Beach Nationals 2016

Jack's not the only one in this family going to nationals! Derrick and I just got back from a weekend in Virginia Beach playing in the 2016 beach national championship. It's an eensy bit less of a big deal than Jack's nationals :) There is no sort of qualifying round...no sectionals, no regionals, no qualifiers at all. It's only the 2nd year of beach nationals so they are still getting it going. For now, we can just sign up with a pick-up team, and go.

Since it's nationals the team had to have matching jerseys which is a little annoying because it's only one weekend but Alison is t-shirt maker extraordinaire and came to the rescue for our team.

It was funny because it was at this stage that 3 different sets of neighbors came over to see what we were doing. We do things a little differently in this household I guess.

Derrick was able to pick up for a men's team from California which was exciting. Beach is so fun and I didn't want him to miss out when I got invited to a women's team. 

As a nationals event the organization was great. About a mile length of Virginia beach had two fields per width of beach all the way down. There were food tents, bleachers, a showcase field, vendors, and score keepers. 

The weather was absolutely gorgeous although I think I'm at least two shades darker now. Derrick toughed it out his tank top jersey for the first game before resorting to wearing a long sleeve underneath to keep him from getting burned.

I try not to talk politics on this blog ever, but there is a lot of crap going on in NC that I don't agree with. All of the NC players wore rainbow sweatbands in a small protest of HB2 and as a gesture to the LGBT ultimate community. We gave each team we played two wristbands at the end of the game to give their MVP and by the end of the tournament the teams we played had heard about them and were so excited to get them. I was proud to be a part of it.

Exhausted but smiling after a fun day one. Free BBQ and a showcase game followed by watching the Flyers and eating Ben and Jerrys.

Team shot at the end of Sunday. Our team was a hodge podge pick-up team and we ended up holding seed. We didn't win a lot of games but it didn't take away any fun of the tournament. 

Derrick's team ended up tying for 3rd overall which was amazing! It was nice because there were 6 rounds of games each day but we only played in 4 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Our byes were pretty staggered so we were able to watch each other during our byes.

 

The only let down of the weekend was our hotel. It was kind of crappy and than on Saturday night, after a full day of games on Saturday and before an 8:30 game on Sunday, the fire alarm went off at 4:30 AM.  And it wasn't a drill. We woke up grumbling and searching for shoes and started heading down the 7 flights of stairs. Around the 4th floor we started smelling smoke. It was pretty scary. Fortunately it was just a small fire that the firemen put out quickly but we were evacuated for over an hour. We were pretty tired on Sunday. 

I can't wait for next year and hope we get an opportunity to play. It was really an awesome weekend.