East Coast Cup & Videos!!!

So this has been a CRAZY weekend. I think it would be best to start from the beginning and then work our way up to Cup. So sit back and enjoy the adventure.

So while my car was in the shop, I picked up a rental car for the trip. I got a pretty amazing Mazda6 with all the bells and whistles which ended up being a HUGE help getting to Westminister, MD. So I drive up on Friday and head straight up 81. I made the huge mistake of trying to make a pit stop in Harrisonburg, VA right by JMU at around 5:30pm on a Friday. Millions of people everywhere and it was a zoo. So pass on through, cut through West Virginia and Maryland. Ended up in Pennsylvania pretty randomly and as soon as I cross over the state line, huge wall of fog rolls into the town onto a little league game, which I though was a little weird. So pass through a few small towns and make my way to Westminister, MD. My teammates hadn't arrived yet, but some of the other players were at the hotel so we all hung out for a bit and waited for Justin and Jennifer to get in which they did around 11ish.

The following morning, we went to Gettysburg since we had never been before. We walked all around and visited Devil's Den. We got some awesome photos and I posted the good ones on my Facebook, so check them out. As we were heading back, we stopped at the Maryland Microbrewery Festival. This is just as amazing a concept as it sounds. So we had some great beers and had a good time. We then went to the field in order to get plays figured out and get an idea of how we were going to be playing matches. We then headed back to the hotel and waited for the rest of the team to show up and when they did we all went to Ruby Tuesdays for team dinner. When we got back to the hotel again we all kinda just hung out at the hotel, cleaning guns, worked on basics and just kinda chilled for a while.

We got up around 5:30am to head to the field for the event. I just feel like we should never be awake before the sun, but whatever. We got underway with the tournament and off the bat we start getting plagued by penalties. This went on all day and not just with our team but all of the teams. The refs were doing a good job but also at the same time making some pretty bad calls. We fought hard all throughout the prelims but with some pretty bad tournaments, we didn't think we were going to advance. Some of our players had already packed up when we got the word that we were advancing. So we get into the quarter finals and it came down to a 3rd point to decide if we would continue. We won by the skin on our teeth and moved on to the semi-finals. We lost the round of the semis but we would be able to play for 3rd place. This means we can either go home with a medal and prizes or empty handed. I knew that I wasn't playing my best so I took over the role of coach. We won the first point and the team was eager to finish this event up strong. We won the second point and earned 3rd place. This is a huge accomplishment. We have really started to play as a team and keep pushing each other to do better. So after the tournament, I had the long 7ish hour drive back to Bristol and I got in around 1:30am, longest day ever.

With the end of the season here, its amazing to see how the team has grown even with the little amount of time I have been apart of it. We will be advancing to D4 next season, and this will present new challenges for us. We will have to grow and practice harder. We will be getting some of the core players back from deployment so it will be a fun 2014 season. So I will keep y'all posted on my off season activities.

Here are the videos from the event! ENJOY!

ECC 1
ECC 2
ECC 3
ECC 4
ECC 5
ECC 6
ECC 7
ECC 8
ECC 9
ECC 10