4/16/2006 - The Return of Ben and the Split Stack

Today was a big day. It was the day after the women's successful showing at their first women's sectionals coming back with a record of 1-4. Seeing as several of teams such as UCSD Psychos, ranked 5th in the nation, and Claremont, ranked 45th in the nation, its no surprise that the competition was tough. However, the "Pink Posse" was able to put up a win against Claremont-B, which put them in the rankings as 132 of 189 on the national scale.

After one week of rest, the team was put back into gear. The return of Papa Valentine (Ben), who had just finished his production of Orpheus Descending as the lead role as Val, came back to prepare us for regionals. Ben's return brought back new intensity and new spirit into the practice.

And finally, the long awaited, split stack was finally introduced into the UCI offense. The split stick is one of the most advanced offenses and one of the most commonly used strategies in club team and A team offenses.
Split Stack setup
6 3
5 2
4 0 1

This stack allows the entire middle field to be used for cuts as well as allowing for both a short and deep cut. This technique is much more advanced because it is free form. There is no specific cutting order because each person can make a cut without the risk of a pick or a clog. The caveats to this offense is that it requires each person to have good awareness of both where the disc is and where his other team mates are. It is also necessary for each player to know when and where to cut and to recognize the poach. This offense requires much more team cohesion.

Practice began promptly at 6pm with a full ARC field run and then box drill conditioning. After that, there was an endzone drill to loosen up. After that, the split stack was introduced.

There was a general consensus that the new offense was very effective. The second step was to find an effective defense to handle this offense. All and all, it was a very good practice. In contrast to the H stack, people enjoyed learning and using the split stack.