The Lavender Menace

This Saturday was spent playing soggy ultimate at Sandy Creek Park. It was the Athens Summer League End of Summer Tournament. I gotta say, my little team really pulled it out. Normally I hate to lose, but the bad feelings were more than counterbalanced by the general comraderie and breathtaking talent that epitomized the Purple People Eaters. Our offense could not be stopped during pool play and we rolled over SubLime and Sage 9-1 in both games. The semi-finals was more of a battle against SkyBlue (did they ever come up with a team name?). I actually don't know the final score, but I think it was in the realm of 13-5 or 6 or 7. What a fantastic game that was. A battle for every score with both teams playing with a previously unheard-of fire. And, remarkably, there was relatively good spirit maintained by both teams. In a game that intense, you expect more bickering. We had our share, but nothing compared to what I've seen in similar circumstances between lesser men. Then there was the finals against the Peach Team (the team name assigned by our captain, Jeremy, will not be repeated here since this is a family-oriented site). What can you do against a team that boasts David Neder, Ricky Tse, Chase Thomas, Ben Mathes, Leslie "Dino" Walden, and a host of talented rookies? They never messed up. Not even once. They won quite beautifully and by quite a wide margin. But you know what? Lavender never quit. We played our best until the last and we had fun doing it. Sure it was frustrating, it's alwasy frustrating to lose. But man oh man did we have heart. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the Lavender team. It was absolutely a pleasure playing with all of you this summer. My MVP nomination most definitely goes to one Amble Johnson. For keeping us all pumped up, for being a paragon of spirit, for playing with fire every single time you stepped on the pitch, for traveling from West Virginia to be with us, for letting five muddy people ride in your van to Subway, for nearly skying Potter in that stupid picture, for saying nothing but nice things about everyone all the time, for being an in general all-around most awesome guy, you are my MVP.