unique strategies that worked....... or didn't

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

In hindsight, I think it would have been possible for us to take a more active role in the match and still be in the corner when we needed to be. We still have the MARC and the WMRI coming up. Perhaps we will get some chances to try it again!

You nailed it here. Later after being eliminated, I told Ken Patton that I blew it. Every time you guys left the corner to track down a loose ball, you always made it back to the corner - even when defended. I told Ken that I should've made that strategy adjustment in the semis. I thought about it, but I was too afraid to make the call to do it. All I saw was the 390 and I thought to myself, "if we make that change and lose, then I'll have to live with the 'why did you go away from what worked?' questions." I beat myself up that night about that.

What really kills me is that in both of the semi-final matches that we lost, the opposing alliance missed an auton shot and we had the opportunity to to try to shut them down at the start of the match, but we were too focused on getting the cycle started because "hey, we scored 390 in the first match". In retrospect, putting up a score that high in the first match was probably the worst thing to happen to us. After our first loss in the semis, I should've had us go 2 bot cycles for as long as we could defend them from clearing their missed auton ball to build a little lead before starting the 3-bot cycle. Then I thought, "but we scored 390" and chickened out. Oh well. Then again, the alliance we lost to was really great so there's a good chance we would've lost anyway. Ifs and buts, candy and nuts, and all that stuff. I guess I can't complain.