Beacon made the quarterfinals which is good, not great. We played brilliantly on Saturday, winning the first two games big, beating a very talented but very young Nathan Hale (Seattle, WA) team 15-5, and then beating a very athletic, but not very skilled Alameda (CA) team 12-3. Our last game was against a very athletic and very skilled Midwest Express team from Madison, WI, and after playing point for point with them early, we took the second half and beat them 11-8.

Sunday, we drew South Eugene, Oregon. They were good… they played Northfield Mount Herman to a 15-14 loss in pool play, but when we saw them play their last game of the day, they looked beatable. We still think they are beatable — problem is… so are we.

We went back and forth early, giving up the early upwinder… but then we went on our run and took the half 8-4. We looked really strong in this segment, but in retrospect, Eugene also dropped a lot of discs for us. Also, on the first point of the game, Steven — who has been our spark-plug all year long — got hurt, and while he gutted it out, he wasn’t the same, and we needed what he gave us on Saturday. We had the chance to make it 9-4 on the first point after half, but we gave it up in the red zone and they scored to make it 8-5. We did score to make it 9-6, but we threw it away in the red zone at least four times, and we also handed them two turnovers in their red zone in the second half, and they beat us 7-1 in the second half and beat us 11-9.

This takes nothing away from them, because they made the most of every mistake we made, and they also made two or three amazing diving blocks that energized them, but I still feel like we’d beat them seven out of ten times. Not nine of out ten, mind you, but seven. They are not a better team than we are, but they really probably aren’t much worse.

What they are, however, is less spirited. This was the first game in eight years of high school coaching that needed observers. They spiked the disc, threw it at the feet of our players after scores, even got up in my face as I tried to coach. And worse, it through us off of our game. There were two calls we didn’t make because we looked intimidated. There were two calls we should have sent to the observer that we let stand because we mistook spirited for fair. And that’s a lousy way to go out.

All of that being said, we lost that game. We could have won it, and we didn’t. I’ll be replaying that game in my head for what I could have done differently for a while. I’ve already got about three or four things I think we could have done, but at the end of the day, they are probably the kinds of changes that look good in hindsight. (Call our last TO at 9-9? If it works, it’s great… if we got to the red zone on either of the last two points and didn’t have a TO, it looks terrible.)

Still, there’s a larger picture. This is a team that didn’t win a game in the B division of Amherst two years ago, and that core group of players is now disappointed that they didn’t make the semi-finals of Nationals. That is incredible. What I said to them after the game, I meant. I could not be more proud of this group of players. They are a team. Several people came up to me on Sunday and told me how much they loved watching us play. It’s true, they are a beautiful team to watch… they work together, they play hard, and — far more often than not — they win. It stings that we didn’t get at least one game further. I think we all knew we could, but also, I am so proud of what they did accomplish.

Now, this group has one last tournament — the NY State Championship. There are several good teams in the tourney this year, and Beacon has never won a state championship. I think a state championship trophy would be a great way for this team to go out.