Assisting (Keeper tryout) on Quidditch Pitch

Adam Spencer

June 22, 2015 6:10 PM

Pecari Try-outs! by Adam Spencer

It was a blustery sort of day the Saturday morning of Pecari try-outs. Adam was prepared with his clipboard and sign-up sheet. After creating a tentative roster with the team-mates he did know, he was hoping to find a new Keeper to replace Liliana. However, it seemed as though she would have to play the role once again. He felt a little sorry as he had hoped to give her a chance to play another position, but he had to try and cater to everyone's preferred positions. It was already difficult being captain and he'd hardly begun.

The breeze was warm, one that would blow the Snitch off-course and nudge the Quaffle wayward upon passing. Though the wind wasn't ideal, it would show how his future team-mates would fair in less-than-ideal weather. He had spoken to Liliana earlier about her role during the try-outs: both of them would be observing the others. After taking a look at the sign-up sheet, he had also told her to most likely expect to fill the position of Keeper again as Chaser was quite the popular position. He'd conveyed his apologies, but as captain it wasn't an easy decision to make especially because he liked Liliana as a team-mate and friend very much.

At 10:05 the English lad greeted everyone. "Hello, thank you for coming," he said, his voice growing slightly louder as he became more confident. "Welcome to Pecari try-outs. I'm Adam Spencer, Quidditch Captain and Head Boy, and this is the Assistant Captain Liliana Bannister. We'll start off today's try-outs with stretching exercises and a jog around the pitch. After that, we'll fly five laps around and then split off into groups. If you're interested in trying out for the position of Chaser, you'll practise flying up and down the pitch tossing the Quaffle back and forth. Afterwards, you will all take turns taking shots at the hoops and getting passed the Keeper.

"If you're interested in becoming a Beater, you'll be aiming bludgers at moving targets on the left side of the pitch away from the Chasers and Keepers. If you're aiming to be a Keeper, you'll be defending the hoops against the Chasers. Liliana and I will be going around observing everyone; please stop us if you have any questions or problems. All right, put your brooms down and let's do our stretching exercises first."

OOC: Walk-ons are always welcome and can assume that Adam explained the instructions to them. If you want to try out for more than one position, feel free to hop from one group to another. Be creative, realistic, and have fun with it.

Subthreads:

Not perfect (Chaser try out) by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte with Joella Curtis

GET REKT (Beater tryout) by Sammy Meeks with Joey Thompson

Assisting (Keeper tryout) by Liliana Bannister

OOC by Jamie

Seeking fame and glory by Jamie Park

40 Adam Spencer Pecari Try-outs! 257 Adam Spencer 1 5

Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

June 23, 2015 10:23 AM

Not perfect (Chaser try out) by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

Ingrid tried not to grin or giggle as the try-outs started but it was hard not to. Everything was just so….. so somethingy! First off, there was the fact that these were real actual try-outs for a real actual Quidditch team. She hadn’t really played a full scale game before even though she’d been to a bunch of Quidditch camps during her summers - they tended not to feel like it was advisable to aim heavy iron balls at children under eleven, and so the game got toned down somewhat. And even then, if that counted - which it barely did - that was a team for like an afternoon - a week at most. This was a real team, forever. Or at least, for all her time at Sonora, which was pretty close to forever as far as the live-in-the-moment eleven year old could see.

Then there was Adam Spencer, welcoming them all to Pecari try outs. It all sounded so much posher with his cute British accent, and kind of funny. She knew Adam a bit, in that she’d seen him at their house, and taken any chance she’d had to babble enthusiastically at him about Quidditch, but she didn’t know him very well. She didn’t understand why Francesca, who spent practically all her time hanging out with him, didn’t try to get him to be her boyfriend. She obviously liked him, and he played Quidditch and was totally dreamy and talked in such a cute way. He was basically perfect, and if Ingrid had been in Francesca’s position, she would definitely have made Adam go out with her. Maybe Francesca liked him but pretended not to because their other friend would get jealous. She thought that was silly too. She didn’t have time for girls who played silly games and caused drama. She just wanted to have fun.

She followed dutifully in the stretches and the jogging. She flew her laps very well, although at first she took the corners a little early, taking her time to get used to how big the space really was. Still, she was fast but safe in the air. Her parents had offered to buy her a new broom as a going away to school present but as she hadn’t known what position she wanted to play, it had seemed safer to wait and to have it for Christmas. Still, the model she flew was less than two years old. After the warm up was complete, she was torn. She had signed up for everything but Keeper, so where to start? She headed to the Chaser group because it was what she knew best. She might be awful at Beating, and then what if Adam wrote her off completely? At least if she started with something she was good at, he’d form a favourable impression of her. Then if she turned out to be good at two things, it would be a bonus, but if she turned out to be lousy, it wouldn’t really matter ever so much…

It was important to make a good impression not only because Adam was Adam but also because there was actually some competition for the spots. Until the sign up sheet had been filled, she had spent every moment agonising over whether Pecari would have a full team, and who she ought to try to persuade and how. But then, all of a sudden, there had been a list of eight. It was good - the team would have reserves, and she would rather earn her spot than have it by default. But it put the pressure on - there was more than not making an idiot of herself for its own sake at stake. It could be the difference between whether or not she made the starting line up!

She took a Quaffle, easily flying one-handed. Chasing was the part of the game it was easiest to recreate at home, and so was what she’d had most practise at growing up. When she judged the distance to be about right, she made the forward pass to the next player. A bit of wind did not stop her going out in the yard to play - rain or snow didn’t, if mother would let her and anyone would come with her - so it wasn’t like she hadn’t played in similar conditions before. She knew she needed to account for it, to adjust her passes, and she knew roughly how - could judge how much of an effect the wind was going to have, and how much she needed to compensate. It was just that she forgot. WIth the excitement of it being the try outs, and with knowing that Adam was watching her and that she wanted more than anything for him to think well of her, she just forgot. The gentle gust nudged at the ball, not strongly, but enough to push it back, away from its target, and mean they would have to scramble to compensate for her mistake. Ingrid bit her lip, wanting to protest that she knew that - she really knew about wind and weather and how to play right, but it would make her sound like a baby and a whinger, and she didn’t think they let whingy babies onto the Pecari team. So, much as it pained it her for Adam to think she didn’t know something so basic, she gritted her teeth and carried on. She would just do better on the next one.

13 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte Not perfect (Chaser try out) 322 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Sammy Meeks

June 25, 2015 2:21 PM

GET REKT (Beater tryout) by Sammy Meeks

Sammy loved sports. While she obviously had her favorites (everybody does, really), she could have fun with anything. She liked being physically active, feeling her heartbeat get faster and louder until it was drumming in her ears, both from adrenaline and strain. When she was too little and uncoordinated to play, she would go to her brother’s games, and when she got bored of watching with her teeny tiny attention span, she would spin around until she fell down. And then as she got older, she stopped losing interest.

Baseball was easily her top sport, but they didn’t have that at Sonora. Magical people played a game called Quidditch. Sammy hadn’t played last year, mostly because she was still adjusting to the whole “I’m-suddenly-a-powerful-wand-wielding-person” thing, but this year, she missed sports too much to miss her opportunity.

Adam Spencer, Quidditch Captain and Head Boy seemed cool enough, although with all those titles, Sammy kinda wondered how he even had time to sleep. She got excited when he mentioned a jog, because she loved running, although she noted with mild disappointment that a jog meant reigning it in a little bit to stay back with the group. But whatever.

After the stretching, the jog, and some warm-up broom-laps, it was group-time. Sammy bolted off to the left side to play Beater. Her first several attempts to hit the moving targets with these crazy (yet weirdly adorable?) demon balls were pretty much flubs, but on attempt number eighty-thousand (actually like eight or nine), her pretty friend clipped one of the targets. “It touched it!” she shouted happily. That tiny victory inspired her continued attempts, and three tries later, she hit one square-on. “Yes!” From there, she became more and more successful, honing her swing to peak efficiency and junk so that she could knock the Bludger farther and harder and more accurately with each new swing. God, she wanted that roster now!

12 Sammy Meeks GET REKT (Beater tryout) 310 Sammy Meeks 0 5

Liliana Bannister

June 27, 2015 4:30 AM

Assisting (Keeper tryout) by Liliana Bannister

Before tryouts that day, Liliana had already gone on a run, not bothering to take a full shower since she’d be going back on the Pitch after breakfast and likely getting sweaty all over again. However, she had quickly rinsed off as she didn’t want to show up in Cascade Hall smelling like dirty socks. So when she got to the Pitch, though her trademark braid was still pinned up around her head like she’d done so her long hair wouldn’t get wet in the shower, she at least did smell like soap and for that she was thankful.

“Hey Adam,” she said with an easy smile when she saw her captain. She had checked the sign-ups a couple times already and as a result knew before Adam even told her that she would have to play Keeper again. She honestly didn’t mind the position too much—it was one she had often played since none of her cousins liked playing Keeper and being the youngest she always got last pick. Besides, she had come to grow fond of the position so she wouldn’t mind having to keep playing it.

She smiled to her past teammates and the new player who had just joined up when Adam said her name. Adam’s plan sounded rather good, and she took her time with her stretches. Though she had stretched previously before her earlier jog that morning, she was somewhat sore as she’d pushed herself harder the previous day and gone for two extra sprints. The tightness of her mid-thigh cased her breath to leave in a rather quick huff as she reached her arm, bending her sitting form over the length of her right leg and then her left to touch her toes.

When Adam set them to jogging, Liliana paced herself so that she lingered towards the back of the group. She didn’t want to over-exert herself since she had already run that day, but besides that, she didn’t want someone to feel bad if they were the last one to finish. Liliana knew that she was a fast runner, and her old teammates likely knew that already as her morning runs were no secret from the team, so it didn’t matter to her if it meant someone else didn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being out of shape. As she slowed to a stop in order to mount her broom and begin the laps, she grinned to herself—how very Teppenpaw of herself to think that way.

After the laps, which she did put more effort into because she didn’t want Adam to think she was slacking just for the sake of slacking, she moved off to the side to let the other team members begin their tryouts. “I’m really glad to get to work with you this year,” she said sincerely to her fellow British teammate. Now that Rupert was gone, Liliana and Adam were the only two non-Americans on the team and she found it kind of amusing that they were the ones with the Quidditch badges. She glanced around the field quickly before turning to him. “Oh, if there’s no one trying out for Keeper would you like me to stand in the hoops? I figure I can observe the Chasers pretty well that way.”

10 Liliana Bannister Assisting (Keeper tryout) 274 Liliana Bannister 0 5

Jamie

June 30, 2015 10:15 PM

OOC by Jamie

Hi,

Asked on the OOC but not sure you've seen it... Is there anything specific Seeker try outs should do, or do they just join one of the other groups?

13 Jamie OOC 284 Jamie 0 5

Joella Curtis

July 03, 2015 4:18 PM

Have another go (another Chaser try-out) by Joella Curtis

It was a nice feeling to be able to walk down to this year’s tryouts completely nerve free and Joella’s confidence might have shown in the smile she greeting the rest of her teammates with when she arrived at the Pitch in good time. It wasn’t that she assumed her spot on the Pecari Quidditch team to be guaranteed but simply that she thought her skills more than adequate enough to keep her position from last term. She wouldn’t say so aloud, of course, for fear of sounding foolish and also because of her generally fairly modest nature.

There was a breeze about the air but it was nothing that put the third year off, only something she noted that she would need to take into account once up in the air. The slight challenge of the wind might make Adam and Liliana’s job easier to spot the new kids who would really help the team with the Cup which Joella was as eager as ever for her team to win.

Joella followed the stretches and jog as instructed by Adam. It was nice not to have the shortest legs and be the youngest for a change and the dark haired Pecari quite liked the idea of being one of the older ones this time, almost as though she were a more important, senior member of the team even if she had only been a part of it for two years so far. Once up in the air, Joella simply enjoyed the feeling of the wind in her hair for a few laps and having that distance between her and the ground before observing the way in which the newbies handled their brooms.

Once that was done, she joined the Chaser group. A first year girl grabbed a Quaffle so Joella didn’t bother to. She flew higher up in the air and watched how the younger girl maneuvered with the Quaffle under her arm. She didn’t seem to find it an issue and it didn’t take long for Joella to realise that the Pecari was in fact Francesca Wolseithcrafte’s little sister who’s signup had pricked her curiosity largely because of the surname. Ingrid's clear competence therefore didn’t surprise her, considering how she was clearly from a very Quidditch influenced background.

When Ingrid Wolseithcrafte passed the Quaffle it got a little caught on the breeze and Joella had to dart forward quickly to receive it in the most graceful way possible. Although she was rather prone to forming quick judgements of people, the third year Pecari didn’t even consider that this hadn’t just been a one off mistake on Ingrid’s part. Underestimating the wind on your first pass in the Quidditch team tryouts was easily excusable. Just from the confident way that Mini-Francesca flew with the leather ball suggested she was no novice to the game or the position.

Admittedly, with the distraction of The Wedding and then Snorri over the summer holidays, Joella hadn’t got in quite as much Quidditch practise as she would have liked. But now that she was back at school, she had returned to that regular private practice routine that she didn’t think would ever get dull. Her body was starting to grow and mature and whilst she was naturally still as skinny as ever, Joella’s throw seemed to be getting more and more powerful. The power with which she could throw the Quaffle was her one real secret in her play that was only fully revealed on the Pitch when it was time for her to shoot. Besides this, her specific talents in the sport were laid bare for all to see. Joella had always been particularly good with ball control but since last year her control of her broom was improving and she had been really starting to test the limits of her expensive broomstick.

She kept the Quaffle under her arm for a little while to get closer to the Keeper at the hoops before passing across to Ingrid to give the new girl the chance to show off her skills. Adam knew what Joella was capable of, even if she was still improving, so she thought she should give Ingrid the opportunity to shoot and make sure that the girl was able to show off as much as possible. Having seen the eleven year old’s pass get a little blown off course and having already considered the effects of the wind, Joella made sure to counteract this and applied a little more force to her pass than she normally would have done for the distance she was throwing so that it should reach the position that her potential teammate would be at in the short time the ball took to get there.

8 Joella Curtis Have another go (another Chaser try-out) 295 Joella Curtis 0 5

Joey Thompson

July 04, 2015 12:23 AM

Get outta here by Joey Thompson

Joey was a bit preoccupied as he made his way to the Pitch for tryouts. He was still adjusting to Sonora. He loved going to a magical school, but it was weird being away from his family and friends. He felt a bit homesick, but he figured he’d get over it once he made more friends here. Today, it would be good for him to focus on Quidditch so that he wouldn’t dwell on the fact that he was going to be away from home until Christmas.

When he stepped out onto the field, his homesickness morphed into nerves. Major nerves. It was normal to have some adrenaline pumping during a tryout, but he felt particularly out of his element at a Quidditch tryout. He’d never played before, and he’d struggled just to get his broom up in the air at his first flying lesson. He’d practiced his flying in the days leading up to the tryout, so he felt more comfortable with that now. However, he wasn’t confident in the company of the more seasoned players that he was competing against today.

Although he’d written both Chaser and Beater on the sign-up sheet, he was just going to try out for Beater. There were four people signed up for Chaser and only two for Beater, so his odds were better with the second option.

After doing some stretches, Joey began jogging around the Pitch as Adam had instructed everyone to do. With that finished, Joey mounted his broom and kicked off to fly five laps around. He was shaky at times—his nerves were really getting to him at this point—but he did his best to push through it. At the end of the five laps, he joined the Beater group and mentally prepared himself for the most important part of the tryout. He picked up a bat and positioned himself like a baseball player waiting for a pitch. He struck the Bludger, sending it flying toward one of the targets. Unfortunately, it was about five feet off the mark. It was bad, but it could have been worse.

The brunette kept at it, trying countless times to hit a target. As he did so, he saw one of his Housemates make contact with a target. He smiled at her on the outside, but on the inside, he was worried that he was going to lose out to her. He tried one more time and finally nailed a target. “Yeah!” he yelled excitedly, pumping his fist. Joey saw his competitor hit her target again, but this time it was dead center. “You’re good,” he told her. “I’m gonna beat you, though.” With that, he smacked another Bludger that went way off the mark.

“Um…yeah, you didn’t see that,” he said, avoiding eye contact with her.

0 Joey Thompson Get outta here 0 Joey Thompson 0 5

Jamie Park

July 04, 2015 1:19 AM

Seeking fame and glory by Jamie Park

Adam wasn’t Rupert. However, the relationship between them made it harder for Jamie not to carry his resentment over to his new captain over being on the bench the previous season, in spite of the incumbent Seeker’s terrible track record. Apart from being related to Rupert, Adam had been assistant captain. He’d helped make that crappy decision.

Jamie followed along in the jog unenthusiastically. What was the point of it? He needed to fly well - be able to pull off cool stunts like Wronskei Feints and barrell rolls. When he put any effort into practising, these were the things he worked on. Not running. Not that he really practised much at all, outside of the team sessions last year. Jamie was perfectly confident that between his natural ability and state of the art broom, he was going to ace everything, just as soon as people stopped being thick headed and gave him a chance. Mostly, he pictured his glory moments, rather than thinking about what might be required to get there. He finished the jog somewhat out of breath.

The laps were better. He took the chance to do some showboating, cutting in as close as could when over-taking and throwing in a slightly wobbly barrel roll as he crossed the finish line, assuming all these things to make him look impressive, rather than wreckless, cocky or irritating.

He followed Adam’s directions for the Seeker try out, finally starting to take the day somewhat seriously. There wasn’t really anyone else after his position, unless you counted the first year who seemed completely incapable of making up her mind, but there were more people than spots. Seeker belonged to him. He’d done his time on the bench, and if Adam and Rupert had favoured someone useless like Pierce just because she’d already had the position, then they owed it to him for waiting like a good boy. Not that any of the first years were likely to outclass him anyway.

He tracked the training Snitch keenly. The pitch was big. The ball was small. It was harder than he remembered to locate the pesky little thing but he was still confident that he had to be doing it faster than anyone else. If he found it hard - which, he didn’t, he was still fine - then any of the first years would find it impossible. The glint of gold caught his eye. It was, boringly, hovering in the middle of the pitch, meaning he couldn’t pull off any sweet moves to get it. He was tempted to wait until it was somewhere that would allow him to dive, but Adam was - in his infinite wisdom - only judging them on time. He closed in on the ball, fumbling slightly but getting it in his grasp and returning it to the captain. His bit done, he sat back to watch the lesser positions sweat it out.

13 Jamie Park Seeking fame and glory 284 Jamie Park 0 5

Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

July 04, 2015 6:23 AM

Thank you by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

Thankfully, Joella Curtis caught her slightly dodgy pass, and Ingrid smiled. She knew it was Joella who it reflected well on - that anyone experienced could see that the older girl had made up for her mistake but… Well, fudging a pass so badly that even an experienced Chaser couldn’t get it would have made her look even worse.

There had been a lot of people sign up for Chaser, but most were also trying out for other positions and had opted (or been asked) to do those first. She flew hard, doing her best to keep up with Joella. It was good having the other girl as a guide, helping her to get a feel for how far to fly before passing. She just had to be careful to keep her own eyes peeled for the boundary line of the scoring zone, in case the older Pecari was going for goal. Only one Chaser was allowed in at a time, and she didn’t want to make another mistake, especially not of the variety where she did know better.

To her surprise however, the other Pecari stopped short of the goal. And she didn’t pass to Atlas either. She passed back to Ingrid. Ingrid had a decent throwing arm but had met other people at Quidditch camp who were stronger. She was also the youngest, and even if, unknown to her, the older ones went easy on her sometimes, she’d still had her hands and body sting from receiving the ball. And so, as Joella’s firm pass caught her slightly in the chest, she still grinned, really appreciative of the opportunity the older girl was giving her, and making a mental note to thank her properly later on.

She flew on for the hoops, and a player she’d heard a lot about… Liliana was Theodore’s year. That was quite a lot older and more experienced. But if she made first string, she would be facing her brother, and she couldn’t let all the times he’d beat her in the backyard, blocked her passes, smirked and told her he’d known she was going to do that, get to her. She got past him sometimes. And now she was going to have Adam and all the rest of the Pecari team teaching her plays. She would get better. And Liliana was the same age as her brother and had as much experience, but not of playing her. She didn’t know her moves, and it was Liliana she was facing right now. She knew the odds weren’t in her favour but she had a feeling that learning to not let that affect her was going to be one of the most important things she could learn here.

She feinted a high shot, trying to send Liliana onto the wrong trajectory, before actually making a low shot towards the hoop furthest from the Keeper’s current position. It was a pretty simple shot but, she reassured herself, no one was expecting complex stunts from her at this stage. It was well executed, with enough power. And, most importantly, enough margin to compensate for that tricksy wind this time.

13 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte Thank you 322 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte 0 5