The Coach
March 26, 2021 8:57 PM
Quidditch Try Outs by The Coach
The sign ups had not been quite as enthusiastic as some years, with relatively few of the new kids taking up spots even as they became vacated by graduating students. The coach was starting to see why they only had the school-wide team instead of houses. On the one hand, it was a little disheartening, after years of almost two full teams, but on the other, they had one new player in her fourth year, so that just went to show it was never a done deal – maybe the new folks just needed time to settle, and give or take a year or two, they’d be out here too. Plus they had more than enough to fill a team, even if there would have to be some second choices for people about what they played.“Alright, welcome and welcome back to Sonora Quidditch!” the coach smiled, once the assembled players had all been checked off and accounted for, with any walk ons added to the coach’s notes.
“We’re going to be running Chaser and Keeper try outs first, followed by Beaters, and Seekers last. We’ll have a group warm up, which will also show me some of your stamina and agility, but please be sure to warm up again if you have a break before your try out. You’re also welcome to do anything you want in that time to get ready, so long as you aren’t disrupting other players.
“Let’s go for a lap running, a lap flying, and then I’d like to see what you can all do on this obstacle course,” the coach gestured to the sky, where several obstacles hung, requiring students to go under, over, around and through. They would get one run at it, having to strike a balance between time and accuracy, with penalties for anything they hit.
After that, the Chasers would do passing drills, both trying to get to each other and around opponents, whilst anyone interested in Keeper would block some shots at goal. Beaters had dummies to hit, and control drills with passing the bludgers back and forth. The Seekers would do their usual gathering of coloured Snitch-sized ball – as many of their own colour as they could whilst flying solo, and then with all their competitors in the air too. Throughout it all, the coach would also be looking for a good attitude, and people who could work as team players.
OOC: Welcome to try outs! I have tried to be vague about how many people signed up as I’m sure there are some other returning players whose authors didn’t get around to sign up posts, but who would have signed up – it’s fine to claim that your character did so, even if you didn’t get around to writing it. You are also free to claim that you’re just a walk on, having decided on the day to go for it.
Feel free to reply describing any of the activities listed. Team positions will be based on IC factors, but also on quality of post.
If you have any questions about how to try out, ask in Chatzy.
Subthreads: We can do this! by Valentine Duell with Leonor De Matteo
Wooo! by Billy Cobb with Hilda Hexenmeister
Lets live for today. by Morgan Garrett with Evelyn Stones
Just doing my job. [Beater tryout] by Felipe De Matteo
Seeking to Improve by Anya Delachene
Probably overthinking everything way too much. by Graham Osbrook
To Adventure! by Alexei Vorontsov
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The Coach
Quidditch Try Outs
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The Coach
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Anya Delachene
April 18, 2021 9:22 AM
Seeking to Improve by Anya Delachene
Anya was early to try outs. Not by a lot, just a few minutes, but the point was that she was not late. She normally rolled into Quidditch practice right around on time, give or take a minute or three, so her timeliness wasn't particularly notable as it was within her normal habits, but she had taken particular pains today to very definitely not be late. This effort had more to do with trying to impress upon the coach that she was as responsible as the prefect badge on her robes said she was, so that maybe, just maybe, she could unseat Jeremy Mordue as the team's first string Seeker, rather than because she was trying to set a prefectly example for her peers, but if they took it that way, she wasn't going to dissuade them. She did feel like she had something to prove, wearing the badge.Also, arriving early let her wander amongst her teammates, greeting them, being friendly. She asked briefly after the summers of the people she knew moderately well or better, introduced herself to and welcomed the new people joining the team, and said 'good to see you again!' to those she had been on the team with before but didn't know very well. She even smiled and said Hi to Jeremy. That's how good a team player she was.
The coach explained this try out was going to run basically the same way the previous ones had, so she did the group warm up with everyone else, then set off on her jog around the pitch. She wasn't the fastest player on the field - at least, definitely not on foot - but she managed to make it around the pitch without coming in last or heaving in deep lungs full of air like she didn't know how to pace herself. She was in fifth year now, marking her as one of the older half of the school's population, but she was short for her age (Philippe, who was only in third year, had surpassed her in height this summer by enough of a margin that they didn't need a ruler and impartial judge to make that call anymore), and while she could handle a powerful sprint on a vault run, long distance runs were very clearly not one of her powerhouse skills.
Flying was, and the lap around the pitch on her broom gained her several spots ahead of her peers. She milked all the speed she could out of her broom (which was a very good one, and new as of last Christmas, so it had plenty of speed to be milked) and darted between the other players flying their laps without touching any of them.
The obstacle course was as fun as it always was. She tried to push her speed in it more than she normally did, and got two penalties for contact, which she was kind of mad at herself about because this was the kind of flying she did all summer, but they'd both been very minor brushes, having been pulls at her clothing rather than anything she could feel against her body, and overall she was quite pleased with her results.
Then she had a long wait until seeker try-outs came last. She did not try out for any of the other positions, but she watched from the ground, doing splits and backbends and walk-overs to keep limber while she watched. She'd been a gymnast long before she'd been a Quidditch player, and those were the warm-ups and stretches she defaulted to when she wasn't told otherwise.
Finally, it was time for the Seeker trials. Val seemed to be having trouble with her broom, which was unfortunate for her, but meant she was less of a danger to unseating Anya from second-string seeker than she might have been otherwise. Leonor had done much better than Anya had expected from someone who hadn't trained on the team before, and that competition gave her the push she needed to stay focused on catching just her own balls this year. It wasn't just Jeremy she had to beat to take his spot. Her own place was at risk, too.
She did catch some balls of the wrong color. Reflexive grabbing wasn't an instinct she wanted to turn off when they happened to fly close enough to her. But her final collection had notably fewer balls of colors other than her own this time than in any prior try-out. The net number of balls she had caught was lower than in previous year, but her own color count had gone up with the better focus on what she was supposed to be catching, which meant her score did, too.
For the free for all ball catch, she darted among the other Seekers, going mostly for her own balls again, though when she did grab the wrong ones, they were - strangely - always Jeremy's. If the coach asked, she'd blame it on reflex. She'd been training for years to steal the balls Jeremy was going for, after all. There'd only been two, anyway. The rest were all her own bright fuchsia color.
She'd done quite well, she thought, staying on task and grabbing the things she was supposed and almost only the things she was supposed to.
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Anya Delachene
Seeking to Improve
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