2008 Labor Day Championships

Backhoe

from Peri Kurshan:

Backhoe's offense utilizes big throws and athletic plays, and they have the personnel to make it happen. Backhoe and Brute Squad have had a competitive rivalry for several years now, traditionally trading wins and losses throughout the season. After beating Backhoe by one point at the Boston Invite, and then taking a beating from them at Chesapeake two weeks ago, our two teams both seemed revved up for the game this weekend. The game was very close, with only three breaks the entire game (two for them, one for us), culminating in a 14-12 win for Backhoe.

Backhoe likes to throw big bending forehands, and their receivers read the disc well. They also play a tight man-to-man defense which focuses on pressuring the handlers. Having played mostly vertical stack offense in the past, Backhoe now plays an aggressive spread offense as well, and this seems to play to their strengths. Our game saw mostly man D from both sides since there wasn't much wind. When we tried to throw zone on them they would usually break it with a bendy cross field forehand.

Backhoe plays a 2-3-2 zone D, which is pretty effective against a two-handler zone offense since you lose the numbers mismatch downfield. In addition, they also played some sort of switching/poaching man D or clam on our spread, fronting our deep cutters while maintaining someone back for the long throw.