Wildwood 09

Hi guys, sorry this is a little late, but since returning on Tuesday I've been pretty busy.

We started the trip to Wildwood, NJ at about 8:30 on Thursday night. I can't believe it's already been a week since we left for that trip...time flies. I've never driven through the night before so I was a little nervous, but with the help of Mr. Shane Clapsaddle we managed to survive...it probably helped that he drove through the misty mountains and the garbage pit that is Rural New Jersey. I have to say, Pennsylvania won the award for favorite state to drive through. We took I 70 rather than 80 (the way I went to NYC last semester) and it took us through some awesome mountain tunnels.

After spending ultimately waaay too much time driving through New Jersey (mapquest told us to take a bunch of 2 lane highways and the traffic getting to Wildwood sucked) we finally arrived at approximately 12:30pm on Friday. Reynolds and company weren't there yet to check us into the hotel so Shane, Ashley, Whorehouse and I threw on the beach for a while. Apparently it had rained the night before and since Wildwood's beach is basically a bunch of sand hanging out on slabs of cements the water didn't absorb, leaving the sand almost clay-like with puddles everywhere. The Sandblast snob in my was thinking "omg Montrose is so much nicer than this POS"...which it is, but it soon became obvious that I was dealing with two very different tournaments...both wonderful in their own ways.

Brenton and my CT team arrived later that night. 6ish maybe? I don't really know...I was a zombie from all of the driving and lack of sleep. Luckily I managed to snag a nap in before meeting up with Dethklok (my team) because within moments of setting my bags down in the hotel room the party began. The rest of the night was a blur of boardwalk...go karts...captains' check in party...shot gunned beers...and a variety of other things. Basically it was a great night, but I was most definitely not a champion the next morning...hell, I sucked all day.

The fields were still pretty crappy on Saturday. There were a lot of puddles and the sand was still mushy. Playing, however, was a lot of fun. There were about 100 fields on the beach and 200 teams, so you had a bye between every game. My byes were spent hanging out with the team I traveled to NJ with, eating, exploring and SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN...which is awesome, minus the salt water. Our games didn't go well the first day. It's not that my team played poorly (except for me...I was a very useless waste of space), we just got put in a ridiculously tough pool and went 0-4. boo.

After taking a nap and cleaning up I headed to the tournament party. You can't really go wrong with free beer on the beach. Sadly, the party only went until 10, so Brenton and I hit up the rides afterward, specifically the ferris wheel, where we were lucky enough to be seating in a car with three really awkward non-English-speaking hispanics. This was mainly a problem for Brenton, who was in hyper-talkative mode. It was an interesting sight. haha. After our ferris wheel/boardwalk adventure we went to Reynolds' and company's hotel where we were promptly kicked off the roof. haha, so we headed to the Bolero, the club where tournament party #2 was being held. It was awesome! I was dancing all over the place, meeting lots of East Coast ultimate players, and after bouncing off the walls for about 45 minutes I say down...and fell asleep. That's right, I fell asleep at the bar. Nice. Work. Emily. I figured this meant it was time to go, so I went back to the hotel and I was out by 1am.

The nice thing about being lame Saturday night was that I felt great Sunday! Our games didn't start until 11am so I was finally well-rested and ready to go. The sand was now fluffy and wonderful and I played about 903824 times better that day and...I usually don't like to toot my horn, but I'm going to. In one game a guy on our team, the fabulous Mazur, suggested that I try hucking to him end zone to end zone to go for the 2-pointers. We did this four times which = 8 points. Yup...I felt pretty badass. We went 3-0 that day despite two of our players going to the hospital. If there's one word that could describe how we played Sunday it would be...

METAL

This ended the most eventful parts of the weekend...all in all this tournament receives an A+. Very different from sandblast, but both are great. I definitely plan on going back again next year and continuing Dethklok's reign of terror.

-Emblebee