabiscuit was dropped off at his building, Rockford at his car, and Sideline got out with Costco at his place.

When I drove home after dropping everyone off, I promptly jumped in the shower with a cold Corona Light, and followed that up with a Chipotle burrito, eating it while watching the season premiere of AMC’s Mad Men. I don’t think I could have had a better weekend with these people who became more than teammates.

I fell asleep that night with visions of S.W.’s break throws to me in the end zone, and Costco’s remarkable scoober.

-Robert “Bobby” “B.O.B.” “Old Man River” Gough

__________

I didn’t want to leave out any teammates of mine, since every single one of them contributed to every win and our bid to Regionals. So here are some other notable things from the weekend.

Black Mamba – Had a sick mark which was rarely broken, and probably the catch of the weekend in the final game; a backwards diving one-handed snag of a low line drive backhand from Rockford.

Cap – Some circus hammer pulls in the final game, and probably logged the most points all tournament.

Boombox – While maybe not getting into the SportsCenter top 10, logged a lot of quality playing time in the biggest games. And also brought the boombox, the single clutchest act of the weekend.

Freshman – Continues to shine as a developing play maker.

Hoes – Solid D all tournament, and got pretty physical, which was awesome to see.

Rockford – Gave us his usual quiet, stellar, consistent performance all weekend.

Sunburn – Despite never wanting to play, I love to see this guy’s IO flick break zones.

Endzone – Stole this name from Sideline, who never stopped raving about Endzone’s ridiculous one-handed grabs and knack for catching everything in the end zone.

FireRape – Made a ton of plays in our Regionals clinching game.

Sideline – Gave us our long missed loud sideline presence, spiked Arnold Palmer included.

WreckingBall – A rookie with probably the least points logged in his career, but impressed everyone with his hustle and work on defense, also probably never getting broken.