June 11, 2013 by Charlie Eisenhood in Livewire
Here’s a dispatch from Addison Magness, a Portland-based journalist, about the Rhino tryouts.
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You could feel club season approaching as Portland’s elite club team Rhino and second team Knife Fight held their first round of tryouts this past Saturday. Over 70 athletes gathered at North Portland’s Delta Park in the hopes of making the cut for one of the two teams.
Rhino team captains Adrian King, Timmy Perston, Chris Hancock, Kevin Minderhout, and Sean Parker put together a dynamic set of drills and combine tests designed to assess each player’s athleticism, throws, and field sense, among other skills. In each drill, players were expected to demonstrate both offensive and defensive capabilities in different scenarios.
A short-long drill focused on a player’s ability to read a deep huck and a ‘box-of-death’ type drill tested players’ man defense as well as one’s agility. In each drill, Rhino captains encouraged players to focus on their defensive plays. Playing good D was a way to prove you deserved a spot on the team. In the box-of-death, players who won their match ups moved left and those who did not moved right, making each round more competitive. During each drill, groups of players were taken aside to run a timed 80 yard sprint. The group then divided up into four teams to scrimmage for the rest of the afternoon.
Rhino will be asking certain individuals back for another tryout again this Sunday.
