#middquid

Who needs World Cup when you can have a tournament at Vassar?

April 13th, while the weather was mercifully gorgeous and there was minimal mud, The Ithaca Hex traveled to Vassar to play excellent games of Quidditch all day long against 6 other amazing teams. We placed third and got a beautiful gold trophy of dollar store paraphernalia to prove it!  Here is a breakdown of the day.

Our First Game: Ithaca Vs. SkidPI! 80 - 100. 

So Let me start off by saying that SkidPI is the most impressive Mercenary team I have ever seen. You clearly play together often guys because it shows. Amazing job.  We managed to score one goal for every two scored on us. Given that these were the eventual first place finishers and that we have a tendency of doing terribly in our first game, I would say with did fairly well.  Our Amazing first Seeker caught the snitch (I say amazing because he managed to catch three in a row that day. Kid's like The Flash or something) Second Game: Ithaca Vs. Chestnut Hill! 150 - 30.

We had managed to get our heads in the game by the time we lined up to play our second and last pool play match.  There was some great team work during this game. I have to say, our defensive game is one of our greatest strengths and we definitely proved that here. Bludger Control, plus some excellent sprinting back from the opposite hoop by our chasers ment only three shots made it through our goal hoops. Way to go us on that point. We more than made up for that with the 12 goals we scored on Chestnut Hill. We concluded this game with the second snitch catch of the day. This might have been the game that cost our first Seeker his broom tail as well. So to you fine seeker, I hope victory made up for that.

Third Game: Ithaca Vs. Middlebury! 120 - 20.

Let's just take a moment to fan girl here. It's not everyday you play Quidditch with the school that started it all! (Our President is still geeking out, as are many of our older team members) Yes this is not the same group of players that won five consecutive world cup titles, but the name still means a whole darn lot. It's not very often I get to say we played a clean game with no bad injuries. I can say that here because Middlebury has some very strong players and some strong team work, but more importantly they are also far less violent than some of the teams playing at World Cup the same weekend. Quidditch is always ten times more enjoyable when no one gets hurt.

Our defense and communication won us this game again, with a beautiful snitch grab to seal the deal. Following this game, it was time for us to move up in the bracket and rematch against SkidPI.

Fourth Game: Ithaca Vs. SkidPI! 60 - 70.

We were much more evenly matched against SkidPI this time. We knew their game, knew what to expect, and we'd had a few games to warm up in the meantime. We were ahead by twenty when SkidPI grabbed the snitch. We had more control over the bludgers during this match, and scored more goals, but a tired seeker is every team's downfall. (And unforntunately, we don't have very many seekers in our ranks.)

This game knocked us out of the running for first place, but we still had the third place slot to settle.

Fifth Game: Ithaca Vs. Vassar! 130 - 90.

Beating your rival is seriously the most satisfying moment of any tournament, especially if it's the first time you beat your rival, and doubly especially if this is the goal you set for the team in September.

We said we'd do it. We said that even if we didn't make it to World, or even to Regionals, we would beat Vassar. Well guys, we practiced, and bled and practiced some more. The glory is ours. Lets bask in it for a second. 

Then lets take a second to thank our substitute seeker for this off field catch. (ALL THE HUGS TO YOU!) I've never seen anyone beat Zeltzer to the Snitch. I still don't know how we made this catch. But we did. I shall not question hard work and sheer dumb luck. Best to just celebrate.

Once again, our defense held us together here, as it has in many games this year. What we sometimes lose in a small core of chasers, we make up for in a very deep bench of very good beaters and three consistent keepers. We had enough of each position to keep subbing throughout this last game. A lifesaver given that this was played back to back with the second SkidPI game. We ended the game and the day exhausted but victorious.

Let's talk about Middlebury. I've heard a lot of people saying that Middlebury shouldn't have won WC V. The fake game against Marquette, the near-loss to A&M, the missed call of beaters going off the pitch in the finals, the controversy of the snitch grab against UCLA (incidentally, I was beater reffing that game and thought it was a good catch) etc. We've all heard it. A lot of us have probably said something to that effect.

My opinion: Middlebury is the best quidditch team in the world.

I'm not even going to get into their defeats at the Champions Series. That wasn't THE Middlebury team and we all know it. It was disappointing that they didn't send their best, but there's nothing we can do about that.

For the last 2 World Cups, I was extremely confident going in that someone other than Middlebury was going to win, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard. In case you've been under a rock for the past 2 years, Middlebury won both cups. And all the rest of the World Cups, for that matter. How did that happen? The level of competition has increased exponentially over the last 2 years. The odds of Middlebury winning seem to get smaller every year. Yet they still win.

Sure, their loss to m!ch!g@n (sorry, I'm from OSU, that's the dirtiest swear word of them all around here) was a set-back. It proved that Middlebury could be beat. It gave the rest of the quidditch world hope. But nobody could beat them when it mattered. Middlebury always seemed to rally when they got down. They always had a magical snitch grab to send them to the next round.