Machine Ultimate Fall 2022 Recap

We started off the fall season strong with a large group for tryouts. We had around 70+ people come out to the first tryout and a decent group stayed throughout the process. We decided to split into XY for the first 3 weeks of the season to give players the most opportunity to learn and grow before we made final decisions on rosters. 

Tournaments

Rutgers Warm Up Home Tournament

We hosted our annual home tournament on Skelly Field. We were able to draw 10 teams including our own A and B team (Princeton A & B, Villanova, UPenn, Temple A & B, and Stevens A & B. Rutgers X went 3-1 on Saturday and Rutgers Y went FILL. The whole tournament was in jeopardy due to weather but all teams toughed it out through the rain on saturday. Come Sunday we were not so lucky. Most A/B teams decided to combine leaving the format a mess. Luckily Sunday only lasted one game due to torrential downpouring. No one true champion was named but Rutgers X took the pumpkin trophy beating a combined Stevens team in the last game being played out. 

Lobster Pot Oct 1-2 

For the first time in recent memory Rutgers traveled up to Portland Maine for one of the largest and most prestigious fall tournaments in the nations. Lobster Pot hosted 70+ teams over four divisions (Mens upper and lower, Womens, Mixed). For many players on the team this was their first major tournament and it did not disappoint. On Saturday morning Rutgers faced off against Harvard in the first live streamed game. We plowed through Harvard going 8-0 in the second half of the game winning BLANK. In the second round we took a loss to Brown, a top 5 team in the nations. Following that we easily took care of URI and Bryant taking second in our pool.

On Sunday morning we faced off against Vermont in the quarterfinals. Vermont was an exceptionally strong team coming off a breakout year. Rutgers only scored once in the second half ending in a BLANK score. After the tough loss we played Dartmouth. We initially started off the game playing more even lines since this was a fall tournament to get everyone experience. With some chippy play, chirping, and some choice words being thrown around the decision was made unanimously that we wanted to crush the ivy league kids. We tightened up the lines and made a swift comeback but it wasn't enough. We lost BLANK in a very winnable game but may have created a beautiful rivalry with another Ivy League. 

We played our last game vs Maine. After a tough loss and it being the last game we came into the game a little slow. We almost entirely utilized the whole roster until the very end. We ended the tournament on a high note beating Maine BLANK.

On top of breaking seed we also somehow won the spirit award for the upper men's division. Not exactly sure how this happened with the rowdy game vs Dartmouth and some words exchanged with Harvard. 

Going into the spring we are looking to attend three tournaments before the series. We have some major pick ups for the spring including a Pitt grad student and 3 rutgers grad students coming back for their last year of eligibility. 

Off field antics 

Somehow Machine won the spirit award at Lobster Pot for the upper men's division. During the week leading up to the tournament we posted lobster themed tiktoks to instagram and tagged Maine Ultimate and they seemed to love that move. The tournament director come up to us right before our filmed game vs Harvard to express how happy he was to have us there and give us props to our social media presence. Giving us a filmed game may have not been the best idea especially with Tim P on the team. (clip out footage from the game). Prior to games Saturday we acquired some WWE belts from a local thrift store and used them as our celebration for Ds and goals. (Clips)

BID address/gatherings

BID: 68 Central Ave New Brunswick

BID had many gatherings over the fall season. Most notably we had our second annual jersey painting party, Halloween party, and 50th anniversary party. 

For the past two years we have spray pained white cotton Ts for our first fall tournament. We create a cog stencil and let kids go to work on their jerseys. We post a plethora of them to the instagram for the world to see

After our annual Halloween hat tournament with Nightshade we host the MacShade Halloween party. This is always an event for the memories and this was no different. Best costumes included Even Ragone as a baby, Jason Furbee and Captain Jack Sparrow, and Cannon, Arthur Liaw, and Tim P as the three wisemen.

Practice

During the fall we run practice Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-11pm which is also what we do in the spring. We generally use Tuesday as a skills/concept based day and then Thursday as a more scrimmage heavy day. We practiced up until the end of November this year until all sports club practices were ended. Going into the winter break the team is grinding in the gym. We are blessed to have Pat Chirichella on the team who is at PT school right now. He makes specialized workout plans for the team to follow. 

Recruiting 

This year we were able to get a handful of freshmen with HS playing experience

Patrick Zong- Westfield HS

Jakob Lehmann- Science Leadership Academy 

Vishal Anand- Wissahickon HS

Recently we have been working hard to recruit as many HS players as we can. Pat Chirichella and Cannon both had stints coaching Westfield HS, Tyler Mackey and Iggy coach DEVYL indoor league and Andrew Hu coaches Bridgewater.