Outdoor Division 2 Nationals 2010-2011, Sheffield Mythago 1 We started the tournament seeded 3rd, meaning in our group we had 5th seeds Fish (Lancaster), 10th seeds Haze (Loughborough) and 14th seeds Dark Horses (Strathclyde) - a relatively unknown group. Our first game was against Haze, who we plyed last year at div1 nationals and lost to, so we were determined to come out strongly and show we had improved. However, we did what Mythago always do and started the day slowly. The lack of wind meant our zone couldn't shut down their long game and they eventually took a pretty close game 10-8. Next up were Dark Horses. We weren't really sure what to expect and they started strongly, shocking us into action. We got going eventually and took the half 7-4 before pulling away and winning comfortably 13-6 Another unknown were our final opponents, Fish. It was their first time at nationals, and our experience showed through as we won 13-5. The early loss came back to bite us as we finished 2nd in the group (so took 5th seed) and had to play the 5v12 crossover late on day 1. The crossover was against a very good spirited Trinity (Trinity College Dublin). After an initial shock, going 3-1 down, we got into gear with our adapted zone proving very effective. We went on a scoring run of 11 points to win an enjoyable game 13-4. This game had everything - including what would later be voted 'most impressive moment' of the weekend; a layout callahan from Chris Barbieri! Day 2 brought an early challenge from Aye-Aye (Univeristy of East Anglia) in the 5v4 - our chance to secure a top 4 finish. It wasn't to be however as they proved a little too strong and beat us 13-10 in a pretty tight game. This loss meant the best we could finish was 5th and we would have to defend it all day. The first challengers (in the 5v8) were BLT, regional rivals who beat us twice at Regionals. We were determined to beat them as payback for those regionals defeats. We came out strongly and took an early lead before letting them back into the game. A terrific effort however stopped them in their tracks and we held on record a satisfying 11-7 win. So, the last game of the tournament was the 5v6 against another team unknown to us - Resovoir Discs (Bangor). We entered this last game with the aim of enjoying it as it was a few players last game for Mythago. We started playing for fun and raced into a 7-0 lead at half-time. Half-time proved nearly fatal as we massively took our foot off the accelerator and let them back into the game at 7-6. The focus changed from enjoying the game to holding our lead... We managed to hold on (just!) and pull through 9-6 winners to finish 5th. Although it would have been nice to have finished higher, we were pretty pleased with 5th. Especially when we realised that Haze and Aye-Aye - the two teams we had lost to - were contesting the div2 final (Haze won eventually)! Overall it had been an amazing weekend, with Rob Drysdale voted our MVP. But everyone had played incredibly with some amazing bids, sick grabs and awesome D's. Read the report from regionals. Back to Results.