Coach Olivers

February 13, 2015 7:20 PM
The grass was freshly cut, the air was fresh, and the sky was a beautiful blue canvas with splashes of white here and there. At least, that’s what Florence had dreamt before waking up to the torrent outside her window. She hadn’t expected it to rain so hard like this in the fall, but it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. Once she was dressed and covered by her raincoat, dark purple rainboots, and with a clear umbrella over her head, she stood under the stands half an hour before the players were expected to arrive, waiting for a clap of thunder or a glimpse of lightening. Any lightening and the match would have to be canceled. But, though thunder sounded, there was no lightening around the Quidditch pitch and Florence deemed it safe enough to play. Despite the very heavy rain, of course. The spectators would be hard-pressed to see everything that went on.

This year there weren’t enough players for Teppenpaw and Crotalus to form individual teams, so Pecari would be playing against a combined team today. Florence wasn’t sure how the players felt about it, but she was sure that for some students it didn’t matter as long as they were able to play. As for Pecari’s team, she was glad to see that the same team from last year was playing this year. She had wondered briefly if Rupert was going to change any players in since there were quite a few reserves on their team this time around, but it didn’t look like he had. For quite a few of them, this was going to be their last chance to play competitively on a serious Quidditch team unless they decided to go professional.

The Quidditch scouts had deigned to come another day when it wasn’t raining so hard, so today it was purely going to be fun and games for these kids. As the players made their way onto the sopping pitch, she handed them goggles that were charmed to stay clear and dry. “Make sure you put these on tight around your head,” she told them, wearing a pair herself. “It will be very difficult to see without them.” If it wasn’t for her rain gear, she would be completely soaked already. She felt a little sorry for the players, but they had chosen to play no matter what the weather. There was luckily a tent over the benches on the side of the pitch where the reserves were going to be. They wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet unless they were called in to play. Florence hadn’t yet seen the first-years play the sport, though she had seen them on a broom during Flying Class, and she was looking forward to seeing them eventually in action.

Once the hour for the game arrived, Florence charmed her voice and gestured to the stands. “Welcome to the first Quidditch match of the year,” she said, her voice echoing through the stadium, “and thank you to all who decided to support your houses in this weather. Here we have Pecari, led by Captain Rupert Princeton, playing against the combined Crotalus and Teppenpaw team led by co-captains Alistair Johnson from Crotalus and Liac Reinhardt from Teppenpaw. Captains, if you will please shake hands.” When the captains came together, she nodded at them, her throat already feeling scratchy again. It was odd, seeing two against one. “When I blow my whistle, the game begins. The game ends when the Snitch is caught. Players, please take your positions.”

She waited for the Keepers to fly up to their posts and the others to mount their brooms. As they did so, Florence released the Snitch and picked up the Quaffle. She would set the bludgers loose once the Quaffle was tossed. She put the silver whistle into her mouth, the umbrella tilted slightly so there would be no danger of it interfering with the Quaffle, and made eye-contact with the Chasers. After a curt nod, she blew her whistle and threw the Quaffle into the air, eager to get back under the tents to watch the game progress.

OOC: Welcome to Quidditch! As per posting rules, two paragraphs minimum are expected, but creative, detailed, and realistic posts will earn more points for your team. Have their skill level be on par with their age. Reserves are encouraged to post as well—your contribution will count as points for your team. Make sure your names are colored according to your house color as well as according to the rules. In addition, no one should be falling from their broom to their deaths/injury. Florence will intervene before anyone crashes to the ground. If you have any questions, tag Coach Olivers on the OOC board. Have fun!
Subthreads:
0 Coach Olivers Quidditch Game I: Pecari vs. Teppalus 0 Coach Olivers 1 5


<font color=tan>Annette Pierce, Chaser</font>

February 14, 2015 4:11 PM
When Annette looked out the window the morning of the first Quidditch match, she groaned. It was raining buckets and didn't look like it was showing any signs of stopping in time for the game. "You'd think," she'd grumbled, "that a school in the desert would have fewer rainy days." At that point, Annabelle had come over and looked out as well. Annette had perversely felt a little bit better when her sister took one look out at the rain and said, "Life hates me." After that, Annette's attempts to reassure her twin utterly failed to impress Annabelle, but did succeed in cheering herself up. By the time the Anns were heading out to the pitch wearing their Quidditch robes, carrying their best brooms, and protected by the best water repelling charms two seventh year Charms RATS students could perform, Annette was feeling almost cheerful.

She'd played competitively in the pouring rain before, and so had Adam. And even though Joella had only faced heat and fog during last year's matches, she'd at least seen rain in practice a few times. She bet those little first-time Chasers on the Teppenpaw-Crotalus team had no such experience in this kind of adverse weather. Likewise their second year Seeker who hadn't even tried to play last year. This game was already to Pecari's advantage, and the rain was only ensuring the victory. If anything, she felt a little bad for the rag-tag team of little kids. That didn't mean she was going to show them any mercy, though. This was Quidditch. More than that, it was her second to last game of Quidditch ever, and they'd need every bit of edge they could gain going into the final match against Aladren. Annette was going to play this match to her fullest.

She listened to Rupert's speech attentively, but didn't expect him to offer any insight she didn't already know. Then he shook hands with the two captains from the other team, and then it was game on. The Quaffle went up. The whistle blew. Annette surged forward, barely even noticing the rain as, between them, her charms, her experience, and the goggles eliminated the worst of the torrential rainfall's inconvenience. The rain pounded down on her head and shoulder, making her ascent more sluggish than normal, but she pushed through, urging her fine broom to overcome this obstacle better than its inferior peers, and her fingers touched the leather hide of the Quaffle first. It was slick from the wet, but she managed, with only a minor fumble, to keep possession of the ball and pull it in close to her chest for a more secure hold.

From there, she rose higher into the sky, evening out when she was about the same altitude as the hoops she was aiming for on the Teppalus end of the pitch. After a few more dozen feet, she looked to her right and left. She spotted one of her teammates who had kept up with her and she thought she had a clear shot at a pass. Not wanting to tempt fate any longer, she took the opportunity and threw the Quaffle toward the brown clad chaser, knowing from past mistakes to give the toss a bit more oomph to get it through the driving rain to its intended target.

Of course, her arm strength was never her best attribute, so the other player would still probably need to reach for it (Adam, for one, would probably even know to anticipate that after all these years of playing together), but the Quaffle should at least come close enough to give the Pecari Chaser a fair chance at completing the pass.
0 <font color=tan>Annette Pierce, Chaser</font> And we are off to a wet but good start 0 <font color=tan>Annette Pierce, Chaser</font> 0 5


<font color=tan>Adam Spencer, Chaser</font>

February 15, 2015 1:21 AM
Adam always, always hated game days. He never had a restful night and his stomach was always knotted up. He could hardly eat anything during breakfast, but he drank loads of water which, seeing the weather outside, was somewhat unnecessary. He visited the toilets before hurrying to the pitch, but the rotten feeling in his stomach didn’t fade. He hated feeling so nervous before matches; what sort of Assistant Captain was he? He doubted Rupert felt nervous at all, and the Anns or Joella probably didn’t think much of it either. Adam took deep breaths, wondering if falling off of his broom was a possibility in this awful weather. At least they weren’t playing Aladren today; now that his little brother was a Chaser as well, Adam knew he was going to be slightly distracted by him.

No, today they were playing against Teppenpaw and Crotalus. Playing against lesser experienced players didn't do much to ease his anxiety, but Adam swallowed it down. After making a quick assessment of the opposing Chasers, he joined the others and received a pair of goggles to strap on. During Rupert's speech, he made brief eye-contact with Annette and Joella. He knew his fellow Chasers, Annette better than Joella, and he was very pleased to still be playing these matches with them. Strapping his goggles on and casting a water repellant charm on his clothing, Adam thought he could feel as ready as ever. He admired his cousin for being so confident in his speech, as if he had no doubt that they could win. It made Adam feel slightly better, if only just.

The weather was bloody horrid and Adam’s brown hair flattened almost immediately when he stepped out from under the tarp. He clutched his broom as he carried it, trying to channel his anxiety into a physical motion, and listened to Professor Olivers’s voice boom throughout the pitch. The words went through one ear and out the other, words he’d heard often enough to practically recite them word for word. It was time to mount their brooms, then the Quaffle and Adam didn’t have the luxury to be nervous any more.

Annette picked it up and he followed her immediately, focused now on making himself open for a pass. She’d gotten rather far and Adam knew she would pass soon enough. With Aladren Chasers on the move, he knew it wouldn’t take long before they had her surrounded. Even in this dense weather, with the rain pounding everywhere, he could see the idiosyncratic signs foretelling Annette’s pass. He made himself known, drew closer and swooped in to grab it, giving a bit of room to secure the Quaffle in his arm. With the leather ball, he continued on towards the Teppalus hoops, determined to make see it to the end.

It was never too early for an attempt at the hoops in his opinion, so Adam decided to take the shot. He had always been afraid to be the one to make it, either handing it off to a team-mate at the last minute or making a pass before he was in range. But this time there was opportunity, and he was determined to at least show himself that his practise was not in vain. He was at the same height as the hoops, and he pushed forward to go faster, the raindrops slicing his pale cheeks as he cut through them. As he approached the Keeper, he veered towards the right hoop, feinted a throw to the left, then aimed the Quaffle at the golden hoop at the top. Now that the ball had left his hand, he flew away, waiting for some sort of indication that his Quaffle had made it in or been deflected.
0 <font color=tan>Adam Spencer, Chaser</font> A very good start, I believe. 0 <font color=tan>Adam Spencer, Chaser</font> 0 5


<font color="orange">Andrew Carey, Chaser</font>

February 16, 2015 1:02 AM
Orange was on its own, in Andrew’s opinion, an okay color, but it was not one which suited him. His first thought upon seeing himself in a mirror in his charmed robe was that his already pale complexion, only a little darkened by his weeks in Arizona - he was unlucky and just burned and peeled in the sun far more often than he tanned - looked completely washed out and that the Pecaris, and maybe even his own teammates, might get the wrong idea and think he was pale and sick with nerves, which bothered him. Mama and Stepmother were both very interested in him and Mal dying of natural causes someday, but even they didn’t want their sons to be thought of as cowards who were afraid of something as trivial as playing Quidditch, even if it was against a lot of older, much more experienced kids. He’d always heard that people called Careys a lot of unflattering things, but he’d never heard of them being called cowards.

The way it made his robe darker as soon as he walked outside and no doubt made his features hard to make out for anyone not close enough to slap him were, then, good things about the rain. As far as Andrew could tell, they were the only good things about the rain. Getting goggles from Coach Olivers helped, but the weather was awful, and it occurred to him that Mama would be furious if she knew he was out in this. Mama wasn’t as bad as Stepmother was about Mal - Andrew was sure his brother was not in attendance, though he wasn’t sure Mal really got sentimental enough about him or about Pecari that he would have come even in better weather - but she still did not approve of him acting like what Stepmother would call an idiot man. If he caught cold, he would have to make sure that no one wrote home about it, to anyone, so he wouldn’t get in trouble if the word got back to his mother.

He tried to listen to whatever their captains and coach had to say, though it was hard to pay attention when distracted by a grumble of thunder in the distance. Mama would kill him if she found out about this, so he really hoped it did not occur to Mal that it would be funny to make him sweat by threatening to tell her.

A Pecari Chaser - a shape who quickly became blurry as she flew far enough ahead of him that sheets of rain existed between them, interfering with his vision despite the clean lenses of the goggles - got the Quaffle first and flew away with it. Andrew saw the Quaffle moving through the air toward the boy Chaser and tried to speed up in the hopes of interfering with it, but had no luck - the boy got it and kept going toward the goals. Andrew guessed he didn’t feel like taking his chances on a pass in this weather, because he kept going right to Ginger. Frustrated, feeling like he had failed already even though he knew that was a really stupid and not helpful way to look at it, Andrew started looking for a way to fly around the Pecari Chasers so he could catch the Quaffle if it was thrown his way after the noise from the stands hopefully told him if Ginger saved it or not, since between the rain and his own maneuvering, he didn’t expect to see it too clearly.
0 <font color="orange">Andrew Carey, Chaser</font> It's not the start that counts in the end 0 <font color="orange">Andrew Carey, Chaser</font> 0 5

<font color='orange'>Ali Johnson, Chaser</font>

February 16, 2015 5:59 AM
Alistair was rather displeased to hear that his Quidditch robes would be charmed orange for the match, a combination of the Crotalus red and the Teppenpaw yellow. He still wasn't convinced about Teppenpaw sharing any Crotalus glory but had since resolved to accept it and work with it. He was the captain after all, well technically co-captain, and Alistair found that some consolation. The other thing that impaired the first years excitement on the morning of his very first proper Quidditch match was the weather. Being in born and raised in the Arizona state, Alistair would have thought climate couldn't bother him. But it was raining, raining really hard. Where Alistair came from it very rarely rained and he had assumed it would be the same in the painted desert. Back home if it did happen to rain he simply wouldn't go out to play. Here, however, no one seemed to be considering postponing the match and Alistair certainly wasn't going to be the one to suggest it. Just because he hadn't done so before didn't mean he couldn't play in rain and Alistair Johnson was never one to doubt himself.

Expensive broom in hand and a determined look upon his face, Alistair made his way down to the pitch. He took the goggles gladly from the Quidditch coach, virtually soaked through already. He glanced briefly at his co-captain, Liac Reinhardt, before calling the team under the shelter of one tent.

Alistair knew he and Liac were now meant to give some kind of pep talk and he felt a sudden weight on his shoulders as he realised the full extent of his captain duties. How could he inspire his team when they opposed a much more experienced team and a bucket load of nasty weather?

"Alright team, listen up!" Alistair spoke loudly over noise of the rain, gesturing with his hands that his team move in closer. "This is the first time we're playing together but that doesn't mean we don't how to. We've covered a lot in practises and we're well prepared." In his mind Alistair didn't really agree that they were well prepared but now wasn't the time to think like that, let alone share the opinion. "The weather isn't a problem so don't let it put you off. It will affect the Pecaris in the same way it affects us. Shinohara, you concentrate solely on catching the Snitch. Tobi's job is to protect you from the bludgers." He now admitted that he wasn't the only captain under the shelter as he looked to Liac. "That alright?" he wasn't asking whether his pep talk had been alright but if his appointment of Liac's cousin to protecting the Seeker was a good decision. Alistair, for one, thought it would be best that Liac was the one out of the two Reinhardt's who went up against the Pecari captain Rupert Princeton is defending the Teppalus Chasers and attacking the Pecaris.

Alistair shook hands with the Pecari captain, his expression not matching the friendly smile of Rupert Princeton. He took the smile to mean confidence and didn't like the thought that Pecari were confident about beating Crotalus, or rather Teppalus. His hand shake was firm and his face almost bore a scowl, yet not quite because that just wasn't polite and he'd come to learn that Princeton was a pureblood name. Alistair then took his position as told and waited for the go-ahead. The whistle was blown, the Quaffle tossed and Alistair was up in the air. Pecari came out with the Quaffle and the Chaser made a speedy getaway. Frustratingly, Alistair got a little caught in the scrum and therefore allowed the Pecaris a good start. He sped after the girl with the Quaffle and was on her tail by the time she passed to her teammate, not fast enough to intercept. He noted Andrew Carey also missed interception and before he knew it the older Pecari boy was attempting a shot.

Alistair felt irritated at how quickly Pecari had made a goal attempt. It had all been far too easy for them and all Alistair could do now was hope little Ginger Pierce would make a save. Considering her size, she wasn't bad but the Pecari Assistant Captain had made a good shot. Not stopped to watch events unfold, Alistair positioned himself in an open space should Ginger pass to him, noticing that Carey was doing the same on the other side of the hoops. It wasn't a good start but Alistair planned to do his best to change things around.

8 <font color='orange'>Ali Johnson, Chaser</font> But a good start is an advantage. 306 <font color='orange'>Ali Johnson, Chaser</font> 0 5


<font color=orange>Ginger Pierce, Keeper</font>

February 16, 2015 10:56 AM
Ginger woke up early the day of the first Quidditch match. She was so excited she couldn't sleep past 5:30 and no matter how hard she tried to go back to dreamland, it remained just out of reach. So at 6:15 she gave up trying and got up. She got dressed in her lucky green t-shirt (it had a leprechaun on it which, by definition as far as she was concerned, made it lucky) and her favorite pair of jeans, but opted not to put on her Quidditch robes until after she ate. She was by no means a messy eater most of the time, but just she didn't want to chance getting anything on it.

On her way down to the Cascade Hall, she'd glanced out the window and there went her plans of getting in a morning run to get her blood flowing before the match. It was raining buckets out there. And while she didn't mind the rain so much, mud was really hard to jog in. She was a bit surprised, but not at all disappointed to learn that the downpour was not sufficient cause to cancel the match. If anything, she would have been disappointed if it had been.

So, some hours later, with her charmed orange robes (she secretly liked them better in their original yellow, but as part of a team, it was only fitting that everyone match) and the rain no lesser than before, she headed out to the pitch, singing cheerfully. "Singing in the rain, just singing in the rain, what a gloooooorious feeling - hi!" she greeted her teammates as she spotted some of them through the sheets of water falling from the sky. "Great day, isn't it?" The remark was not at all ironic. Ginger loved being out in heavy rain. And though wet Quidditch robes were kind of heavy, they weren't nearly as bad as soaked through Renaissance dresses.

The goggles that Coach Olivers handed out, though, were super helpful for seeing in it better.

Still, she'd never flown in the rain though, and when she was instructed to take her place, she found her hands kept slipping a little bit on her broom. She also found wiping them on her legs was less than useless because her legs were just as wet, if not moreso, than her hands.

She had no sooner reached her position and turned around when she realized the Pecaris were already advancing on her position. She tried to anticipate where the lead Chaser was going to target, while trying also to be ready to rush to one of the other hoops if she was wrong or he passed at the last second.

As it turned out, she did guess wrong, edging closer to the right hoop, but then he faked to the left and went for the middle one. She changed directions quickly, and pressed for the middle, reaching her right hand out while her left gripped tight to the broom so she wouldn't slide right off. Ginger just barely felt her finger tips graze against the Quaffle, but it was too wet and just a bit too far away for her to get any kind of purchase on it. The ball sailed past her and through the hoop.

She followed after it, catching it on its descent on the other side. "Sorry," she called out in apology as she came back around and threw it back into play toward one of her orange robed teammates who looked more open than the others.
1 <font color=orange>Ginger Pierce, Keeper</font> I guess I'm up, huh? 302 <font color=orange>Ginger Pierce, Keeper</font> 0 5