3 games today…starting out with a very strong performance against Disco Stu. Disco’s Esteban is an extremely talented cutter, and uses his lefty dishy very well to set up handlers for deep looks. If it doesn’t go through Esteban, it probably isn’t happening. We tell our defenders, who are doing a good job of preventing in-cuts, “if he does get past you to the disc, flair out and stop the dishy”. That is good for a block around half-time, at which point our 5 turnovers had propelled us to a 7-2 lead (half-time here is done right at the half-way mark of the time-cap, which seems bizarrely reasonable to me, although it requires another person to be watching the clock. Each field has a stat-person also performing this task.

Our second game is, at the moment, the likely pool-deciding matchup. Warao (probably spelled incorrectly) is the dominant Venezuelan team, and they are full of athletes that can throw, a very cohesive offensive handling group, and a very dangerous player (#4) that is exceptionally fast, talented, and plays with their D-team, making them a threat to score several D-point in a row very quickly. I know this because they opened the game with 3-straight D-points, and we immediately have a crisis of confidence on our hands. Can we score? Kie has never beaten Warao, and most of the Colombian teams have, at some point, taken a bad beating from this squad.

We crawl back into the game using a mix of zone and man, and an extremely patient little-ball offense when our D-team gets the disc. They (led by Idaho, Julian and Tragic) are very happy throwing 5-10 2 yard throws, just keeping the disc moving side to side and the occassional easy break. Eventually, they find the end zone.

Warao, on both sides of the disc, is lethal for the first 3-4 passes of every possession. Their defenders at full-speed are tough to shake, but forcing them to move for 10-15 seconds (and readjust) limits their effectiveness. Our O-team is considerably better when we start moving the disc sideways, instead of trying for early yards. Their O, likewise, does a nice job of getting the disc into a power position in the middle of the field within 1-2 throws, and then sending one of the hoard of jumpers deep. Against our zone, though, this is more difficult. Rotating defenses is keeping them guessing a bit more than I think they are used to.

Warao, like most teams here, uses 7-8 players on offense, and almost never rotates. As the temperature drops (remember, we’re at 8600 feet, and it gets cold) and the offense is forced to run on defense, we start to build momentum, eventually taking a great game 13-9.

Spirit level was very high in this game, which is significant. Many games here have problems with the overall level of sportsmanship, even given the generally fiery nature of the participants. Mauricio Moore (my host) has made Spirit a top priority for our team, and we resolved to keep our level high, regardless of our opponents. Against Warao, we started with a high level of Spirit…and I think many of our team were surprised to see that Warao matched it.

My take: Kie’s perspective is that Warao is the dominant team, and don’t respect Kie as a team. Warao’s perspective: Colombians in general don’t respect Warao, and incorrectly think Warao wants to cheat. End result: Both teams, suspicious of each other’s motives, usually lead with their (usually metaphorical) fists. In this game, however, Kie leads well and that diffuses the usual suspicion, and Warao is relieved to be playing in a game in which they are no longer afraid that they are going to be cheated. Result; bitter rivals play a very fair game, even given the stakes and a few calls either way which are close and contested.

Third game today: against Hermanos, a team that recently played their way up from the Open division into the Elite, which is a possibility for every team here, each tournament trying for that higher division in the next tournament. The chance for relegation is always there as well.