Mardi Gras 2007

After the freezing and torrential conditions of last year, Wisconsin came prepared for the worst down in Baton Rouge. Most cars left on Friday afternoon, yielding very little sleep as we drove through the night and arrived just hours before game time. It proved to be sunny and very windy instead. This made for some interesting points as Wisconsin took the field against the Contrabears. Madison refused to punt early, relying on quick disc movement but some early miscues had us on our heels. WashU broke the Offense upwind to take an early lead 2-1. The equally patient Contrabears also scored downwind by slicing through the cup and getting continue passes for a 3-1 lead. Wisconsin called a timeout and tried to fire itself up with some intense words from Captain Dan Heijmen. The beginning of the weekend intensity was already there and a couple of kids had drunk way too many Sobe energy drinks for that early in the morning. Q-Tip was so upset after getting broken downwind that he punted a water gallon so hard it exploded. Heijmen was so pissed he drop kicked his cooler and left cleat marks inside. Needless to say, the Hodags were getting pissed off. However, Scallet reassured the team that the world has not yet ended and the focus returned. The Hodags start working the disc downfield with Riley, Rebholz and Heijmen getting many touches. After many swings, they finally get a quick strike, Heijmen to Riley for the downwind goal 3-2. The D breaks upwind and ties the game at 3-3 on the next point as they respond to the challenge whenever the O-face decides to screw up. As the D pulls downwind, it is decided on the sideline that Lokke’s balls can apparently stretch outside of his pants by a long shot. This is encouraging news as Seth Meyer D’s a hucked disc mid flight. After several drops in the same point, the Contrabears have it on Wisconsin’s goal line. WashU throws an inside out flick the back of the upwind end zone, where Muffin catches up just in time to get a forearm to the face that breaks his nose and bloodies his face as Washington takes back control of the game 3-4.
With a hero fallen, the zone defense begins to get serious again, putting together a 4-2 run and taking a 7-6 halftime lead. In the second half the Contrabears score upwind and make the game close again 8-7 Hodags. Now the O-face is trying to score upwind, but a low huck by Heijmen does not quite make it to Tim Pearce deep. The cup goes zone and gets broken through the middle before Heijmen gets back his D with a sky. A WashU poach D on Animal immediately gives the disc back as the point turns sloppy. The disc drops right on through the Bucket moments later and the Contrabears tie the game 8-8 on a nice looking sky in the downwind end zone. The soft cap sounds, so game to 11. The O-face is still struggling to score, but Foster gets a catch D and Jack gets a goal line D as the Riley punches in the downwinder to Pearce for the 9-8 Hodag lead. With the round ending, Wisconsin gets serious as Heijmen finds Foster for the upwind break 10-8 Wisco. A super crazy swarming cup and intense pressure gets a hammer turn and the Rebel Rousa finds Animal O2 for the goal and 11-8 win.
Wisco met Notre Dame next and had finally adjusted to the winds. Taking steps in the right direction, Wisconsin takes the lead 3-1 going upwind with Heijmen finding Marsh. The army of camouflage works the disc until Jon Gaynor makes a sick D from the wing in the cup. After a thrown turn that didn't quite make it upwind to the receiver, Wisco goes back to the grindstone to try to get that D back. Gaynor gets a short hammer D and Animal pushes the disc to Miller who cruises in a hot disc for goal line Shaner deflection drop. The 3-1 point goes on for hours, literally hours. Gaynor is standing so deep upwind that he is unguarded for at least 25 minutes, before Wisconsin drops another hard thrown disc. With the sideline getting antsy, the Big Cheese shakes it off and hucks to Cullen downwind who gives a pretty sweet greatest effort. Bobby gets a hand block on a hammer over the top. And the point drags on as Miller misses Gaynor with the upwind flick. Gaynor continues to freaking dominate and gets a nice D in the cup and then immediately goes deep and skies for the deep ball. A quick reset goes to Evan who hucks to Cullen who finally scores the upwinder 4-1.
Notre Dame is working downfield as Foster gets the slap D. Feldman gets a layout catch up line and finds Heijmen down the line for the goal 5-1. After two more breaks the Hodags take half 7-1. Wisconsin never looks back as they tally the OATBAG on the way to a 13-2 win.
With the sun shining through, yet winds never wavering from their steady 15-20 mph, the Hodags were set to play Texas A&M for the last pool play game. The game grew very intense early and shit was hitting the fan as players took hard fouls personally. The finger pointing and name calling ensued as cheap shots were taken and on field screaming reach points where even the babysitter would leave the room. Ultimate evolved into street ball as A&M hucked for their lives and Wisconsin made them pay for every turnover, scoring breaks consistently. Freshman Ryan Ingersoll slices an upwind backhand goal to fellow football player Will Lokke for the 5-2 lead. The contest never got any closer as the Hodags ran away to a 13-3 win as Texas A&M muttered something about “beating Wisconsin tomorrow in their weather.”
After several rounds of Jambalaya and a bye round that consisted of watching Bella dominate Iowa and Drew's sister, Wisconsin rummaged to their feet and began some last moment zone work before the crossover game with the Texas State Buckets. This was an awesome game of zone and upwind offense as the winds chilled out a little bit. Texas State was throwing no looks all over the field and roasting a well practiced cup, but was falling just short of the end zone. Dan Miller got a nice deep D, going up early and skying 2 offenders. The Def Zone O was looking good as well, with Animal hitting Riley, who continues the string to Miller and then Lokke and up line to Foster. A quick outside in around flick finds Gaynor for the upwind break 3-1 as Foster pumps his fist. The D was running rampant with huge pulls by Evan Klane and deep turns in the Texas State territory. A quick turn by TS gives Schmit the opportunity to quickly find Riley downwind for the score 4-1. Q-Tip again gets a deep throw catch D, and eventually gets it back, hucking a floaty backhand upwind to Seth. However, Cullen “The Swillmaster” Geppert comes in late to clean up the trash by catching the mack D for the upwind break 5-1. Muffin is still pulling flicks downwind as Texas State is able to work it through the cup, but eventually throw into a Jeremiah catch D, who fast breaks the opposite direction with several give and go moves. As Animal catches a dump, Muffin goes O2 for power position just as Will Lokke makes an in-cut. Will is essentially “flicked off” on the in-cut by a disgusted Muffin and immediately goes deep for the huck, but doesn’t catch it. Texas State drops the disc and Muffin again goes O2, this time finding Shane for a deep look, catching the mack D upwind for the 6-1 lead. Wisconsin is now pulling downwind and with OATBA on the line! Bobby Lau uses some oppressive defense and macks the hitch pass, but Texas State somehow catches it. Madison gets the turn and Lau finds Feldman for the downwind score and 7-1 OATBAG!
The second half begins with Rebholz roasting defenders up the line, with some commentated roastage, toastage, breakage to Marsh, and clearly some pownage to the Amherst stud Jeremiah for the 8-1 score. As the camera clearly focuses on Tom for the Animal only point, Freshman Ryan Ingersoll steals the spotlight doing a straight backflip and then a followup 1 footed roundhouse backflip!


However, the Animal point doesn’t go that well as Annen gets almost taken deep and beaten to the break side before the Texas State score 8-2. When asked after the play who Tom was better than on the team, the answer was a definite, “Dan Heijmen, I am better than Dan in every aspect.”

The second half continues as Foster gets a “marginal catch D” according to Coach Doede and then skies for an ill sick nasty in-cut 1 handed stick catch. Future Callahan Jimmy Foster then scores the goal from Riley, putting the Hodags up 9-2. As Madison continues to pummel in the second half with Jack scoring goals, Josh Richter spies an Andrew Brown peeing in the downwind end zone and can only shake his head in surprise.

With the score 10-4 and the Hodags going downwind, Heijmen jumps over J-Fo and they proceed to call their own personal timeout to line up the insertion technique.

Pearce gets the D after a Bucket drop, but Rebel Rousa finds Rilers for the O2 goal 12-4. With game point on the line Bobby Lau gets a good looking box out sky D on a huck and after several turns by both teams, including a sick Gaynor bid in the back of the end zone and a Feldman sky D, Texas State hucks upwind and catches the swill 12-5. As the O goes upwind, TP cannot get his hands on a pass before Heijmen makes a nice catch on the best Buckets’ defender #44 as Rebholz launches the disc on an oven cut to Marsh who ends up skying Heijmen for the 13-5 win. Kevin Riley then negotiates the trade of his Large #7 for the Texas State Buckets jersey XL #7. After several rounds of bartering, Riley admits all he wants is a #7 jersey with a Bucket on it and the deal is made.
Madison goes 4-0 on the day and takes the #1 seed into Sunday.

Sunday was a little bit nicer as the wind died down but the sun kept things warm. Iowa State could not quell Birthday Boy Jon Gaynor who continued to rack up D’s in the cup and on cutters to strike out for a 7-2 lead. Good help deep defense and strong marks kept the Iowa State throwers from doing too much damage as Wisconsin continued to score quickly. On top of Gaynor’s continued defensive dominance, Jon also launched a beauty of a lefty upwind IO flick huck to Seth Meyer for a game ending goal 13-4. Pretty sure Animal got a dope looking foot block and Shane continued to get sick D’s. I can’t tell you how many D’s exactly because Captain Heijmen lost the stat sheets at the hotel.
Quarterfinals pit the Hodags against the Arkansas Ludicrous Speed. These guys are pretty cool and with the champion charisma power of Karl Doege, managed to do pretty well. Early in the game, Will Lokke takes control of the defensive O by ripping a backhand huck downwind for a score. Schmit finds Tim Pearce (wearing Gaia?) on several occasions for scores as the O-face plays well. Rebholz lined up Jimmy Foster for a nice hammer score downwind to help Wisconsin to a 7-2 lead. In the second half, somehow Animal pulls and the Wisconsin D gets a good bid by Cullen, but Karl manages to get off a super huck which scores as Feldman makes an awesome effort, totaling demolishing the offender in an attempt to D the disc.

The O is still smooth as Riley finds Foster for an easy deep goal. Jon Gaynor and Seth Meyer continue to abuse their bodies and rack up ridiculous layouts from both wings in the zone. Even Ben Feldman gets back into the action, getting a finger in a disc for a D. Overall Wisconsin crushes for a 13-5 victory.
As the Hodags move onto semifinals, we find the familiar foe of Texas TUFF. For the first real time all weekend, the Hodags get legitimately excited! Madison is quickly reminded just how much we need the prize money and tension begins to rise. We realize the game is ours for the taking and begin to up the passion during the warm up Seattle drill. Hodags begin to cheer on their teammates as Wisconsin starts rocking it. The path is set and we must prove once again that we own the South. Wisconsin pulls the disc to start and game play is halted on the very first point due to a dog on the field. Texas starts with disc with only 1 ½ handlers back with lots of swinging and faking. Heijmen slaps on a ridiculous brutal mark and causes a high swing which is almost D’d by Gaylord. Texas is still being chilly and patient, but all dumps are coming from the stack for some silly reason. I mean Jon Gaynor is a baller, as he almost gets a hand block when he is not even on the mark! After a miscue, Wisconsin quickly punches in the disc for a 1-0 break. On Tuff’s second possession, Texas jacks the disc to J-Do, who fails to lay out and the disc falls to the ground in the end zone. A huge break mark huck by Muffin sets the tone as Wisconsin goes up 2-0. Doede continues to heckle anyone he sees with the camera as Rebholz requests some better defensive strat and some more stamina pots for the cutter defenders. However, a break huck on Gaynor burns Lokke deep as Texas gets on the board 1-2. The O-face gets on the field and takes care of business quickly, Heijmen playing incredibly as the O scores 3-1. Will Lokke is still trying to adjust to the game speed after his layover in Spain, as he is taken breakside deep on an IO flick across his face as J-Do scores in Will’s eye to keep Texas in the game 3-2. The O-face turns the disc as fast as a teenager shooting off his mouth and a super sick layout in-cut "phantom" D by Jimmy Foster keeps the O coming back for more pleasure.
After a quick Wisconsin turn which wastes Foster’s "layout D," Riley gets a hand block called foul, and Wisco must earn it again. Three passes later Dan “Pop Tarts” Schmit gets a foot block mack D on an attempted break mark throw. It took 3 D’s but the O-face finally gets back in the groove and punches it in for the 4-2 lead as Mista Milly gets pumped up and stands tough. Clip of the tournament forthcoming! Shane continues to body the shit out of Jon Daughter at every moment. J-Do responds by later contesting a foul simply on the grounds that he was pissed as hell at Slut. Daughter, out of pure rage at Shane, decides to try to put one in his eye, jacking the disc deep after the marking foul. Little did he know that Shane’s Boy, Winona Clan DJ Millertime, was looking to help deep, as he gets the sick nastiest layout D ever from the weak side. I know, I know. Every time Miller gets an awesome layout D, I say, it was the best I have ever seen. Since I didn’t get a good look at this one, I’ll let the picture do the talking! Let’s just say SNAF as fuck Skullfuck! According to Izzi Bikun, “It was the most sick nasty photograph I have ever taken.”

After slowmo-ing the clip several times, it appears that #22 was going to layout and catch the disc, however, Miller saw where he was going to catch it, and took flight just before the Texas player, catching the disc on his layout, about half a foot before #22 was going to catch it. The Wisco D turns the disc, but gets it back on a deep miscommunication by Texas and is able finally punch it in and take the lead 5-2. Stupid offense, you can’t waste those sick plays like that.
Coach Doede continues to heckle Hodags on their poor defense in the backfield as Texas continues to play patient and swing the disc from side to side. The Hodags rack up the fouls as Heijmen frustrates several throwers with his lethal foot marks. The longhorns get a big jack deep and Jeremiah gets taken down and Scallet is a moment late on the help as Texas scores 5-3. The O-face remains on course and takes care of business scoring 6-3. As Texas works the disc, Shane gets so ridiculously vertical on an in-cut on Jon D that we are going to need a video clip here! J-Do, probably still pissed at this thugmaster who persists with his physical play, throws his backhand up the line again, putting the disc perfectly in between Muffin and Foster to make it 4-6. Wisco punches in the last point after a turn a piece for the 7-4 halftime lead as Jim Foster makes a huge sky!
As the second half begins and play is stopped, Texas shouts from the sideline that a certain player has a “Stanley” on him. As Wisconsin quickly realized, Stanley was code for “victim” in Wisconsin terms as the King of the S Box was being singled out. However, Texas was surely mistaken as a backhand huck by Marsh who is fouled, gets SKYed by Dan “Crazy Eights” Schmit after a Texas defender macks it and Bonkers still manages to stick the disc out of the air. Insert picture here because it is titty sweet.

Schmittles and Bits doesn’t even fall over as the 2 Tuff players hit the floor. However, Bucket ruins it all by jacking away an ill advised hammer on stall 8 to Pearce. The O still scores though, 8-4 Hodags.
Cullen makes a sweet in-cut bid on defense, but the Tuff player just grabs it in time. A reset and Animal footblock is called a foul. Annen continues to hold the mark as Texas struggles to move the disc and turns a dropped crossfield dump scoober, but still manages to score 8-5. With the O-face back on the field Dan Heijmen puts a nice backhand to Mista Miller for the 9-5 lead in the very back of the end zone.
Animal gets roasted deep by #22 Matty who drops the easy 2 handed goal. The Def O goes to work and Seth Meyer goes every other for a while. Feldman travels again and again. Finally Animal goes O2 and hucks his dinky backhand right into Daughter’s head and then immediately gets beat deep as Texas scores 9-6.
A break mark huck by Jack gets D’d due to Lokke taking his sweet ass time getting to the spot. Wisco gets it back and goes to Tim Pearce several times on the break side before TP slows down on the in-cut and gets layout D’d, (video clip forthcoming Tim) so everybody make a sad face:( Texas makes the Hodags pay with an oven cut and deep huck to somebody who out ran Riley to the spot 9-7.
“Tim Pearce I have you getting layout D’d, you should probably make up for that” spits Coach Dades as he records the grass with his camcorder.
The O responds as Marsh hucks it deep to Heijmen, who beats his man by at least 2 yards for the TOUCHDOWN, but a late late late layout bid that hits Dan’s knee posterior angle, makes the sidelines wince as the horrifying possibility of the LCL tear appears probable. However, Dan is a stud, who keeps the crowd in suspense as they hold their breath, but he pops up just fine 10-7 Hodags.
TUFF throws into a brutal Shane in-cut D – I mean he literally killed a baby there. Muffin turns the disc after some good Texas defense and several foul calls. Texas still can’t get anything going as Shane brutalizes an air bounce to space, crashing into some kid, knee to the back spinal cord painthriller with a foul call. Texas gets an anvert huck flick to the break side and after a “splits break” by #33, TUFF slams it home 10-8 on the open side.
The O scores 11-8, and the D gets a turn. Muffin jacks a transition flick to Gaynor (who needed to attack the disc a bit harder), but an outstanding layout by #22 gets the D just in time. Animal prevents a deep huck by a layout on the mark, but Texas manages to score anyway, with Lokkeness getting ridic broken for the goal 11-9.
The O shuts the door 12-9 for game and a birth into finals for the chance for $2,000. Wisconsin is set to play Texas A&M for the fourth straight Mardi Gras title. Since we were playing Dozen Ultimate, Tim Pearce decided that the game was in the bag and decided to leave for home before the last game, taking Andrew and Doede with him. So dozen ultimate huh, too bad you don’t get 12 guys on the field. I’m not sure how it works in Texas, but in Louisiana you only get 7. However, Sunday was a new day of ultimate and Texas A&M was a team reborn, wanting to discard Saturday’s fiasco game. The momentum started in Wisconsin’s favor and never wavered as the Hodags took a 2 point lead and traded to a 7-5 half. A motivating halftime speech got the team excited to bring the pain as we closed out the second half 6-2 for the 13-7 win. Cullen Geppert made 2 pretty sweet plays, reading a high floaty backhand and coming down with the disc in a pile and making a strong in-cut on the goal line and laying out pretty high to catch a laser flick from Muffin with 2 hands on the disc. Other sick plays include a hammer from Heijmen to J-Fo to break the zone. The game ended on a Riley pass to Heijmen who continues it to Jack Marsh for the last score of the tournament. In case you didn’t know, Jack Marsh is awesome at ultimate. He put in a clinic in finals, throwing almost every O-face goal, most to Foster and just making the offense click. Heijmen makes a nice catch from Tom Annen on a laser huck downwind. So for the fourth straight year, Wisconsin eats the King Cake at the end of the day.

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