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A day long awaited by many, forgotten by others.
The players and spectators who were there will probably think back of this as a glorious day for belgian ultimate.
Okay it was only the playoffs of a belgian indoor season, but hey, it was worth it.
Not that this was something absolutely, unbelievably amazing but still I, along with many others, enjoyed to play a day with 5 teams with levels so close together, and I tell you why :
A competition is only as good as the effort you put in it to play at your best.
And that's what happened, 5 teams gave it all they got to try and become the belgian indoor champion of the 2009-2010 season. Moon succeeded.
1st Game : Moon vs. Huy :
The first game of the day and a battle that showed this day wouldn't be easy for anyone. Both teams started out with nice offensive flow and a massive defense. The score was tied at 5-5 when a Huyltimate player retracted his line call and thus allowed Moon to score the 6-5. Huy wasn't beaten at all and fought back to a 8-8 score only to see Mooncatchers be victorious after the first and definitely not the last universe point
(point in which both teams have an equal score, and the team who scores first, wins the game; same as golden goal or winning point) of the day ending it at 9-8.
2nd Game : Freezzzbeezzz vs. Gentle :
Another tight game between two good teams who have known eachother for a big while now. Some of the Gentley's used to play in Freezzzbeezzz before they started their own team and so these battles always feel somewhat like a derby/game of honour.. At 5-7, when Gentle already took a two point lead and was in offense to go on for a 3 point lead, a little misunderstanding happened between the handlers and an FB player (Jonez?) was able to score a real easy Callahan to come back to 6-7. FB was all fired up but so was Gentle and both teams fought until the bitter end to come at a score of 7-7. Universe point again !
With only 30" left on the clock Gentle turned the disc around looking for a good option to score the last point after the buzzer, and so they did with Gerrit running next to the disc and only catching it into the endzone. But there was a call made on the throw (a travel, or a violation,...I don't know) and in the replay FB was able to do a defense and huck the disc to their tall target in the sky PJ who had an open catch for the winning point but unfortunately landed with his foot on the line. Gentle couldn't leave this anymore and scored 7-8 to win the game with a nice catch by Wouter.
3d Game : Slijpschijven vs. Huyltimate :
Huy was leading with 4-6 but then Slijpies made a big comeback and took the lead at 7-6 ! Huy wasn't gonna let this happen and came back to 7-7 only to make a mistake in the last point after which Simon from Slijpschijven threw a nice sidearm break to Joren for the winning point 8-7. Universe point anyone ??
4th Game : Freezzzbeezzz vs. Moon:
FB started off really good leading the game with 3-1, but after a wicked inside sidearm break by Arnaud to Casa (3-2) and then another high catch by Arnaud to score 3-3 the Moons were on a roll.
They started playing Moon style and scored a lot by throwing nice scoobers and upsides (4-6).
FB's answer was a crazy nice hammer from PJ to Jasper across a whole field to score 5-6 but Moon was already unstoppable and FB started making some unforced errors to come at a score of 5-11. (There might have been some more points, I needed to warm up :) )
5th Game : Gentle vs. Slijpschijven
Gentle put on massive pressure from the very first point because they felt they had a chance to win the championship. So did Slijpschijven but in this game they were not a real match for Gentle playing on top of their game. After a 4-0 start Slijp started to fight back but didn't get any further than a 13-5. But don't think it was easy for Gentle, this score might seem to have a big difference, but still this game was very hard fought and everybody gave it all they got...
6th Game : Freezzzbeezzz vs. Huyltimate
Another one of those games where the coin could have flipped both ways. Two strong teams, worthy of eachother fought it to the bitter end only to end at the 4th universe point in 6 games at 7-7. Huy took the honour of scoring 8-7 and this may have meant the end of Freezzzbeezzz possibility of winning the championship.
7th Game : Gentle vs. Mooncatchers
Unofficial final of these playoffs:
Waw. After more than a day this is still the feeling I get when thinking about this game.
To me this has been the best game Gentle and Moon ever played indoors, and also one of the best indoor games the belgian competition has seen in the last few years...
You might think I may be overreacting about this game, but if you were there I know you still remember the atmosphere in this indoor hall in the middle of Brussels, something was in the air.
I've thought about this game for more than a day and I don't have enough words to describe how I felt so I will try to let pictures do most of the talking here.
It was an epic battle, between two teams who have been powerhouses in Belgium for the last few years now. Two teams who have been showing consistent results, playing on top of this indoor competition year in year out for the past 5 years now.
And that's what was showed.
Everybody played like there was no tomorrow.
And to me it felt like there really was no tomorrow. I've never given myself so much in any indoor game ever, and it felt good to do it with my teammates all trying the same thing: giving it all we got. If you have been checking this blog before today you probably already know Mooncatchers is the 2010 indoor champion so they won this game. But I've never been more proud to say that Gentle didn't go down without a fight, and we lost this championship with our heads high.
One might say that the old saying "to participate is more important than winning" is just something to calm the losers down, but in this case I was proud of my team playing so good. In this case, the coin really could have flipped both ways and after yet another universe point -I still remember all the layouts and ooh's and aah's during the 4 turnovers in the last point of this unofficial final- Mooncatchers had won their 3rd game of the day with 7-8 and so they were almost sure of the championship.
If Gentle would have won this game they took home the cup but you gotta accept defeat when it hits you : Mooncatchers win......
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And unfortunately my notes (and some part of my memory as well) stops.
I've never felt so shaken after a game than after this one.
My legs were shaking, adrenaline and disappointment were running through my vains, joy for playing good was running through my stomache and I even felt a tear in my eye.
This felt like dedication. And if you're still wondering why this blog is called Get Horizontal, in short it means I can only say I gave it all I got when I layed out,dived towards a disc, and that I tried multiple times.
And this brings me to a little hommage to the Mooncatchers president Arnaud for being such a litterally amazing player. How did you catch all of these discs ??
Anyway, the day wasn't finished.
Slijpschijven beat Freezzzbeezzz as well in the next game and Gentle beat Huy so they also had 3 victories just like Mooncatchers.
If you can count correctly, you would know that if Slijpschijven managed to beat Moon in the last game of the day, three teams would have had a tie on the first place each having won 3games. Slijpschijven played on top of their game and gave Moon a really really hard fight only to see the day, and the final decision of the championship being played in a universe point, once again. I don't remember exactly how many turnovers there were, or how the game ended up at 6-6 (you should have heard the crowd, amazing, since Gentle was also cheering for Slijpschijven because if they won, Gentle would still be crowned champion!! and there were a lot Brusseleirs supporting the home troups).
A lot of mistakes in the last point and even more OOOOH's and AAAAH's from the crowd, Slijpschijven made the final unfortunate mistake by hucking the disc too high to the endzone after a lot of pressure by Moon and then the Brussels boys took home the victory, and the championship...!!
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What a day !
Congratulations to Moon for their title, 4 years in a row (with the first one being a tie with Slijpschijven in 2007), congrats to Gentle for a nice second place, and congrats on all the other teams for a playoff day like never seen before, and all of the other teams for making this season to what it was.
Little hint for next year, or next competition: I wouldn't mind blogging about the lower division, but if I'm not around I can't know anything about it so just give me some info about it !
All pictures above by Rrobin (Jetset) and Charlotte (Freezzzbeezzz),(except for my own Moon-teampic). Merci voor deze foto's hé !!
There's loads more on these links (thanks to Rrobin,Charlotte and of course Ollie from Moon)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151342&id=796874826&ref=mf
http://picasaweb.google.be/cassart.olivier/BUICPlayOffs2010?feat=directlink
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051694&id=1067526030&ref=mf
And now, ladies and gents, it's BUOC time !!!! Time to switch the button to OUTDOOR MODE !!! Bring it ooooonnnn !!!!
PS: does anybody read reports like these ? Or do just want me to be short and firm ? Not that I'll do this very often though....
