After a much more successful and involved regular season than 2013, the Humengus Wrencheroos were ready to improve on last year's 9th place Regionals finish and disappointing Saturday exit. We came in seeded 5th, behind bread/bid winners Ironside, GOAT and PoNY, as well as Phoenix. Garuda and Dark or Light were hot on our heels as well, and even the lower seeds were talented squads (ed. note: duh, it's Regionals bros).
Saturday
NIGHT'S WATCH!!!!! Seriously how many times do we play them a season? Always a swell game though, they're a good group of dudes, and we even forgive them for cutting most of us at tryouts way back when. As per usual it was an athletic game. Ty and Gene had some cool layout Ds, while they put up some spot-on hucks to their big guys. Ultimately we were able to get breaks thanks to smart defense, and maintained a lead through half. The second half was a break-less affair, and was definitely a testament to the top-down skill of the region. After a hotly contested game Wrenchers win 15-12. Party on Night dudes. Always a fun game. Looking forward to our 37 faceoffs next year.
Saturday
NIGHT'S WATCH!!!!! Seriously how many times do we play them a season? Always a swell game though, they're a good group of dudes, and we even forgive them for cutting most of us at tryouts way back when. As per usual it was an athletic game. Ty and Gene had some cool layout Ds, while they put up some spot-on hucks to their big guys. Ultimately we were able to get breaks thanks to smart defense, and maintained a lead through half. The second half was a break-less affair, and was definitely a testament to the top-down skill of the region. After a hotly contested game Wrenchers win 15-12. Party on Night dudes. Always a fun game. Looking forward to our 37 faceoffs next year.
Next up was Phoenix in a huge 4 vs 5 matchup. Phoenix is a tough opponent for us, with their quick initiation offense, and well timed vert stack. In the past we've been successful when we protect the disc, and this game was be no different. They got an early break on us, then punched in a second one to go up early. Once again though, the D-line battled us back into the game thanks to the re-united handler corp of Lock Whitney, Jesse Wolf and Kevin Sparacino. Seriously, can't toot those guys' horns enough. Toot toot baby. 8-7 Wrench lead at halftime.
Second half was another battle, as their deep game kept connecting thanks to the unpredictability of their flow. No breaks at all until late in the game. Ultiworld was filming by then, so we saved the good stuff for that. Solid end zone D led to a mistake by them, and Kevin Sparacino (calling him Trench from now on, okay, just chill) hucked to Tyler for a 14-12 lead. Big money, baby. After they put in their O point we got the ball for the win, and of course we chucked it up to Sam K-S. He got fouled and caught it on the way down. Victory!
Our Semifinal game was against the ol' sailor squad, @Boston_Ironside (tweet back at us just once, plz). Captain Nick Adolph elected to start on D, confident in the skill of our rolling D line. True to form we grabbed a couple blocks and put us up a break early. From there we had trouble establishing our offense, and their well-oiled attack was hard for us to catch up to. The breaks kept piling up, and they ran away with this one, not before Sam K-S got a cool sky in, though.
Sunday
The bros rolled in hot on Sunday morning. DH was quoted as saying, "That warmup playlist ruled. I haven't heard 'Guerilla Radio' in years."
First thing's first. We played Garuda and won. We got up early and it was super rad. They're a badass team though, and we knew that if we had to face them down the road, which was distinct possibility, they'd be gunning for us. Of note, however: Petey and Elias had mondo skys.
Next up was PoNY was very effective at playing defense after turning the disc, so our O-line struggled to capitalize on the break opportunities we got. When they were on defense, they pressured us out of our comfort zone and got us throwing into tight windows and stalling out in our resets. We responded by stepping up our defensive intensity and trying to out grind them on offense. A couple of well placed breaks on their part kept us from ever leading, and they pulled out the win.
This put us in a win-or-die situation against Garuda. An early turn gave us a chance to break, and though we threatened, we weren't able to punch it in, and they held, then broke to go up. From there it became one-sided as they kept pressuring us into making mistakes and then driving down the field. Our fatigue began to show, while they ran deep lines and were hungry to take the win. Ultimately we fell by a wide margin, and ended our season one game outside the game-to-go. We held seed exactly, which was cool, but expectations and spirits are on the up and up for next year.
It was a killer second year, and for those of you out there (hi mom) that followed, thanks for staying tuned. As per usual, we'll see you at Clambake/Get Ho Ho/Sligo's.