Daisy/Brown ("Rickshaw") - June 15

[Loring Holden <lsh@cs.brown.edu>]

Daisy seemed to be in the game until 6-5, when Brown scored three unanswered points to take the game to half.  Brown opened the second half by scoring 10 to Daisy's 3, bringing the score to 16-8.  Daisy scored three in a row before Brown hucked into the endzone, and Scott Wiant and Ethan Leland both went up for the disc, but Neither player touched the disc.  After they returned to earth, Ethan had better position and was able to lay out to catch the game winning score a foot or two off the ground.

Some may say that team Daisy (Dukes) got schooled in their first loss of the season, but I like to think of us as winning the last 4 points, 3-1. Throughout the game, not only did Brown outrun Daisy, but Daisy had many unlucky drops.  Brown was finally up to full strength after their captains returned from some obscure (but very big, apparently) music festival, and Daisy didn't have their usual huge complement of subs.  Thus endeth the excuses.

Highlights included a huge D block by Brown, great playing by Eileen Wang of Daisy, and many Scott Wiant vertical attempts.  In one, he slipped while running after his man and still caught up in order to make a bid on the disc.  Unfortunately, many Daisy team members had never seen Scott lose out on so many up attempts.  Personally, I think he had trouble keeping up with Tanja during their recent Mexico trip, and the resulting margaritas and other toxins still haven't been flushed from his system.

This is my ninth season of RIPUL (4th most lossingest RIPUL player ever, etc.), and I've never seen a RIPUL team as happy and loose as Daisy was when they were down 16-8.  We didn't enjoy getting shellacked, but we enjoyed playing ultimate with fun people.  This is a credit to our captains Tanja and Scott, who have done all the small things to make this happen.

Brown's cheer had no source material AFAIK, but it did include handing over Daisies at the end of the cheer to our captains and a lucky Woody (I'm not going blue, that's Ryan Woodward to you). This was a great touch, other teams should feel free to give us daisies in the future. If you come through with daisies, you're apt to see Scott with a daisy behind his ear.  Any daisies would be appreciated, but as with food in kindergarten, in the future please have enough daisies for everyone.

Daisy's cheer was based on "Donna" by Ritchie Valens.  This song was written for Ritchie's high school sweetheart, Donna Ludwig, and was his biggest hit, even bigger than the song he is probably best known for - La Bamba (remember Lou Diamond Phillips in the movie of the same name?). "Before he died at age 17, Valens was being likened to Elvis. John Lennon later called him an inspiration. Not bad for a teenager who made records for just eight months before perishing in the infamous Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash that also took rock legend Buddy Holly and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson." Hopefully Bill DelGaudio can also come up with cheers based on Buddy Holly and Big Bopper songs, to complete "the day the music died" memorial.  Bill, your homework is to work on cheers based on "Chantilly Lace" and "Peggy Sue".

Personally, based on my terrible showing today, I'd like to give readers some advice.  When free pizza and wings are available at your workplace at 4 pm on RIPUL game day, pass on the food.  Or at least don't have thirds.

Loring