Saving Sectionals

So with the fall series about to get underway, I’ve been thinking about how to approach Sectionals.  For many club teams in most sections, Sectionals may offer a good game or two on Sunday, but generally there are a lot of blowouts.  How can you keep days like that from being a complete waste of time?  Wiffleball, Yumball, flutterguts, DDC, bocce…?  All good ideas.  Drilling between games?  Running suicides?  Scrimmaging?  It could work.  It depends on your team.

What I’m wondering about though is how to make the games themselves more worthwhile.  Now, if you don’t have a “worthy fucking adversary,” there’s only so much you can do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get something out of it.  What are good areas to focus on when you outmatch your opponent in every way?

Defense

On defense, if the other team is gonna cough up the disc in 2 passes no matter what defense you throw at them, then it’s probably not that helpful to work on your clam.  Not saying you don’t throw it, but understand you’re not getting tested.  Some defensive things you can work on and/or stress as points of emphasis:

Individual skills.  I like to stress staying focused against weaker opponents.  Pride yourself on keeping your pulls inbounds, getting down on every pull, not getting broken, etc.  Don’t get lazy about switching too much.

Team skills: Again, this can be tough if the other team is terrible.  One of my favorite things to work on against weak opponents is transition defenses.  To help this out, focus more on the transition (i.e. finding matchups quickly) and less on applying pressure with your cup.  Maybe even count out loud, and yell out, “Go man!” when you transition to queue the other team to start cutting.

Offense

Offense is generally easier to work on, and the weaker opponent just means it’s somewhere between a walk through and a scrimmage.

With individual skills, again, try to stress staying focused and not being sloppy.  Can you just get open by running past your slow, overweight defender?  Sure, but pride yourself on still cutting from motion and maximizing gains.

Spacing is great to work on against weaker opponents.  Don't crowd the disc, work to get swings all the way across the field instead of just 25 yards, etc.

Team concepts: Break flow offense, especially the continuation.  Fast break offense.  Set plays.  I like instituting a rule for a half like, “we will always fast break if the disc is on the field proper.”  Or “we always set up and run a play.”

These are just some ideas for team leaders to consider when approaching Sectionals... just don't forget the bocce ball set.