Crotalus Quidditch Try-outs: walk-ons welcome on Quidditch Pitch

Oliver Abbott

April 17, 2010 4:58 PM

Crotalus Quidditch Try-outs: walk-ons welcome by Oliver Abbott

The ground was hard, the sky was mostly clear, and the sun was currently shining from behind one of the few clouds. It was absolutely ideal weather for playing Quidditch. Although that was good in at least one respect, Oliver lamented not being able to see his potential players with the challenge of wayward weather. Conjuring up a storm really wasn’t worth the effort, and rain only made his glasses mist up. Besides, hopefully the good weather would bring out the more reluctant Crotali who otherwise would have stayed inside. Oliver nervously checked the sign-up sheet that had been up in the commons a whole week before he’d taken it down about ten minutes ago. He’d been so sure they would have a full team. He was still sure they’d go out to their first game with seven players, but he’d prefer it if he didn’t have to bully anyone into taking the extra spots. Hopefully walk-ons would come along to try-outs, and Crotalus would have a team by the end of the day. Fingers crossed.

It was only a few short minutes until the hopefuls made it down onto the pitch. When he thought he had everyone gathered, Oliver cleared his throat before speaking. “Okay, thanks for coming,” he not-quite-shouted. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Oliver, team Captain, and that,” he pointed to his sister, “is Charlie; she’s Assistant Captain.” Introductions out of the way, he could get to the trying out part. Oliver had borrowed some Quidditch balls from Coach Pierce, which were currently at his feet in their box, along with his broomstick. “We’re just going to start with a warm-up,” Oliver said, extracting the red Quaffle from its case. “If you weren’t on the sign-up sheet, come tell me your name and which position you’d like to try for. Then I’d like to see everyone up in the air.”

When any queries had been dealt with, Oliver joined his would-be team, and he was sporting the House colors even for try-outs. His black sweatpants and red t-shirt enabled easy movement, and his red bandana kept his white-blond hair back from his face (not to mention it stopped his head burning in the sun). “We’re just going to pass the Quaffle round at random,” he said, gesturing for everyone to get in a vague circle. “If you drop it, go fetch it, then we’ll carry on. I’m looking at your aim, attention, and obviously how well you can handle the ball.” Then without warning he passed the Quaffle to one of the other players.

OOC: posts are judged on quality as well as quantity. Be imaginative. Second part of the try-outs will be posted soon.

0 Oliver Abbott Crotalus Quidditch Try-outs: walk-ons welcome 99 Oliver Abbott 1 5

Dimitry Talsky

April 18, 2010 1:53 PM

Not what I expected by Dimitry Talsky

Dimity Talsky woke up the morning of the Quidditch tryouts ready to make the team. The fourth year had found a pair of black workout pants, and a red long-sleeved t-shirt to wear to tryouts, it couldn’t hurt for him to wear the House colors for tryouts right? He swept his black hair out of his face, grabbed his top of the line Cloud Hunter broom and made his way down to the Pitch.

He smiled at Charlotte who he had met at the opening feast and was surprised when she was introduced as Charlie. What kind of nickname was that for a girl? He frowned a bit and then shook his head. ‘Your not here to think about girls, you’re here to make the team Dimitry.’ He thought to himself.

When Oliver told them to get into a circle to catch and pass the ball he frowned. He wasn’t a chaser he was a beater. He never said he could catch a Quaffle in fact in all his years playing Quidditch he had never even touched the stupid red ball. What if he dropped it? He sighed and saw the ball coming right at him, he held up both hands and caught it easily. At least Oliver can throw He thought to himself.

Tossing the Quaffle in his hand to get a feel for it Dimity threw it as hard as he could towards the personal diagonally from him. If throwing a ball was all he could do to show, he was beater material he planned to throw it as hard and as precise as he could every time he got it.

0 Dimitry Talsky Not what I expected 0 Dimitry Talsky 0 5

Theo Manzana

April 21, 2010 1:04 PM

I guess it's your loss by Theo Manzana

Theo walked onto the Quidditch Pitch his broom in hand he tossed it down. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a red t-shirt. He wanted to wear black pants but he couldn’t find his pair and shrugged it was no big deal. Oliver and Charlie were already there and he smiled at them until a tall boy walked on to the Pitch. Theo had never seen him before; he must have been a transfer student. He shrugged and ignored it as he listened to Oliver. It was basically the same tryout from last year and that didn’t bother Theo at least he was consistent.

He made his way in to circle and watched as Oliver threw the ball to the tall kid. He sighed as the ball came flying at him as hard as possible. Theo caught it (thankfully) but the kid had thrown it so hard it made Theo’s hand ache. ‘Stupid kid.’ He thought but did not say anything because the kid looked like he could hex him. Taking the Quaffle in his hand, he tossed it to the person across from him. Glad that the ball was out of his hands at least for now so he could nurse his hands.

0 Theo Manzana I guess it's your loss 0 Theo Manzana 0 5

Charlotte Abbott

April 21, 2010 4:42 PM

Now now, we're on the same team by Charlotte Abbott

Quidditch try-out meant something a little different to Charlie this year. She was guaranteed a place on the team. Well, not technically, but in reality she knew it was true. She was a pretty decent player anyway, but because they'd grown up together, she and her brother made an amazing Chasing team. Besides, she was Assistant Captain - she could hardly not be on the team.

Charlie was wearing her Crotalus-red tracksuit for the try-out and had tied her hair into two braids to keep it out of the way. Her broom was Olover's old Bluebottle - it still worked well and was in pretty decent shape, but it was seven years old and Charlie really wanted something a bit newer. If she didn't manage it this year she would have to have one next term when she was the team's captain.

As the team started to gather, Charlie smiled in greeting at the returning players, and she smiled at Dmitry, too. They hadn't managed to arrange a study session yet, but Charlie was looking forward to it a great deal. But now wasn't the time for that - she needed to focus on Quidditch. So once her brother was done talking, Charlotte obediently mounted her broom and set about passing the Quaffle with the others. They had enough on the sign-up sheet for a full team, if Theo didn't mind staying with the Beater position. Charlie caught the pass from the second year, secretly relieved she hadn't had to catch Dmitry's pass - it looked like a real hard throw. If he put that kind of strength behind his beater's bat Charlotte felt sorry for the opposing players. Passing the ball on, she hoped this warm-up session wouldn't last too long. She wanted to see if Dmitry was as good as he waid he was.

0 Charlotte Abbott Now now, we're on the same team 135 Charlotte Abbott 0 5

Oliver Abbott

April 22, 2010 4:23 PM

Try-out Part Two by Oliver Abbott

Once the passing the quaffle had gone on for plenty long enough, Oliver kept the ball next time it was passed to him. "Good work," he said to the players, hoping they weren't too disgruntled from the ease of the first part of the try-out. He was pleased with things so far: he'd been expecting a lot more mishandling from the new players, but they'd impressed him so far. "Now we're going to break up into small groups. Lutece -" the captain grinned at their returning Keeper - "take Samuel over to those goals," he gestured to the far end of the pitch, "and see how many he can score." He thought the 'take it easy on the new kid' was probably implied. Lutece was smart, she'd know to give him a small chance to score.

"Charlie, get Theo and Dmitry bats from the case, and see if they can hit you with our practise Bludger." Oliver was fairly confident in Charlie's flying abilities that she wouldn't get it. It's not like this was a game with distractions and two Bludgers - her only objective would be to avoied this one. It was more of a test of the Beaters' skill, anyway. If they could give Charlie a run for her money, that was good enough for Oliver.

"Marissa, you'll come with me and do some Seeking trials." Largely this would involve Oliver throwing a baseball charmed to dance about a bit, and Marissa catching it. "After a minute or so we'll swap Theo in for Seeking," seeing as the second year had signed up for both positions it would only be fair to see him at both, even though there was only one way it could work out for the team. "Let's go," Oliver said, and did his best to ignore the wink he saw his sister send the new Beater.

(OOC: If there are any walk-ons, join the relevant practise and pretend you were there from the start, and Oliver included your name in his instructions. Thanks.)

0 Oliver Abbott Try-out Part Two 99 Oliver Abbott 0 5

Dmitry

April 23, 2010 12:02 PM

A swing by Dmitry

Once the warm up was over Dmitry grinned hearing Oliver tell Charlie to get him and the younger boy Theo bats. Though Theo didn’t look like a beater Dmitry couldn’t judge him on that fact alone, as Dmitry himself was lean. He found that while the other beaters were lugged down by their heavy weight he was not and able to hit more chasers. He grinned at his new partner in crime as he took the bat in hand. Did he want to hit Charlie? Not really but this was Quidditch personal feelings were to be put aside.

He leaned on his broom one hand gripping the bat Charlie had given him and the other balancing him on his broom. He went up higher then Charlie and circled around her like a vulture stalking his prey, few beaters used this tactic in fact he had never seen anyone outside of Durmstrang use it. Therefore he didn’t expect Charlie to know that he was now behind her as was the thick ball. He lined up the hit and swung making contact with a loud crack of his bat. He hit it as hard as he could and grinned evilly as it raced toward the girl’s back.

0 Dmitry A swing 0 Dmitry 0 5

Sam Bauer

April 24, 2010 12:32 AM

Reporting for Duty by Sam Bauer

By the time he got to Quidditch try-outs, Sam knew there was no way he was going to remember everyone's name. Too many names, faces, spells, events, and facts had somehow gotten crammed into his head in the time between when he had signed up and when the team actually gathered on the Pitch; his brain felt numb, and he was increasingly sure that his long-term memory had not so much retreated to a happy place or taken off on a Caribbean cruise as it had gone on permanent strike against the tyranny of the evil corporation of Allied Professors. Even the idea of being humiliated or glorified in front of people failed to get him worked up.

At least he could distinctly remember remembering how to make the broom work without having to keep both hands on the handle. He could re-learn whatever Professor Fawcett had inflicted on them in their last class at his pretend leisure, but he was only getting one shot here.

Either the captain understood that the beginning of classes induced brain death, or he just figured that even the older players would be out of shape after summer holidays, but it was a relief to begin with something simple. After the ball went around a few times, Sam felt almost cerebral enough to claim membership in the human race. By the time they split, he was almost enthusiastic again. He'd been worried that it would cut too much into his study time to play, but now, he was starting to think that not doing so would only end with him going slightly mad.

With that thought in mind, he found the person he thought was Lutece. Always good to be proactive. Hearing his real name had thrown him - the last time he'd heard it, first-day-paperwork aside, had been after The Incident With Mr. Brennan, and that experience had made him develop a full-fledged aversion to being called Samuel - so he decided a good opening move would be to get that cleared off. "It's just Sam," he told her. "You are Lutece, right? I'm not a really good one with names."

16 Sam Bauer Reporting for Duty 163 Sam Bauer 0 5

Marissa Stephenson

April 27, 2010 12:46 PM

Here at last! by Marissa Stephenson

For once, something about her parents' obsession with her and Paige becoming extremely well-rounded by trying out a lot of different things had managed to help Marissa out a little in the Wizarding World: after spending half of her summer getting her tennis skills back up to par with Sa - Aria's, Marissa was still good for spotting anything that resembled a flying ball and intercepting it. She'd hit it with the palm of her hand the first time someone threw it at her, which had been embarrassing, but she'd gotten her head on straight after that and caught it the next time.

The idea of a one-on-one tryout with the other prospective Seeker, Theo, was intimidating, but thinking about how the team was laid out removed enough of the nerve-wracking bit for her to smile at the second year as the team broke into parts and they joined Oliver. There were only seven there, and while Marissa thought she was really stronger than she looked, she just wasn't built right for Beating. At most - Lutece probably being a lock for Keeper - she might end up as a Chaser. Real failure wasn't likely.

She supposed it was because she was the returning candidate here, but Marissa was told to go first. Tightening the band holding her hair up in a ponytail, she reminded herself the baseball was both smaller than the Quaffle and quite a good deal bigger than the Snitch, making it a good size to catch for her. She was Muggleborn; though she didn't understand a majority of the rules of the sport, she had played a lot of catch with baseballs. Everyone did. She'd be kind of surprised if it wasn't near-universal.

Maybe it was because she was so focused, but Marissa was a little surprised at how quickly she caught the ball on the first throw. The second went about as well, but she missed it on the third try and took what felt like ages but - she hoped - wasn't quite that bad to relocate it and catch it. When she started to get comfortable with anything, to stop noticing she had an audience and that she could fail, she felt she started to get slightly sloppy. Her counselor, in good company with the half of her relatives who watched too much Dr. Phil, had been trying to tell her for years that believing she needed to be hovering on edge to be her best was irrational, but Marissa couldn't figure out how to stop.

By the time she was called down and Theo was put to work, Marissa's hand was slightly sore from a few grabs where she'd gotten overenthusiastic, but she thought she'd done reasonably well. At the very least, she hadn't made a total fool out of herself. Flexing her fingers against a slight cramp, she stood back to watch Theo's tryout.

16 Marissa Stephenson Here at last! 147 Marissa Stephenson 0 5