Devon Prep

Senior Day brought in Devon Prep, a new team to the league. This would be set to be the Seniors last home game, and last regular season game. A windy, cold day, would be the perfect setting to play.

The game started off much closer than O'Hara had anticipated with Devon actually taking a 3 - 1 lead. O'Hara had been running its zone defense, but it was not as dominate as in the past. O'Hara quickly switched to man defense, and the rout was on. Gunther recorded his first slash, Monica her first Open score of the year, and Savage played some solid D. The team now preps for States.

City Championships

The City Championships were slated to be hosted at Edgely, but some last second revisions were necessary and brought the tournament home to O'Hara. The home field advantage may have helped, but only slightly.

GirlSquad

Off their Easterns' fallout, the Girls came home to their dominance. The first game against Lower Merion started off slow, and ended early. The game had to be time capped in order to start the rest of the tournament. O'Hara was not playing particularly well, with many throws hitting the turf early or simply not being caught. Luckily, the girls were able to turn it on when they needed it, and walked away with a 6 - 2 win.

The Haverford game was much more the style that O'Hara is familiar with. In a 15 - 0 rout, O'Hara regained its form with Reg nearly collected two slashes and Katie tossing most of them. The game even featured a Callahan goal! The GirlSquad had claimed the official title of City Champions and had begun to look forward to States.

Open

The Open team had drawn the 5 seed and had to face Lower Merion in the first round. The game would prove to be hard fought, but a testament to how far the team has come this year. In the only other match-up with LM, O'Hara won a nail-biter 13 - 12, this time, there would be no doubt.
O'Hara stumbled a bit to start the game, falling down 6 - 4 before taking their play up a notch, taking half 8 - 7. The zone began to gel and put pressure on LM players and force bad decisions, upon which, the offense quickly capitalized. Squared was as dominate as ever, but once again took a hard shot to the groin during a collision with Sleeves. The second half was all O'Hara, the team could sense the life draining from the LM players and quickly closed the game, winning 15 - 9. This was a game of wills, with O'Hara proving it wanted the win, just a little more.
After beating Lower Merion, O'Hara had the dubious distinction of playing Pennsbury. Earlier this season, at Born 2 Dive, O'Hara gave Pennsbury a little scare, and had confidence that the team could hang with them. Pennsbury quickly put that idea to rest. Showing just how dominate they really are, the defending State Champions never let O'Hara into the game, dominating from start to finish with a 15 - 6 win. Unlike B2D, Pennsbury took O'Hara seriously, and was not looking past to a match up with anyone else.
The final game for the A Team had them matched up with Wissahickon. Both teams had limited subs, and were debating before the game about seedings at States. It was clear once the game start, that both wanted to win and claim 3rd place in the city. The game wore on as a slug fest, with both teams going on runs of points, and several players, including both Stavingas, needing to leave for a point or two with cramps or other injuries. With the score 10 - 6, Curran let a huge huck fly, but on the follow-through, he caught Ben in the nose, and opened the floodgates. With as much blood as Ben had pouring out of his face, it was obvious he had to go to the hospital. O'Hara decided to forfeit the game, and give Wiss. the win. It was later determined that Ben had a small break in his nose, but would not miss any game time.

O'Hara finished the day in 4th place in the city, meeting our team goal of a top 5 finish. The next goal is a top ten finish for the open team, a State Championship for the girls.

Cheltenham

After a downer of a trip to Easterns, the O'Hara Ultimate A team had a few days to get themselves ready for City Championships. On the day before playing Cheltenham, the team scrimmaged against several seniors from Cook's marketing class. The game, of course, was a debacle, with the Ultimate team winning 15 - 2. The bigger story was that we were supposed to play Cheltenham on that day, and the brilliant coach that I am, I screwed up the schedule. Cheltenham was gracious enough to reschedule for the next day.

O'Hara Ultimate met Cheltenham on their home field and was able to field a savage team. No subs, no problem. O'Hara Ultimate thumped Cheltenham 15 - 6 on the strength of the zone defense. Squared had plenty of D's and took a shot to the groin when he went up to sky a Cheltenham player and collided with Sleeves. He did not get the D. Szkud chipped in a slash, as did Curran and Wilcox on the assist side. Always a good spirited game, the teams decided to shake hands on the way to the ice cream truck which had waited patiently for the game to end.

Girls' High School Easterns

The GirlSquad had qualified for Easterns based on their finish at States last year. O'Hara Ultimate had finished second, falling to Fox Chapel at universe point. With high expectations and a 8 seed overall, GirlSquad stepped onto the fields in Pittsburgh. The fields were a swamp and the weather foreboding, but the experience of playing at the highest level was all the motivation needed.
Amherst

The first game of the tournament was against perennial powerhouse, Amherst. The Amherst team boasts an incredible record, several Eastern Championships, and several very good players. Even with all of that, O'Hara Ultimate came out strong, scoring the first 2 points, and showing everyone that they were not a team to be taken lightly. As the game approached half, several spectators were heard grumbling about a possible upset as the zone defense was causing problems and Katie was not allowing any long passes. However, the experience and depth of Amherst became evident in the second half and the youth and vulnerabilities of the GirlSquad was exposed. This would be the best game of the tournament for the girls, playing together as a cohesive unit and giving a giant a strong match, but unfortunately, the girls fell 12 - 5.

University School of Nashville

The team from Tennessee was seeded second in our Pool and was every bit as good as Amherst. During a second round bye, O'Hara watched as USN and Amherst battled out a monumental game, with Amherst pulling away in the end to make USN hungry for their battle against O'Hara. USN came out strong, scoring 3 quick goals on the GirlSquad. The second round layover had taken something out of the GirlSquad as they were playing very flat. The team took a time-out to talk about playing intelligently and with passion. After that, O'Hara Ultimate ripped off 5 unanswered goals to take a 5 - 3 lead, and swing the momentum in our favor. USN was able to weather the storm, and scored 5 in a row of their own to take halftime 8 - 5. In the second half, USN was content to trade points with O'Hara, the final, 12 - 8.

LC Bird

At some point in the USN game, Blue had hurt her foot, she was able to play a few points in the LC Bird game, enough to help O'Hara build a 3 - 0 lead, but once she had to come out, the team began to slip. With obvious exhaustion, GirlSquad began making poor decisions, trying to press the disc up-field and forgetting about the tried-and-true dump/swing to beat the cup. A frustrated Katie removed herself from the game for her only rest of the tournament. After playing a hard, promising game against Amherst, O'Hara Ultimate was unable to muster up the same determination and hard fought playing, and lost to LC Bird in their worst defeat of the year, 11 - 6.

Day one ended with an 0 - 3 record, exhausted girls, an injured Blue, an upset, but hopeful team.

Columbia

The second day brought cold temperatures and the constant threat of rain. It also brought Sparkle Motion. The game was very competitive, but O'Hara fell 9 - 5. One of the core reason for this loss were the 27 endzone turnovers. O'Hara was able to repeated get the disc down to the goal line, but could not seal the deal. Turnovers in the endzone had been a repetitive theme throughout the weekend.

Stuyvesant

The last game of the tournament found Cook wearing a trashbag to stay dry on the sidelines, and Katie wearing on to play in. This game also held the most dramatic, frightening moment of the entire tournament. On a seemingly innocent play, Becky laid out for a catch with a defender going for a D and Becky did not get up. A fiery player, Becky had been knocked unconscious while trying to make a catch in the middle of the field. She had to be taken away to the hospital, but not before making sure everyone knew she made the catch and to pancake the disc. With the loss of a second player, Blue had been injured beforehand, and a sick Reg, O'Hara Ultimate went on fighting, but could not muster up enough for a win, falling 7 - 4 in our final game at Easterns.

Overall, a 0 - 5 record is not very pleasant to look at, but, with a very young team, and many more years to practice and perfect gameplay, look for O'Hara Ultimate to be a fixture at Easterns for many years to come.

Masterman - Playoffs

O'Hara Ultimate was seeded 5th in the City Playoff Series, a win qualifies the team for Division 1 City Championships and State Championships. Masterman, who O'Hara had earlier defeated at the O'Hara Invite.

Masterman was able to keep the score close early, but, the experience and skill of O'Hara dominated the opponent. The zone defense was infuriating, causing many turnovers, just when Masterman thought they were through. The offense quickly capitalized on mistakes and made very few of their own. O'Hara took half with the score 8-2, increased the lead to 10-2, and won by a final of 15-7, settling to trade points at the end of the game.

Squared and Szkud chipped in a slash in the endzone, with Katie and Curran racking up a slash each tossing past Masterman defenders with ease. O'Hara Ultimate advances to the City Championships where they will face Lower Merion in a rematch of the second game of the season. O'Hara has lost 6 of the last 7 to Lower Merion, but has improved tremendously this season. We should be a force at the City Championships.

Next up, the GirlSquad at Easterns.

Radnor

On another very windy day O'Hara once again was in action, this time against Radnor. In the second match-up of the season, O'Hara once again was victorious, dealing Radnor a crushing 15-3 loss.

In windy conditions, O'Hara's version of a cup zone once again proved to be a formidable defense and completely shut down any offense from Radnor. With Szkud, Curran and Gunther consistently around the disc, giving the handlers no breathing room, and Squared playing lights out deep, Radnor simply had nowhere to go. Before Radnor could react it was 10-0. Only then were they able to put together a fast break offense to capitalize a few times.

As great as the defense was, the offense was spectacular. O'Hara was able to move the disc incredibly well on Radnor's cup defense by playing with 4 handlers in an inverted ho-stack. The invert opened up all kinds of room underneath for Szkud and Gunther to cut through and allowed Curran to rack up a double slash for assists. Szkud and Squared each finished with four goals, and just about every member of the team contributed to the rout.

Crushing defense and intelligent, patient offense were the keys to this victory. Those and the fact that O'Hara may very well be the best bad weather team in the Philly.