In case you don't know, Pumpkinfest is one of the bestest tournaments known to man. It is women's teams only, has competitive, social and college brackets and the social is always amazing with most teams dressing up in "theme" costumes. Can we say entertainment.
Anyway, this is the second year that the Venom has entered the competitive division and we landed in a bracket with Nova and Beantown. I look forward to Nova matches because I always have fun playing them.... what I mean is that we always play hard against each other and it hardly ever gets dirty and scrappy on the pitch which means that most of the time everyone leaves the pitch with smiles on their faces. Awesome. Beantown on the other hand is an unknown. I had managed to play for 12 years without ever having to face Beantown and was hoping to keep it that way, I have a healthy fear of them. Here is how everything played out....
Friday: The flight out to Philly was not exciting. On the plane with me were Kam, Speedy and our coaches Mike and Marc. There were a few shenanigans had while waiting for the rental car. We (and by "we" I mean Coach Mike waited in line while the rest of us stood around and entertained each other with jokes and tom foolery) stood there in the Thrifty line for over an hour. Seriously. During which time we laughed so hard at something Kam said that other people came over to find out what was so funny. I heart being with the fun group in the room and I still chuckle when I think of Coach Mike trying to sleep on his belly. So, after finally collecting the car we head off to the sketchiest hotel in America.... the Red Roof Inn. Once we finally found it (no trip to Philly is complete without getting lost) it was late so everyone was ready to go straight to bed. As it turns out we didn't have any power and the people at the front said they had blown a breaker ... yada yada yada.... your room is half off. Score! I'll stay almost anywhere for half off. When we awoke the next morning we were told that we are all checking out and we are moving down the road to the Comfort Inn. uummm.... ok.
Saturday: The hurricane is a comin' but we are still going to try to play. Matches started on time were a total of 40 mins (2 halves of 20's) and our first match didn't have to kick off until noon. We played Nova who had already played Beantown so we should have had the advantage of fresh legs.... sadly this did not aid us much. Nova is a strong side and we just weren't firing on all cylinders. As the match progressed we started playing together better but we never caught up and lost the match. That's when we heard that the parks department was shutting us down (stupid hurricane) and we all had to be cleared out by 1pm... um, that's in 15 minutes. We would be told later what time we play on Sunday to finish up the round robin's and set the final matches. None of us were feeling very good about the way we had just played so in an effort to shake off the bad mood several of us decided a few beers would be appropriate. note: Philly has the strangest alcohol laws ever... you can't buy beer in the grocery store or at gas stations, you have to find a beer store or you can buy a six pack from a bar to go... no kidding So, after stocking up on spirit we head back to our new hotel for the afternoon to wait out the storm. What did we do to entertain yourself for 3 hours while waiting for dinner you ask? well here are a few of the notable items
1 - scare all the nice people in the lobby when you walk in like teamsters who are covered in dirt
2 - scare the poor housekeeping lady who sees all 17 of you (still covered in dirt) pile into 3 rooms
3 - go into the hall to beg and plead for extra towels from the aforementioned housekeeper and high 5 her/cheer loudly when she finally cracks and gives you the towels
4 - tackle Kam onto the bed and try to find out if she is ticklish (ps: she's not... boo... but Bailey totally is)
5 - try to figure out the best way to have 7 people sleep comfortably in a room for 4 (this plan may or may not have involved a 3 person spoon session... I'm just sayin)
6 - start putting your costumes together for tonight's social which you should have done before ever leaving Raleigh
7 - shock everyone you see when you emerge for dinner because you are clean and looking good (think pretty woman but instead of being tall, thin and wearing a red dress she's short, stout and in jeans and an AE shirt)
We all met for team dinner and invaded the local Chili's which meant that it would take an inordinate amount of time to check out due to the fact that we all needed separate tickets but our 1 waitress (for 20 people = poor planning) put us all on one bill. Lame. Now its time to go back to the hotel and get ready for the social which started 2 hours ago, oops. At this point I am tired, have a full belly and am of the opinion that playing Beantown at 8:45am while hung over (or possibly still drunk) would be a bad thing so I decide to stay in (or you could listen to my teammates who said I was old and boring... either way I got to sleep so there) Since I didn't go to the social I can't really add any fun stories about the shenanigans I know must have happened, but what I do know is that when everyone got back to the hotel there was a hallway picnic consisting of all the dinner leftovers they could find and someone in a Batman suit (you know who you are) bounding in and out of rooms singing the TV theme song... you know it Duh-nah-nah-nah-nah BATMAN!! Finally everyone went to bed for a couple hours rest before Sunday's matches.
Sunday: we kicked off against Beantown at 8:45am and actually played together really well. It was a big improvement over the previous match and although we didn't win we were feeling confident about our play. Since our record was 0-2 we were given one more match as a consolation and word comes down that we are playing Philly. My shoulders and neck immediately spasm in anticipation of hitting their front row... but wait... someone else has an 0-2 record and its not Philly so we end up playing Chicago who we have never seen before but we hear that they are a scrappy side who will keep coming and we heard right. They were scrappy and we had to "clean up" rucks and mauls to keep them from playing on the ground or swimming through to try and get our scrumhalf. We played together even better this match than the previous two and it paid off. After 40 mins when the final whistle blew the scorecard read 12-0 and we were victorious. We may have started the tournament rough and scattered but we worked out some kinks, got our new players in to figure out timing and style of play and by the end of the weekend we were looking much better. YAY
Things I learned =
1. being "Sunday sore" on a Monday while at work = boo
2. I am pretty good at pulling down the maul (which is now legal) but bad at not getting out of the way of the people falling on me = crushed Meegs
3. when you don't show up for a Philly social every single person who you know from the Philly team will give you shit for it when they see you on Sunday
4. Navy has a huge team and NONE OF THEM has a sense of humor
5. I heart the Pumpkinfest tournament
1 comment:
OMG Meeghan. ROTFLMAO. You should write a book about rugby and you. I bet it would be a best seller.
Love the Meegy.
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