As colleges and high schools head into their winter breaks, virtually no teams will be practicing together for at least three weeks. For some teams, this is a chance to take a break and come back rejuvenated for the spring season. For the better teams, this is a chance to distance themselves from the rest of the teams. It's not easy to separate from the pack over the winter break, especially since almost everyone will be working out and running on their own. Their own personal motivation will be what drives them to work out, not their captains and coaches dragging them to the gym.
In a lot of cases, weather will be a factor for teams. Can they maintain motivation knowing that they won't be able to get out onto a field until March? It's here that the mental conditioning and strategies that the captains and/or coaches imparted in the fall come into play. Laying the groundwork for a long, hard winter must come in the middle of the fall, through teamwide goals and establishing a routine of workouts before everyone goes off on their own. Like UPA Board President Mike Payne says, 75% of working out is routine, and 25% is the actual exercises and activity.
For many teams, the captains and most dedicated players will continue to push themselves during the offseason. But it's what the whole team does that will determine how successful their season is. If only a part of the team is working out and conditioning over the winter, there is no way, no matter how good their throwing or strategies are, that they can compete with the best teams if they can't compete with them physically. Wisconsin and Florida have proven that the past two years with insane conditioning that clearly made them the top teams in the country.
It's almost as if every team starts off on even footing in the fall, with a mix of veterans and rookies. The choices they make, such as when to make cuts, when to teach strategy, and when to begin conditioning, affect fall results much more than the strength of the players on each team. It's why a lot of teams' fall results should be taken with a grain of salt. Stanford went through the fall tournaments without making their final cuts, teaching offense beyond a simple vertical stack, or teaching defense beyond force forehand and backhand. I'd imagine that teams like Oregon and Colorado have taken a similar approach. Teams that work over the "offseason" when other teams are resting can easily make up the ground lost by giving potential rookies a longer look.
It's why I'm outside when it's 30 degrees, icy, and the wind is blowing in my face as I sprint up a hill again and again. It's because I know that my teammates are doing the exact same thing, and nobody wants the be the one left behind when we go back to working out together. It's because I know that there is a difference between an offseason and an "offseason," and all the good teams have the latter. It's because I know that every team in Boulder in May with a shot at the title is also out there running.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Collegiate Championship Series
Today Cultimate announced that they are prepared to offer a total of $7000 to the two best college ultimate teams in their respective gender divisions over the course of their four-tournament spring series. On top of that, they're donating $1000 to the school whose alumni team wins the Open Alum division of Club Trouble in Vegas. Their Collegiate Championships Series includes Warm Up: A Florida Affair (Jan 19-20), Trouble in Vegas (Feb 8-10), Stanford Invite (March 8-9), and Centex (March 22-23).
So far, Florida, Oregon, and Wisconsin's mens teams have committed to attending all three of the major events (TiV, SI, Centex), along with the Washington womens team. Conceivably, most elite teams are going to want to follow suit, strengthening the reputation of these three already high-level tournaments. Stanford will not be joining in, at least on the mens side - the schedule this year does not allow for back to back three-day tournaments in Vegas and Hawaii.
But what does this mean for tournaments that hope to host the local elite teams? While it's unlikely that the Santa Barbara Invite will be affected by Warm Up this year, tournaments like Queens City Tune Up, Terminus, Easterns, and Pres Day that have typically hosted teams like Wisconsin, UNC, Georgia, UCSD, Colorado and others may be faced with a field more representative of Regional than National rivalries. And will newer tournaments like Mike Gerics' Spring Collegiates be able to attract the strong field that they're hoping for?
As long as Vegas continues to host 64 mens teams, there will be an outlet for younger or up-and-coming teams to test their mettle against the strongest teams in the country. But when Centex boasts a stronger field than Nationals and Stanford Invite only has one spot for a qualifying team, it may end up that local teams don't see the strongest teams in the area until Sectionals and Regionals.
The Collegiate Championships Series will not spell the end for UPA College Nationals. As gratifying as it is to be recognized as the best team over the months of the regular season, especially with a $5000 or $2000 prize, the best teams will still aim to peak at Nationals. Had the 2003 Stanford team won a Collegiate Championship Series, I think that every member of the team would have traded it in for a National Championship. The fact that every single college team in the country is competing against each other for one single championship is something special. College Nationals will not turn into a red-headed stepchild "Canadian Nationals" that teams only care about when a Worlds berth is on the line.
The infusion of money into the college game initially comes as a shock, considering how much the NCAA regulates money and amateur status in every varsity sport. It's not inconceivable that this college season is a test run for a larger bid at an elite club competition circuit during the summer and fall. The Texas Livelogic Shootout has been held for the past few years, with several thousand dollars up for grabs to the winning team. But it's mostly local Texas teams - including a splitsquad Doublewide - and Johnny Bravo that play in that tournament. It's not the money that makes the CCS exciting, although it doesn't hurt. It's the prospect of increased intense elite competition. After all, Stanford Invite already has a stronger field than last year - with Wisconsin and Florida committing to attend, the tournament has locked up 3 of last year's semifinalists.
So far, Florida, Oregon, and Wisconsin's mens teams have committed to attending all three of the major events (TiV, SI, Centex), along with the Washington womens team. Conceivably, most elite teams are going to want to follow suit, strengthening the reputation of these three already high-level tournaments. Stanford will not be joining in, at least on the mens side - the schedule this year does not allow for back to back three-day tournaments in Vegas and Hawaii.
But what does this mean for tournaments that hope to host the local elite teams? While it's unlikely that the Santa Barbara Invite will be affected by Warm Up this year, tournaments like Queens City Tune Up, Terminus, Easterns, and Pres Day that have typically hosted teams like Wisconsin, UNC, Georgia, UCSD, Colorado and others may be faced with a field more representative of Regional than National rivalries. And will newer tournaments like Mike Gerics' Spring Collegiates be able to attract the strong field that they're hoping for?
As long as Vegas continues to host 64 mens teams, there will be an outlet for younger or up-and-coming teams to test their mettle against the strongest teams in the country. But when Centex boasts a stronger field than Nationals and Stanford Invite only has one spot for a qualifying team, it may end up that local teams don't see the strongest teams in the area until Sectionals and Regionals.
The Collegiate Championships Series will not spell the end for UPA College Nationals. As gratifying as it is to be recognized as the best team over the months of the regular season, especially with a $5000 or $2000 prize, the best teams will still aim to peak at Nationals. Had the 2003 Stanford team won a Collegiate Championship Series, I think that every member of the team would have traded it in for a National Championship. The fact that every single college team in the country is competing against each other for one single championship is something special. College Nationals will not turn into a red-headed stepchild "Canadian Nationals" that teams only care about when a Worlds berth is on the line.
The infusion of money into the college game initially comes as a shock, considering how much the NCAA regulates money and amateur status in every varsity sport. It's not inconceivable that this college season is a test run for a larger bid at an elite club competition circuit during the summer and fall. The Texas Livelogic Shootout has been held for the past few years, with several thousand dollars up for grabs to the winning team. But it's mostly local Texas teams - including a splitsquad Doublewide - and Johnny Bravo that play in that tournament. It's not the money that makes the CCS exciting, although it doesn't hurt. It's the prospect of increased intense elite competition. After all, Stanford Invite already has a stronger field than last year - with Wisconsin and Florida committing to attend, the tournament has locked up 3 of last year's semifinalists.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
CHS Alumni Game 2007
After several years of terrible Thanksgiving weather, including rain, ice, sleet, snow, and 40-mph winds, it seemed that 2007 would be different. The weather in Maplewood at 5 pm was a balmy 69 degrees. But by 7:45, the time most of the active team assembled at the lot, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. In the dark, the temperature dropped down to 45 degrees, and the swirling winds picked up. They would change direction several times over the course of the game, but they never abated. By 8:15, several alumni could be seen up and throwing - mostly younger players like Evan Padget, '05 (Colorado), and Stephen Panasci, '06 (NC State).
As alumni and parents drifted in, murmurs spread through the crowd. Where was Joe Barbanel, '72? When he finally showed up, with his bright silver hair in stark contrast to his old-school red RPI jersey, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief and got ready to begin the game. The alumni huddled together around 8:45, and there was a noticeable void in the circle without iconic line-caller Spencer Rosengarten, '88. But Bill Blatcher, '82, stepped up to the plate this year and called out a first line that stretched over 28 years. Joe Barbanel, class of 1972. Dave Paris, class of 1980. Doug Wolski, class of 1984. Larry Anouna, class of 1987. Benny Haim (ex-NC State/Rutgers), class of 1998. Anthony Nunez, class of 1998. Matt Kushner (ex-NYU), class of 1999. Noticeably missing were alumni from the late 70's and early 90's.
The first line suffered from miscommunication errors and were just not fast enough to keep up with all seven players on the active line. Captain Brian Walter, '08, scored the game's opening goal, and two more followed in quick succession. The first alumni line went down, 0-3, under intense pressure from the actives. The second line was made up of 2000 and 2001 graduates - Emilio Panasci (Pike) and Shawn Murphy from 2000, and Raj Prasad (Black Molly), Ari Steinberg, Aryeh Cohen-Wade, Ben Sprung (Tandem, 2005 college national champion with Brown), and Amit Simha from 2001. Although this line was used to playing together, they too fell victim to the active team. The actives brought out their zone for the first time, and Brian Walter gobbled up any deep throws that came his way. They game had only just begun, and already it looked out of reach for the alumni, down 0-6.
The third line brought out five of the homeschooled alumni CHS has used in the past: two Yates's (Mike, '02, and Tim, '05), two Cincottas (Joel, '02, and Nick, '03), and one Cooney (Eddie, '05), along with Ed Frowley (Boston University), '03, and Jake Levine, '05. After surrendering a seventh straight point to the actives where Walter torched Cooney deep, the alumni finally got on the board with Jake Levine's short endzone cut and catch. An emphatic spike followed, and yells from the sideline of "He didn't even play in high school!" dogged the actives as they walked back to the line. The alumni managed to get a D and then another goal, and at 2-7 the alumni might have held hopes of starting a comeback.
The next line in was what remained of the CHS team that got 2nd place at Easterns in 2005, missing notable players Campbell Morrissy (Colorado), '05, currently in Australia, and Michael Johnston, '05, currently in Wisconsin. The line still had former captain Evan Padget, Michael Rubin (Maryland), '05, Travis Volpe, '05, Jaryd Emmens, '05, Ryan Thompson (Stanford), '06, and Stephen Panasci. The 7th was Eric Cooney, '07, and the team came down strong in a straight-up man defense, trying to deny the huck. After several turns by both teams, the alumni turned the disc over by their own endzone and paid for it, going down 2-8. Off of the ensuing pull, Eric Cooney was replaced by Jesse Moy (Skidmore), '07, and Columbia came down in a hard zone defense, exploiting the wind in the faces of the alumni. After a lot of swinging on their own goalline, the alumni turned it over and found themselves receiving at 2-9, in the small endzone. As the pull came down, Thompson tried to stop the disc with his foot, but a gust of wind pushed the disc into his foot before it hit the ground, giving the actives the disc on the goalline. But Thompson got redemption as he stalled Sam Cohen-Wade, '08, and the alumni quickly turned the disc over against Columbia's zone. But Emmens got a big D on an ill-advised hammer and the alumni began to work the zone, finally turning the disc over in the opposite endzone - but getting it right back on the line. Thompson to Padget for the goal, 3-9.
With an uneven number of players, the alumni turned to mixed-generational line to close out the half. Eric Cooney and Jake Barreiro, '07, were joined by Barbanel, a late-arriving Ed Summers, '72, Paris, Wolski, and Anouna. Despite Barbanel forcing a turnover as the "chase" mark in the alumni zone, the actives got the disc back and scored, and then their own zone forced a quick turn. At half the score was 11-3, actives. In the absence of a rousing Rosengarten halftime speech, talk quickly turned to which "kill line" should be put in the game to help drag the alumni back. Padget, Nunez, and Haim all collaborated on the line and finally decided to bring out Mio Panasci, Prasad, Ben Sprung, Joel and Nick Cincotta, Padget, and Thompson.
Receiving out of the half, the kill line patiently worked the disc against the active team's zone and punched it in. But the next two points did not work nearly as well, and a rocket hammer from Captain Zander Padget, '08, to Brian Walter, just barely beat out a fast-closing Joel Cincotta. On the ensuing offensive possession, once again turnovers close to their own goal hurt the alumni. After going 1-2, that "kill line" headed to the sidelines talking strategy, and the next "bomb squad" headed to the line. Nunez, Prasad, Frowley, Rubin, Stephen Panasci, Eric Cooney, and Moy tried to bring back the deficit. But the line had communication issues, and a couple of turnovers on dumps doomed the alumni. A bulleted huck from just outside the scoring endzone was almost caught by Moy in the brush by the train tracks, but the pass fell incomplete. Again, the line went 1-2 and down 5-15, the alumni began to mumble on the sidelines about reaching double digits. Also on the sideline, Joe Barbanel, Benny Haim, and Jake Levine could be overheard discussing the "Joe Barbanel" facebook that the two younger alums had set up in honor of his performance at last year's alumni game.
The next line was the same as the first line out of halftime, except with Matt Kushner replacing Raj. The actives came down zone again, and Thompson's scoober over the top was dropped by Joel Cincotta, giving the actives the disc only a couple feet out of the endzone. Heading back to the line, the alumni agreed that working the disc against the zone was pointless if cold hands and muscles would just give the disc to the actives with a short field. But the actives came down in man, and the alumni took advantage, working the disc up the open side until Thompson hit Kushner in the front of the small endzone to claw another point back. 6-16. On the last point for their line, the alumni's straight-up defense forced turnovers and missed throws by the actives, and the alumni scored a second-straight goal for their second break of the game. 7-16.
Was a comeback mounting? Blatcher opened up the rotation a little, letting Anouna, Haim, Volpe, Frowley, Tim Yates, and Emmens back into the game, while giving late arrival Brett Druck, '04, his first PT of the night in his jeans, dress shirt, and sweater. After Frowley picked up a big D in the alumni zone, his huck to Benny Haim looked a sure goal, until Haim stumbled in the endzone and fell to the ground, with the disc landing agonizingly close. The actives took advantage and scored, but another D by Frowley set up a short field for the alumni on the ensuing possession. It was a perfectly thrown inside out backhand from Anouna to Druck that raised the spirits of the alumni and kept the deficit under 10. 8-17. The line's last point once again found the disc on their hands in the endzone, but Frowley couldn't hold on to an ill-advised and partially D'ed pass up the line. 8-18.
Another split-generation line found themselves on the line, under pressure to score at least once to let another line play afterwards. Barbanel and Summers represented the 70's, and they were joined by Prasad, Steinberg, Aryeh Cohen-Wade, and Amit Simha (all 2001) and Judith Garder (Rutgers), '07. While the alumni's zone caused a few turnovers, the actives' swarming man defense pressured Summers and Prasad into turnovers. However, on their second point, the line assured at least one more line would take the field. After a quick turnover by the tracks by the actives, Barbanel picked up the disc. His teammates rushed past him into the endzone, but on stall 7 he threw an inside-out backhand (while forced forehand) straight into the waiting arms of Prasad. Their run ended after Brian Walter gobbled up a huck meant for Judith, eliciting a chorus of boos from the sidelines, and the actives took a 20-9 lead.
The line called on the sidelines was "Dave Paris, class of 1980! Plus 6 others!" He was joined by Nunez, Emilio Panasci, Joel Cincotta, Mike Rubin, Evan Padget, and Ryan Thompson. Some members of the sideline called for Evan to come off for Vanessa Low (Rutgers), '05, but Evan refused and stayed on the field. We received and worked the disc, eventually resulting in a blistering Panasci huck to both Padget and Thompson, who had outdistanced their defenders. The alumni stayed alive for another point. After an excellent pull, pinning Josh Cincotta, '08, in the corner of their endzone by the tracks, the alumni cup stymied him, and as he tried to break through the cup, Thompson got his fingers on the disc. It skidded across the pavement to Nunez, who looked off his first cutter but hit Joel on an upline cut to bring the alumni tally to 11.
The next point of the game may have been its longest. The alumni threw a 1-3-3 zone, with Thompson chasing the disc, a wall of 3 players, and 3 players further downfield. The actives were patient, with Tim Morrissy, '09, Josh Cincotta, and Zander Padget smoothly working the disc with lots of high backhands and around forehands. Joel Cincotta got several D's for the alumni, but Thompson and Panasci gave the disc back with hucks to a well-covered Evan Padget, as Brian Walter gobbled up the less-than-perfect throws. Eventually, after a long goalline stand, the alumni defense finally caved and the actives were able to punch in the final goal for a 21-11 win in slightly more than two hours, for one of the shortest alumni games in recent memory.
The active team was notable for their high energy and sideline presence throughout the entire game, including rushing the field after many scores, and combating alumni heckles with barbs of their own. After the game, brothers and parents greeted each other, friends said their goodbyes, and another alumni game was in the books. That makes the overall record 24-11-1 in favor of the alumni, with two games unaccounted for. A string of 38 consecutive alumni games, and one of the best alumni networks in the country. Hopefully, the next two years will see more alumni presence, with the 40th anniversary of the team and then the 40th anniversary of the alumni game.
Five alumni played four lines, tying for the most points played at 12. Only Joel Cincotta scored more points than he gave up (7-5), and Evan Padget and Ryan Thompson were 6-6. Emilio Panasci was 5-7, and Raj Prasad was a woeful 3-9.
As alumni and parents drifted in, murmurs spread through the crowd. Where was Joe Barbanel, '72? When he finally showed up, with his bright silver hair in stark contrast to his old-school red RPI jersey, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief and got ready to begin the game. The alumni huddled together around 8:45, and there was a noticeable void in the circle without iconic line-caller Spencer Rosengarten, '88. But Bill Blatcher, '82, stepped up to the plate this year and called out a first line that stretched over 28 years. Joe Barbanel, class of 1972. Dave Paris, class of 1980. Doug Wolski, class of 1984. Larry Anouna, class of 1987. Benny Haim (ex-NC State/Rutgers), class of 1998. Anthony Nunez, class of 1998. Matt Kushner (ex-NYU), class of 1999. Noticeably missing were alumni from the late 70's and early 90's.
The first line suffered from miscommunication errors and were just not fast enough to keep up with all seven players on the active line. Captain Brian Walter, '08, scored the game's opening goal, and two more followed in quick succession. The first alumni line went down, 0-3, under intense pressure from the actives. The second line was made up of 2000 and 2001 graduates - Emilio Panasci (Pike) and Shawn Murphy from 2000, and Raj Prasad (Black Molly), Ari Steinberg, Aryeh Cohen-Wade, Ben Sprung (Tandem, 2005 college national champion with Brown), and Amit Simha from 2001. Although this line was used to playing together, they too fell victim to the active team. The actives brought out their zone for the first time, and Brian Walter gobbled up any deep throws that came his way. They game had only just begun, and already it looked out of reach for the alumni, down 0-6.
The third line brought out five of the homeschooled alumni CHS has used in the past: two Yates's (Mike, '02, and Tim, '05), two Cincottas (Joel, '02, and Nick, '03), and one Cooney (Eddie, '05), along with Ed Frowley (Boston University), '03, and Jake Levine, '05. After surrendering a seventh straight point to the actives where Walter torched Cooney deep, the alumni finally got on the board with Jake Levine's short endzone cut and catch. An emphatic spike followed, and yells from the sideline of "He didn't even play in high school!" dogged the actives as they walked back to the line. The alumni managed to get a D and then another goal, and at 2-7 the alumni might have held hopes of starting a comeback.
The next line in was what remained of the CHS team that got 2nd place at Easterns in 2005, missing notable players Campbell Morrissy (Colorado), '05, currently in Australia, and Michael Johnston, '05, currently in Wisconsin. The line still had former captain Evan Padget, Michael Rubin (Maryland), '05, Travis Volpe, '05, Jaryd Emmens, '05, Ryan Thompson (Stanford), '06, and Stephen Panasci. The 7th was Eric Cooney, '07, and the team came down strong in a straight-up man defense, trying to deny the huck. After several turns by both teams, the alumni turned the disc over by their own endzone and paid for it, going down 2-8. Off of the ensuing pull, Eric Cooney was replaced by Jesse Moy (Skidmore), '07, and Columbia came down in a hard zone defense, exploiting the wind in the faces of the alumni. After a lot of swinging on their own goalline, the alumni turned it over and found themselves receiving at 2-9, in the small endzone. As the pull came down, Thompson tried to stop the disc with his foot, but a gust of wind pushed the disc into his foot before it hit the ground, giving the actives the disc on the goalline. But Thompson got redemption as he stalled Sam Cohen-Wade, '08, and the alumni quickly turned the disc over against Columbia's zone. But Emmens got a big D on an ill-advised hammer and the alumni began to work the zone, finally turning the disc over in the opposite endzone - but getting it right back on the line. Thompson to Padget for the goal, 3-9.
With an uneven number of players, the alumni turned to mixed-generational line to close out the half. Eric Cooney and Jake Barreiro, '07, were joined by Barbanel, a late-arriving Ed Summers, '72, Paris, Wolski, and Anouna. Despite Barbanel forcing a turnover as the "chase" mark in the alumni zone, the actives got the disc back and scored, and then their own zone forced a quick turn. At half the score was 11-3, actives. In the absence of a rousing Rosengarten halftime speech, talk quickly turned to which "kill line" should be put in the game to help drag the alumni back. Padget, Nunez, and Haim all collaborated on the line and finally decided to bring out Mio Panasci, Prasad, Ben Sprung, Joel and Nick Cincotta, Padget, and Thompson.
Receiving out of the half, the kill line patiently worked the disc against the active team's zone and punched it in. But the next two points did not work nearly as well, and a rocket hammer from Captain Zander Padget, '08, to Brian Walter, just barely beat out a fast-closing Joel Cincotta. On the ensuing offensive possession, once again turnovers close to their own goal hurt the alumni. After going 1-2, that "kill line" headed to the sidelines talking strategy, and the next "bomb squad" headed to the line. Nunez, Prasad, Frowley, Rubin, Stephen Panasci, Eric Cooney, and Moy tried to bring back the deficit. But the line had communication issues, and a couple of turnovers on dumps doomed the alumni. A bulleted huck from just outside the scoring endzone was almost caught by Moy in the brush by the train tracks, but the pass fell incomplete. Again, the line went 1-2 and down 5-15, the alumni began to mumble on the sidelines about reaching double digits. Also on the sideline, Joe Barbanel, Benny Haim, and Jake Levine could be overheard discussing the "Joe Barbanel" facebook that the two younger alums had set up in honor of his performance at last year's alumni game.
The next line was the same as the first line out of halftime, except with Matt Kushner replacing Raj. The actives came down zone again, and Thompson's scoober over the top was dropped by Joel Cincotta, giving the actives the disc only a couple feet out of the endzone. Heading back to the line, the alumni agreed that working the disc against the zone was pointless if cold hands and muscles would just give the disc to the actives with a short field. But the actives came down in man, and the alumni took advantage, working the disc up the open side until Thompson hit Kushner in the front of the small endzone to claw another point back. 6-16. On the last point for their line, the alumni's straight-up defense forced turnovers and missed throws by the actives, and the alumni scored a second-straight goal for their second break of the game. 7-16.
Was a comeback mounting? Blatcher opened up the rotation a little, letting Anouna, Haim, Volpe, Frowley, Tim Yates, and Emmens back into the game, while giving late arrival Brett Druck, '04, his first PT of the night in his jeans, dress shirt, and sweater. After Frowley picked up a big D in the alumni zone, his huck to Benny Haim looked a sure goal, until Haim stumbled in the endzone and fell to the ground, with the disc landing agonizingly close. The actives took advantage and scored, but another D by Frowley set up a short field for the alumni on the ensuing possession. It was a perfectly thrown inside out backhand from Anouna to Druck that raised the spirits of the alumni and kept the deficit under 10. 8-17. The line's last point once again found the disc on their hands in the endzone, but Frowley couldn't hold on to an ill-advised and partially D'ed pass up the line. 8-18.
Another split-generation line found themselves on the line, under pressure to score at least once to let another line play afterwards. Barbanel and Summers represented the 70's, and they were joined by Prasad, Steinberg, Aryeh Cohen-Wade, and Amit Simha (all 2001) and Judith Garder (Rutgers), '07. While the alumni's zone caused a few turnovers, the actives' swarming man defense pressured Summers and Prasad into turnovers. However, on their second point, the line assured at least one more line would take the field. After a quick turnover by the tracks by the actives, Barbanel picked up the disc. His teammates rushed past him into the endzone, but on stall 7 he threw an inside-out backhand (while forced forehand) straight into the waiting arms of Prasad. Their run ended after Brian Walter gobbled up a huck meant for Judith, eliciting a chorus of boos from the sidelines, and the actives took a 20-9 lead.
The line called on the sidelines was "Dave Paris, class of 1980! Plus 6 others!" He was joined by Nunez, Emilio Panasci, Joel Cincotta, Mike Rubin, Evan Padget, and Ryan Thompson. Some members of the sideline called for Evan to come off for Vanessa Low (Rutgers), '05, but Evan refused and stayed on the field. We received and worked the disc, eventually resulting in a blistering Panasci huck to both Padget and Thompson, who had outdistanced their defenders. The alumni stayed alive for another point. After an excellent pull, pinning Josh Cincotta, '08, in the corner of their endzone by the tracks, the alumni cup stymied him, and as he tried to break through the cup, Thompson got his fingers on the disc. It skidded across the pavement to Nunez, who looked off his first cutter but hit Joel on an upline cut to bring the alumni tally to 11.
The next point of the game may have been its longest. The alumni threw a 1-3-3 zone, with Thompson chasing the disc, a wall of 3 players, and 3 players further downfield. The actives were patient, with Tim Morrissy, '09, Josh Cincotta, and Zander Padget smoothly working the disc with lots of high backhands and around forehands. Joel Cincotta got several D's for the alumni, but Thompson and Panasci gave the disc back with hucks to a well-covered Evan Padget, as Brian Walter gobbled up the less-than-perfect throws. Eventually, after a long goalline stand, the alumni defense finally caved and the actives were able to punch in the final goal for a 21-11 win in slightly more than two hours, for one of the shortest alumni games in recent memory.
The active team was notable for their high energy and sideline presence throughout the entire game, including rushing the field after many scores, and combating alumni heckles with barbs of their own. After the game, brothers and parents greeted each other, friends said their goodbyes, and another alumni game was in the books. That makes the overall record 24-11-1 in favor of the alumni, with two games unaccounted for. A string of 38 consecutive alumni games, and one of the best alumni networks in the country. Hopefully, the next two years will see more alumni presence, with the 40th anniversary of the team and then the 40th anniversary of the alumni game.
Five alumni played four lines, tying for the most points played at 12. Only Joel Cincotta scored more points than he gave up (7-5), and Evan Padget and Ryan Thompson were 6-6. Emilio Panasci was 5-7, and Raj Prasad was a woeful 3-9.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Motivation
Mamabird 2007 Highlight Video
UVTV Wisconsin vs. Stanford Nationals Semifinals
I've watched both of these videos over and over again. Watching high-level college ultimate and watching my team lose has gotten me fired up before practice and tournaments more than anything else. These are the teams that we should be talking about, not LPC or Claremont. That's the level of play we should be aiming to surpass this spring, with the same level of intensity and drive. Watching Sockeye vs. Buzz Bullets tells me nothing about my team or how we need to play in order to win College Nationals. Seeing clips of Ring of Fire vs. GOAT from Club Nationals might be fun, but it does nothing for me. I won't be matching up against Chris Hinkle or John Hassell or Ben Wiggins. I'll be matching up against players like Muffin and Mac Taylor and Clark Bishop. Until then, nothing to do but practice and hit the weights.
UVTV Wisconsin vs. Stanford Nationals Semifinals
I've watched both of these videos over and over again. Watching high-level college ultimate and watching my team lose has gotten me fired up before practice and tournaments more than anything else. These are the teams that we should be talking about, not LPC or Claremont. That's the level of play we should be aiming to surpass this spring, with the same level of intensity and drive. Watching Sockeye vs. Buzz Bullets tells me nothing about my team or how we need to play in order to win College Nationals. Seeing clips of Ring of Fire vs. GOAT from Club Nationals might be fun, but it does nothing for me. I won't be matching up against Chris Hinkle or John Hassell or Ben Wiggins. I'll be matching up against players like Muffin and Mac Taylor and Clark Bishop. Until then, nothing to do but practice and hit the weights.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Sean Ryan Recap
This was our last tournament of the fall season - three tournaments in four weeks. This was also as close to our spring team as we've seen all season. Eighteen of 23 members of Bloodthirsty 2008 played this weekend. It's a little sad to know that we won't play another tournament until Santa Barbara in late January (unless this Bay Area scrimmage happens), especially with CCC on December 1st and 2nd with teams like Wisconsin and Colorado attending. But now we can get together as a team and start developing and talking strategy. We played the entire fall with a rudimentary vertical stack, and until Sean Ryan we only played force forehand and backhand defense. I'm excited and ready for the spring season. It starts at practice today.
The weekend started off slow, and we came out sluggish against Humboldt. Maybe it was the late 11:30 start time. Maybe it was BNeil dislocating his shoulder in warmups (cutting!). Either way, soft cap went on as we took half 8-7, making it a game to 10. They were a huck-first team with athletes and some throwers, but they overshot their receivers a lot. We gave the disc right back as we tried to play the hucking game too, but our throws were all over the place. We only scored on one huck all game - when we worked the disc up the field we couldn't be stopped. We closed out the game 10-8 and moved over to face UCSC B.
The Santa Cruz B game was over quickly. Our rookies played a lot this game, got some layout D's, and made some ridiculous grabs. James caught an overthrown huck with a great layout in the back corner of the endzone for us to go up 1-0, and the game was basically over right there. We won 15-3 and got ready for Claremont.
Claremont had the best sideline cheer we heard all weekend - the zombie chant "Braaaaains!" was hilarious and a welcome alternative to anything out of UCSB. They also hucked a lot, and this game was close solely because our defenders got skied in the endzone over and over again. It would have been better if they'd at least jumped. This was without Stout. Also, during this game I broke a kid's face when I threw a backhand huck endzone to endzone. He jumped in front of my hand as I was throwing, and he got smashed in the eye/nose. Also notable was my lefty high backhand break for a goal and Doug remarking that my shorts were "so tight that I can see your pulse." We won the game 15-13 and drove back in heavy rain on windy, windy CA-17. Think miles of S-curves, Columbia alums.
On Sunday we were scheduled to play UCSB in the quarters after their 17-16 loss to Cal which decided the G pool. The game started fast, with both teams hucking effectively and playing hard defense. Tom played almost every single point in this game. We were playing well, but we had a really hard time stopping their hucks, especially to Tyler, who towered over us at 6'5" or 6'6". We basically traded early on, until they broke the game open with a few breaks towards the end of the game. We ended up losing 12-15, after a couple points where Jameson called a dubious foul on Schlag's deep D and Rory called a terrible foul on Sherwood's point block of his huck.
Rory: I respect you, Sherwood. Can't you respect my call?
Sherwood: Not if it's a terrible call like that!
But my favorite part of the game was Rory yelling at Ethan, screaming, "You're a fucking faggot! You're not going to play another point this whole fucking game!" about midway through the second half.
We moved a few fields down to a confusing diagonal field to play Oregon, who were sans Dusty but plus Stout. Both teams played a lot of rookies, and after going down 3-0 we finished the first half even on breaks 7-8. At one point in the second half, we played with only six players on the field after Luke thought that Stout scored for Oregon (when instead he dropped the disc) and walked off the field. There were also chippy discspace calls by the Unabomber, showing off his angry, wily veteran side. Oregon disagreed, but the 11th edition rules say what they say - let's all learn the rules! At one point Sherwood and Tom just threw to each other for the entire offensive possession. In the middle, Unabomber's deep voice broke out with the classic co-ed heckle, "Throw to your women!" We ended up winning that game 11-10 after Colin got a monstrous layout D on a breakside in-cut, and it was on to our third game of the season against LPC.
LPC beat us on Sunday of every tournament we'd played so far, and Sean Ryan was no different. True, we had a larger and better squad, which explained why the game was much closer. We were even on breaks until 9-9, when we started miscommunicating on offense, dropping discs, and leading receivers out of bounds. At one point they got two breaks in two minutes after turnovers on first throws after receiving the pull. Earlier in the game, we played some great defense and I got a stall in the back corner of the endzone, then turned the disc over on the goalline, and then got it back with a footblock. Put me back on the D team, coach! LPC threw some zone, and we had more silly turnovers. We generally fell apart at the end of the game, losing 15-10 and bringing our fall record against them to 0-3. It's good to have a bogey team to shoot for in the offseason.
Cal ended up winning Sean Ryan over UCSC, making it two tournaments in a row for them. Oregon and Stanford finished 8th and 6th, respectively, but I don't know anyone who expects the same come Regionals. It looks like UBC is back on top of the Washington/BC section after Sundodger, but we'll see where things shake out in the spring. MLC was also this past weekend - Carleton, Colorado, and Wisconsin all sounded strong, even with less than complete squads in attendance from last year's college finalists. College ultimate is exciting again - bring on CCC!
The weekend started off slow, and we came out sluggish against Humboldt. Maybe it was the late 11:30 start time. Maybe it was BNeil dislocating his shoulder in warmups (cutting!). Either way, soft cap went on as we took half 8-7, making it a game to 10. They were a huck-first team with athletes and some throwers, but they overshot their receivers a lot. We gave the disc right back as we tried to play the hucking game too, but our throws were all over the place. We only scored on one huck all game - when we worked the disc up the field we couldn't be stopped. We closed out the game 10-8 and moved over to face UCSC B.
The Santa Cruz B game was over quickly. Our rookies played a lot this game, got some layout D's, and made some ridiculous grabs. James caught an overthrown huck with a great layout in the back corner of the endzone for us to go up 1-0, and the game was basically over right there. We won 15-3 and got ready for Claremont.
Claremont had the best sideline cheer we heard all weekend - the zombie chant "Braaaaains!" was hilarious and a welcome alternative to anything out of UCSB. They also hucked a lot, and this game was close solely because our defenders got skied in the endzone over and over again. It would have been better if they'd at least jumped. This was without Stout. Also, during this game I broke a kid's face when I threw a backhand huck endzone to endzone. He jumped in front of my hand as I was throwing, and he got smashed in the eye/nose. Also notable was my lefty high backhand break for a goal and Doug remarking that my shorts were "so tight that I can see your pulse." We won the game 15-13 and drove back in heavy rain on windy, windy CA-17. Think miles of S-curves, Columbia alums.
On Sunday we were scheduled to play UCSB in the quarters after their 17-16 loss to Cal which decided the G pool. The game started fast, with both teams hucking effectively and playing hard defense. Tom played almost every single point in this game. We were playing well, but we had a really hard time stopping their hucks, especially to Tyler, who towered over us at 6'5" or 6'6". We basically traded early on, until they broke the game open with a few breaks towards the end of the game. We ended up losing 12-15, after a couple points where Jameson called a dubious foul on Schlag's deep D and Rory called a terrible foul on Sherwood's point block of his huck.
Rory: I respect you, Sherwood. Can't you respect my call?
Sherwood: Not if it's a terrible call like that!
But my favorite part of the game was Rory yelling at Ethan, screaming, "You're a fucking faggot! You're not going to play another point this whole fucking game!" about midway through the second half.
We moved a few fields down to a confusing diagonal field to play Oregon, who were sans Dusty but plus Stout. Both teams played a lot of rookies, and after going down 3-0 we finished the first half even on breaks 7-8. At one point in the second half, we played with only six players on the field after Luke thought that Stout scored for Oregon (when instead he dropped the disc) and walked off the field. There were also chippy discspace calls by the Unabomber, showing off his angry, wily veteran side. Oregon disagreed, but the 11th edition rules say what they say - let's all learn the rules! At one point Sherwood and Tom just threw to each other for the entire offensive possession. In the middle, Unabomber's deep voice broke out with the classic co-ed heckle, "Throw to your women!" We ended up winning that game 11-10 after Colin got a monstrous layout D on a breakside in-cut, and it was on to our third game of the season against LPC.
LPC beat us on Sunday of every tournament we'd played so far, and Sean Ryan was no different. True, we had a larger and better squad, which explained why the game was much closer. We were even on breaks until 9-9, when we started miscommunicating on offense, dropping discs, and leading receivers out of bounds. At one point they got two breaks in two minutes after turnovers on first throws after receiving the pull. Earlier in the game, we played some great defense and I got a stall in the back corner of the endzone, then turned the disc over on the goalline, and then got it back with a footblock. Put me back on the D team, coach! LPC threw some zone, and we had more silly turnovers. We generally fell apart at the end of the game, losing 15-10 and bringing our fall record against them to 0-3. It's good to have a bogey team to shoot for in the offseason.
Cal ended up winning Sean Ryan over UCSC, making it two tournaments in a row for them. Oregon and Stanford finished 8th and 6th, respectively, but I don't know anyone who expects the same come Regionals. It looks like UBC is back on top of the Washington/BC section after Sundodger, but we'll see where things shake out in the spring. MLC was also this past weekend - Carleton, Colorado, and Wisconsin all sounded strong, even with less than complete squads in attendance from last year's college finalists. College ultimate is exciting again - bring on CCC!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Santa Clara Recap
We sent two teams to Santa Clara, supposedly split evenly X/Y, unlike UCSC and Cal who split more along A/B lines. Each of our teams had four veterans, and by the end of Sunday Stanford Y (my team) had two healthy returners and Stanford X only had one. It turns out we're a little short on handlers to field two teams, so veteran, B-team, and even rookie cutters sometimes had to step back behind the disc in order for other tryouts to get a chance to prove themselves as downfield cutters.
I suppose I should have started out by saying that the late-starting tournament was a really interesting idea, but that the schedule was an absolute mess. There were two pools of five teams and one pool of four teams, and six rounds were scheduled in order to accommodate all 14 teams on just 5 fields. However, pools didn't seem to mean much of anything, as teams played teams within and outside of their pools seemingly arbitrarily. Even worse were the Sunday "power pools" that had us playing Oregon State again in the first round and Davis Y playing two teams that they'd already beaten the day before.
We started the day at 12:30 against a splitsquad Santa Clara team. They were inexperienced, relied on the huck, and turned the disc over a lot. They did run a ho-stack that we had some trouble with. We stormed to a 7-3 halftime lead after being down 0-2, but then we started forcing terrible throws and dropping discs. They tied the game at 12-12 and hard cap went on, bringing us to universe point. We called a veteran line and worked the disc up the field, with only one game-saving layout required after a miscommunication between two veterans. We won 13-12, and some rookies had done well to distinguish themselves with strong deep cuts or hucks.
We followed up that game with a bye, and we watched Stanford X lose a squeaker to a Davis splitsquad team on a loooong universe point, and the X team also had difficulties stopping the Davis ho-stack and just seemed prone to drops in general. We turned our attention to our game against San Francisco State, which was a mismatch even with only four vets playing. We confidently closed out the game 13-5, not allowing them back in like we had Santa Clara. Matty Sung spent most of the game on the sideline, coaching and taking notes.
Our next game was against Alameda HS, and the game quickly became a chance for both teams to work on certain offenses and defenses. We threw zone for three or four points, then force middle. They broke the force middle once, and they scored twice the whole game. It was not much of a game for us although we did try to represent the sport and the university well while we played. We didn't go easy on them, but we didn't spike the disc or call ticky-tack fouls or travels either. The game ended 13-2, and we had a little bit of a wait before our anticipated night-game matchup against Oregon State, who had beaten us 13-6 at CHUG.
We were definitely excited to have a rematch against Oregon State, and the game started similarly to last time. We scored first, and then they scored three times in a row. But we played our force-backhand defense well the entire game, taking away their huck opportunities and forcing them to work the disc up the trap sideline for their scores. We never let them get more than two points ahead of us, and we even had a chance to take half up 6-5. But they rebounded and took half 7-6, then went up 8-6 afterwards. At 9-9, Sherwood finally entered the game, still nursing a sore groin that had been plaguing him since before Sectionals last April. It didn't help immediately, as we found ourselves receiving at 10-12, before some long and hard points tied the game at 12's. We anticipated playing win-by-two, but halfway through the point and after several turnovers (on great D's by both teams), the hard cap horn blew. We immediately turned it over on their goalline, and they immediately turned it back. We took our time and finally punched it in for the 13-12 win.
The game was notable for a couple reasons. First, our defense looked as good as it has all season. We did not get broken on the marks, we took away their hucking game, and then we started to grind them on their upline cuts. Also, we kept cramping up, and at some points in the game were down to just 9 players, some of them freshmen playing in their first tournament. Everyone stepped up to help the team win, and it was a great feeling to go home that night 4-0, exhausted but happy with how we ended up playing. Last year our mantra was "get better every game," and we definitely did that on Saturday.
After skipping one of the two biggest Stanford parties of the year in favor of sleep and our 6 am wakeup time, we got to the fields around 7 and realized that we were scheduled to play Oregon State. Again. In the first round. Instead of bracket play for the 8 teams in the upper pools, we had "power pools," or random games against other teams with good Saturday records. We weren't too happy about playing OSU again, but we jumped out to a quick lead in this game, going up 4-1. But they fought back as we got more lenient on the marks, and as their big downfield receiver in his orange hat and sock finally arrived at the fields. We were pulling to them at 11-11 when the hard cap horn went off, and we were able to get a turnover. But we couldn't convert, and they had the disc back. After a layout D on the sideline, there was momentary confusion on the field, and Steve Scardato was uncovered 30 yards deeper than everyone else. Sherwood picked up the disc and hucked it to him to end the game, as we won another nailbiter over OSU.
Our next game was against Cal "A," as they try to break back into the upper echelon of NW teams after their finals appearance in 2004. They looked extremely smooth on offense, and we had a lot of trouble trying to break up their short game and middle cutters in the ho-stack. We had slightly more success once we forced them to huck it and go deep, but we still turned it over more than they did. Our D's were pointblocks and skies, while theirs came on layout D's and our miscommunications. As the game drew on, we started losing players to injury again, and we went meekly in the second half after Cal took half 7-5. The game finished 13-7, but it remained to be seen how our final squad would fare against Cal.
We were set to play LPC next, but with only 9 healthy players we combined with Stanford X in order to make it more of a game. As it turned out, that meant that of the 20 or so players we had available, only three of us were returners, and I was the only handler. That led to B-team players and rookies being forced into handling roles against a vicious and poachy LPC handler defense, and we had lots of turns on dump sets when people turned too late or hesitated to hit the open man, either upfield or back. We still managed to get our share of goals, and some people surprised us, like the freshman who threw two forehand bombs for goals after hardly throwing upfield all day. Our defense was shaky, and LPC broke us almost at will. Their offense moved the disc with a lot of speed, and their dishy cuts tore us up, although not nearly as bad as Oregon State's had earlier in the morning. We ended up losing 15-7, which was not a bad result for a team so inexperienced playing against a group of guys who knew each other inside and out.
So, for the weekend Stanford Y was 5-2, while Stanford X was 3-4, and we were able to see what players could step up and be contributors against other schools' A-teams. Next weekend we'll take a single squad of 6-8 returners and about 16 tryouts to Sean Ryan and see where we stack up against California and NW competition. It will be interesting to see what the 2008 versions of Oregon and UCSB have to offer, and since we're the #1 seed, starting at 11:30 on Saturday is quite the bonus. Of course, some of us might head out earlier to watch Superfly Y play, but two straight tournaments with late start times is quite the change after play started at 7:30 am in the rain at last year's Sean Ryan.
I suppose I should have started out by saying that the late-starting tournament was a really interesting idea, but that the schedule was an absolute mess. There were two pools of five teams and one pool of four teams, and six rounds were scheduled in order to accommodate all 14 teams on just 5 fields. However, pools didn't seem to mean much of anything, as teams played teams within and outside of their pools seemingly arbitrarily. Even worse were the Sunday "power pools" that had us playing Oregon State again in the first round and Davis Y playing two teams that they'd already beaten the day before.
We started the day at 12:30 against a splitsquad Santa Clara team. They were inexperienced, relied on the huck, and turned the disc over a lot. They did run a ho-stack that we had some trouble with. We stormed to a 7-3 halftime lead after being down 0-2, but then we started forcing terrible throws and dropping discs. They tied the game at 12-12 and hard cap went on, bringing us to universe point. We called a veteran line and worked the disc up the field, with only one game-saving layout required after a miscommunication between two veterans. We won 13-12, and some rookies had done well to distinguish themselves with strong deep cuts or hucks.
We followed up that game with a bye, and we watched Stanford X lose a squeaker to a Davis splitsquad team on a loooong universe point, and the X team also had difficulties stopping the Davis ho-stack and just seemed prone to drops in general. We turned our attention to our game against San Francisco State, which was a mismatch even with only four vets playing. We confidently closed out the game 13-5, not allowing them back in like we had Santa Clara. Matty Sung spent most of the game on the sideline, coaching and taking notes.
Our next game was against Alameda HS, and the game quickly became a chance for both teams to work on certain offenses and defenses. We threw zone for three or four points, then force middle. They broke the force middle once, and they scored twice the whole game. It was not much of a game for us although we did try to represent the sport and the university well while we played. We didn't go easy on them, but we didn't spike the disc or call ticky-tack fouls or travels either. The game ended 13-2, and we had a little bit of a wait before our anticipated night-game matchup against Oregon State, who had beaten us 13-6 at CHUG.
We were definitely excited to have a rematch against Oregon State, and the game started similarly to last time. We scored first, and then they scored three times in a row. But we played our force-backhand defense well the entire game, taking away their huck opportunities and forcing them to work the disc up the trap sideline for their scores. We never let them get more than two points ahead of us, and we even had a chance to take half up 6-5. But they rebounded and took half 7-6, then went up 8-6 afterwards. At 9-9, Sherwood finally entered the game, still nursing a sore groin that had been plaguing him since before Sectionals last April. It didn't help immediately, as we found ourselves receiving at 10-12, before some long and hard points tied the game at 12's. We anticipated playing win-by-two, but halfway through the point and after several turnovers (on great D's by both teams), the hard cap horn blew. We immediately turned it over on their goalline, and they immediately turned it back. We took our time and finally punched it in for the 13-12 win.
The game was notable for a couple reasons. First, our defense looked as good as it has all season. We did not get broken on the marks, we took away their hucking game, and then we started to grind them on their upline cuts. Also, we kept cramping up, and at some points in the game were down to just 9 players, some of them freshmen playing in their first tournament. Everyone stepped up to help the team win, and it was a great feeling to go home that night 4-0, exhausted but happy with how we ended up playing. Last year our mantra was "get better every game," and we definitely did that on Saturday.
After skipping one of the two biggest Stanford parties of the year in favor of sleep and our 6 am wakeup time, we got to the fields around 7 and realized that we were scheduled to play Oregon State. Again. In the first round. Instead of bracket play for the 8 teams in the upper pools, we had "power pools," or random games against other teams with good Saturday records. We weren't too happy about playing OSU again, but we jumped out to a quick lead in this game, going up 4-1. But they fought back as we got more lenient on the marks, and as their big downfield receiver in his orange hat and sock finally arrived at the fields. We were pulling to them at 11-11 when the hard cap horn went off, and we were able to get a turnover. But we couldn't convert, and they had the disc back. After a layout D on the sideline, there was momentary confusion on the field, and Steve Scardato was uncovered 30 yards deeper than everyone else. Sherwood picked up the disc and hucked it to him to end the game, as we won another nailbiter over OSU.
Our next game was against Cal "A," as they try to break back into the upper echelon of NW teams after their finals appearance in 2004. They looked extremely smooth on offense, and we had a lot of trouble trying to break up their short game and middle cutters in the ho-stack. We had slightly more success once we forced them to huck it and go deep, but we still turned it over more than they did. Our D's were pointblocks and skies, while theirs came on layout D's and our miscommunications. As the game drew on, we started losing players to injury again, and we went meekly in the second half after Cal took half 7-5. The game finished 13-7, but it remained to be seen how our final squad would fare against Cal.
We were set to play LPC next, but with only 9 healthy players we combined with Stanford X in order to make it more of a game. As it turned out, that meant that of the 20 or so players we had available, only three of us were returners, and I was the only handler. That led to B-team players and rookies being forced into handling roles against a vicious and poachy LPC handler defense, and we had lots of turns on dump sets when people turned too late or hesitated to hit the open man, either upfield or back. We still managed to get our share of goals, and some people surprised us, like the freshman who threw two forehand bombs for goals after hardly throwing upfield all day. Our defense was shaky, and LPC broke us almost at will. Their offense moved the disc with a lot of speed, and their dishy cuts tore us up, although not nearly as bad as Oregon State's had earlier in the morning. We ended up losing 15-7, which was not a bad result for a team so inexperienced playing against a group of guys who knew each other inside and out.
So, for the weekend Stanford Y was 5-2, while Stanford X was 3-4, and we were able to see what players could step up and be contributors against other schools' A-teams. Next weekend we'll take a single squad of 6-8 returners and about 16 tryouts to Sean Ryan and see where we stack up against California and NW competition. It will be interesting to see what the 2008 versions of Oregon and UCSB have to offer, and since we're the #1 seed, starting at 11:30 on Saturday is quite the bonus. Of course, some of us might head out earlier to watch Superfly Y play, but two straight tournaments with late start times is quite the change after play started at 7:30 am in the rain at last year's Sean Ryan.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Nationals Aftermath
Without a tournament of our own this weekend, I was avidly following all four divisions' results on Score Reporter, starting on Thursday morning. There were some things that almost nobody predicted, like Furious tanking, Rival beating Shazam, or Barrio's wins. Some things most of us saw coming: Sockeye making the finals (and winning), a Fury-Riot womens finals, and Shazam taking Mixed. I was not surprised with GOAT making semis - as soon as I saw that Chain took Pool D, I knew that would be the quarterfinal matchup, and GOAT had been lights out against east coast competition all year, with the exception of NE Regionals. I was surprised that AMP made semis in Mixed, but once again, when Rival got the #1 seed for bracket play, I knew AMP would win their quarterfinal matchup.
A lot of interesting things happened in Masters, which nobody is talking about yet. Four teams from the A pool made semis, something that probably would have been different if Miami hadn't beaten OaitW (resting their studs?) and forced OLDSAG down to the #4 seed out of the B pool. DoG had their hardest matchup in the quarters, and I would have loved to see that all-east coast final. But now DoG returns to Worlds and their strongest competition may be Tombstone, a team that combined with GLUM for NE Regionals and DoG knocked out of Nationals.
I'm happiest with the play of Truck Stop, representing for the Mid-Atlantic as Ring of Fire tanks at Nationals for the third year in a row. Condors joined Ring in disappointing, as they couldn't maintain the momentum they had from the SW Regionals final and ended up crashing into the "ninals" bracket after their play-in loss to Truck Stop. After beating Boston 15-13 at the Chesapeake Open, Ring lost 9-15 in the play-in game. Accusations that they just can't play as a team surface yet again, as their strategy of being angry and athletic falls short at Nationals once more. Another storyline: the NW loses a strength bid. That leaves five elite teams fighting for three bids to Nationals next year. Can Furious reload and shake off their Day 1 failures? Will Revolver be able to return to the show? Will Jam's age hurt them?
On the womens side, Lady Godiva had the most startling tournament, proving that their win over Capitals at Regionals was no fluke. Is this a last hurrah for these Boston dames? Or is there a resurgence and reaction to Brute Squad? Either way, the Northeast managed to grab a strength bid with Capitals taking 5th. Maybe Ambush will get to come back next year with a full roster. The Northwest is still limited to three bids, meaning that the fight to finish third behind Fury and Riot will be just as tough next year. Brute Squad seems to be the most capable of breaking into the finals, as their close semifinal against Riot shows. They're picking up a lot of young talent that is making an immediate impact on the club scene, and they will only continue to get better. Riot is doing the same, and only Fury's roster seems bereft of former high school and young college stars. Will it hurt them in the long run? Only time will tell.
In Mixed, Shazam didn't get to avenge their loss to Rival but still won Nationals and will be making the short trip to Vancouver for Worlds next summer. Rival managed to beat BOTH finalists, something that may not have ever happened in ANY division. Haven't bothered checking the results, but it seems pretty unlikely. And yet they still couldn't make the semis, running into a determined AMP team that had already handled them 13-3 earlier in the season and was not afraid. Barrio and Tandem proved the strength of the B-pool, with Barrio finishing 6th and Tandem one point away from a berth in the semifinals.
As an aside, I just spent a while analyzing spirit scores (my favorite!) from Nationals, in all divisions. My number-crunching shows that the Open division is the most-spirited while Womens is the least-spirited, the SW and CN regions send the most-spirited teams, and the South and Mid-Atlantic have the least-spirited elite teams.
Santa Clara tournament this weekend, Stanford is going split-squad. Games start at 12:30 on Saturday and finish under the lights - it should be exciting and we'll get a chance to see what the potential rookies are like when they have to play against people they've never seen before. And vets will get their chance to lead a team whose success will depend on a lot on how they manage the pressure and perform with a cast of rookies around them.
A lot of interesting things happened in Masters, which nobody is talking about yet. Four teams from the A pool made semis, something that probably would have been different if Miami hadn't beaten OaitW (resting their studs?) and forced OLDSAG down to the #4 seed out of the B pool. DoG had their hardest matchup in the quarters, and I would have loved to see that all-east coast final. But now DoG returns to Worlds and their strongest competition may be Tombstone, a team that combined with GLUM for NE Regionals and DoG knocked out of Nationals.
I'm happiest with the play of Truck Stop, representing for the Mid-Atlantic as Ring of Fire tanks at Nationals for the third year in a row. Condors joined Ring in disappointing, as they couldn't maintain the momentum they had from the SW Regionals final and ended up crashing into the "ninals" bracket after their play-in loss to Truck Stop. After beating Boston 15-13 at the Chesapeake Open, Ring lost 9-15 in the play-in game. Accusations that they just can't play as a team surface yet again, as their strategy of being angry and athletic falls short at Nationals once more. Another storyline: the NW loses a strength bid. That leaves five elite teams fighting for three bids to Nationals next year. Can Furious reload and shake off their Day 1 failures? Will Revolver be able to return to the show? Will Jam's age hurt them?
On the womens side, Lady Godiva had the most startling tournament, proving that their win over Capitals at Regionals was no fluke. Is this a last hurrah for these Boston dames? Or is there a resurgence and reaction to Brute Squad? Either way, the Northeast managed to grab a strength bid with Capitals taking 5th. Maybe Ambush will get to come back next year with a full roster. The Northwest is still limited to three bids, meaning that the fight to finish third behind Fury and Riot will be just as tough next year. Brute Squad seems to be the most capable of breaking into the finals, as their close semifinal against Riot shows. They're picking up a lot of young talent that is making an immediate impact on the club scene, and they will only continue to get better. Riot is doing the same, and only Fury's roster seems bereft of former high school and young college stars. Will it hurt them in the long run? Only time will tell.
In Mixed, Shazam didn't get to avenge their loss to Rival but still won Nationals and will be making the short trip to Vancouver for Worlds next summer. Rival managed to beat BOTH finalists, something that may not have ever happened in ANY division. Haven't bothered checking the results, but it seems pretty unlikely. And yet they still couldn't make the semis, running into a determined AMP team that had already handled them 13-3 earlier in the season and was not afraid. Barrio and Tandem proved the strength of the B-pool, with Barrio finishing 6th and Tandem one point away from a berth in the semifinals.
As an aside, I just spent a while analyzing spirit scores (my favorite!) from Nationals, in all divisions. My number-crunching shows that the Open division is the most-spirited while Womens is the least-spirited, the SW and CN regions send the most-spirited teams, and the South and Mid-Atlantic have the least-spirited elite teams.
Santa Clara tournament this weekend, Stanford is going split-squad. Games start at 12:30 on Saturday and finish under the lights - it should be exciting and we'll get a chance to see what the potential rookies are like when they have to play against people they've never seen before. And vets will get their chance to lead a team whose success will depend on a lot on how they manage the pressure and perform with a cast of rookies around them.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Ambush, NC State, and the UPA's quest for legitimacy
The latest controversy regarding Series eligibility and the UPA's new rostering rules surrounds Ambush, the NYC-based womens team that took the fourth bid to Nationals out of the Northeast Region. One player was inadvertently left off of the roster for Sectionals and included on the additional roster filled out for the Nationals program. The UPA acknowledged that it was a "clerical error" on behalf of one of Ambush's captains, and they declared that both the ineligible player and the captain in charge of rostering would not be allowed to play at Nationals.
The Championship Committee's decision spurred a furious email campaign and RSD discussion about whether or not the UPA's decision was "fair." Having seen Ambush practice at Prospect Park this summer and having watched some of their games at Boston Invite, I felt some pride when they qualified for Nationals over RRI-favored Storm. I recognize the difficulty of having a competitive team based in NYC and the lengths that a lot of the players went to in order to play this season and qualify for Nationals. I even got an invitation to their Girl Scouts Gone Wild fundraising party.
Last spring, NC State was one day late with its college rosters, due to the slow processing of the university registrar's office. My co-captain from high school and longtime teammate was on that team. He and his teammates cursed Will Deaver to high heaven and also appealed to the masses. NC State did not get to compete in the Series at all, minus a captain or not. There were stories circulating around RSD that one coach flew his team's roster into UPA headquarters personally in order to guarantee that it was received in time.
In all likelihood, had Ambush been "found out" at Sectionals, Regionals, or shortly thereafter, they would have been completely disqualified from the Series. The precedent has been set in the past, especially in college - UCSB in 2004 comes to mind. But with Nationals on a few days away, there is no way that Storm could have assembled their players and bought plane tickets to Sarasota in time. At the UPA Club Championships, an awkward 15-team format would have ruined their showcase event, specially designed to sprawl out over four days with 16 teams, along with making 16 players eat their plane tickets and reservations had they chosen to stay home instead of watch.
Instead, the UPA decided to suspend the two people who were most directly "responsible" for the situation - the player who was not on the roster and the captain in charge of rostering. There was absolutely no way that the UPA could allow a player who was not on the Sectionals and Regionals roster play at Nationals without being extremely hypocritical and inconsistent. In effect, Ambush would benefit by breaking the rules. And in order to discourage this from happening in the future, the UPA could not just stop there. If the message were sent that teams could play with unrostered players until they were caught, with no further repercussions, the UPA could not be taken seriously as a legitimate governing body for the sport. So they also DQ'ed the player responsible for making sure that everyone was supposed to be on the roster - not an unreasonable decision in my opinion, especially considering there was a precedent set for complete disqualification from Nationals.
As the UPA tries to set firmer roster guidelines and legitimize ultimate, it starts to move towards the realm of other amateur sport governing bodies, such as the NCAA. In 2006, after a former Ohio State assistant basketball coach accepted a head coaching job at Wright State, the NCAA declared that he would be prohibited from recruiting for 18 months because his former coach gave $6000 to an eventually ineligible foreign recruit. USADA is notorious for imposing suspensions on athletes despite their claims of not knowing anything about the seemingly innocent supplements or vitamins they've taken.
The important thing is that all of these rules are laid out in advance. There are deadlines in place for rostering, and if a team submits no roster or an incomplete roster, then the team cannot play or must play shorthanded. It is the responsibility of the captains and/or coaches to make sure that every player is accounted for, and if not, either petition the UPA for an exemption before play starts, or prohibit the excluded player(s) from participating in the Series in order to spare the entire team a disqualification. Yes, this sucks. Yes, I want Ambush to be full-strength at Nationals. But they screwed up, and now they have to play undermanned. I absolutely wanted Stephen and NC State to have a chance to qualify for Nationals and play against each other in Columbus. But if their late roster were accepted, then the UPA's legitimacy is tarnished. Hopefully every other team learns from this, and the situations will never come up again.
The Championship Committee's decision spurred a furious email campaign and RSD discussion about whether or not the UPA's decision was "fair." Having seen Ambush practice at Prospect Park this summer and having watched some of their games at Boston Invite, I felt some pride when they qualified for Nationals over RRI-favored Storm. I recognize the difficulty of having a competitive team based in NYC and the lengths that a lot of the players went to in order to play this season and qualify for Nationals. I even got an invitation to their Girl Scouts Gone Wild fundraising party.
Last spring, NC State was one day late with its college rosters, due to the slow processing of the university registrar's office. My co-captain from high school and longtime teammate was on that team. He and his teammates cursed Will Deaver to high heaven and also appealed to the masses. NC State did not get to compete in the Series at all, minus a captain or not. There were stories circulating around RSD that one coach flew his team's roster into UPA headquarters personally in order to guarantee that it was received in time.
In all likelihood, had Ambush been "found out" at Sectionals, Regionals, or shortly thereafter, they would have been completely disqualified from the Series. The precedent has been set in the past, especially in college - UCSB in 2004 comes to mind. But with Nationals on a few days away, there is no way that Storm could have assembled their players and bought plane tickets to Sarasota in time. At the UPA Club Championships, an awkward 15-team format would have ruined their showcase event, specially designed to sprawl out over four days with 16 teams, along with making 16 players eat their plane tickets and reservations had they chosen to stay home instead of watch.
Instead, the UPA decided to suspend the two people who were most directly "responsible" for the situation - the player who was not on the roster and the captain in charge of rostering. There was absolutely no way that the UPA could allow a player who was not on the Sectionals and Regionals roster play at Nationals without being extremely hypocritical and inconsistent. In effect, Ambush would benefit by breaking the rules. And in order to discourage this from happening in the future, the UPA could not just stop there. If the message were sent that teams could play with unrostered players until they were caught, with no further repercussions, the UPA could not be taken seriously as a legitimate governing body for the sport. So they also DQ'ed the player responsible for making sure that everyone was supposed to be on the roster - not an unreasonable decision in my opinion, especially considering there was a precedent set for complete disqualification from Nationals.
As the UPA tries to set firmer roster guidelines and legitimize ultimate, it starts to move towards the realm of other amateur sport governing bodies, such as the NCAA. In 2006, after a former Ohio State assistant basketball coach accepted a head coaching job at Wright State, the NCAA declared that he would be prohibited from recruiting for 18 months because his former coach gave $6000 to an eventually ineligible foreign recruit. USADA is notorious for imposing suspensions on athletes despite their claims of not knowing anything about the seemingly innocent supplements or vitamins they've taken.
The important thing is that all of these rules are laid out in advance. There are deadlines in place for rostering, and if a team submits no roster or an incomplete roster, then the team cannot play or must play shorthanded. It is the responsibility of the captains and/or coaches to make sure that every player is accounted for, and if not, either petition the UPA for an exemption before play starts, or prohibit the excluded player(s) from participating in the Series in order to spare the entire team a disqualification. Yes, this sucks. Yes, I want Ambush to be full-strength at Nationals. But they screwed up, and now they have to play undermanned. I absolutely wanted Stephen and NC State to have a chance to qualify for Nationals and play against each other in Columbus. But if their late roster were accepted, then the UPA's legitimacy is tarnished. Hopefully every other team learns from this, and the situations will never come up again.
Monday, October 22, 2007
CHUG Recap
Our total numbers for the weekend:
We brought a squad that wasn't used to playing together, but we could have two or three experienced handlers on each line to control the game and let the rookies cut. Our first game was against UCSC and their massive army of 47 players that they brought for the weekend.
The game started out sloppy and close, but our downfield defense really took it to Santa Cruz and we found ourselves up 7-2 at halftime. Danny Karlinsky played maybe three points, and both teams played a lot of rookies. They ran both a spread and a vert, and we had success against the spread when we held our marks and didn't let cutters get open deep. In the second half we got a little complacent and they started hucking a lot more, scoring a few goals in a row. Once we started taking those looks away again, we closed out the game 13-6. Our freshmen scored a lot in this game, and our marks got better as the game went on.
The next game was against Barley, the Chico B-team, which included George Van Pelt, former NW All-Region (2006) and UCSC player. They scored early but only once in the first half. The game ended 13-3, and we were coasting. But Barley was making it easy for us, dropping discs, macking D's right to us, etc. The game was pretty forgettable, although it was a confidence-booster for us. But our complacency followed us into our next game, against Oregon State. We saw them at Regionals last year and won 15-7 in pool play, but that was with a full team. This time they were virtually at full-strength, and we were overconfident following our stomping of Barley.
The game opened with a long O point for us that we eventually punched in. But things quickly got out of hand, as their deep pulls and tight downfield defense intimidated our inexperienced cutters and handlers started to get impatient and force throws. We also started tunneling in on our experienced downfield cutters in Tom and Steve, and we quickly found ourselves down 7-1 at halftime. OSU typically ran a ho-stack with three strong handlers back, all looking for the unmarked huck. They had two strong receivers in the middle of the field, and they looked deep a lot. We managed to slow them down a lot more by switching to a backhand force and stopping their break throws and dishy passes. The second half also had every lucky deflection and bounce go straight into an OSU player's arms, and we lost 6-5 for a final score of 13-6.
It was a little bit of a wakeup call for us, but we learned a lot of lessons in fighting back in the second half. The newer players also got their first taste of playing against a tight defense and teams that will do whatever it takes to get their gameplan going - hucking at all costs, in this case. The loss left us with a bye before our prequarters game against Redding, and we stopped by at the stadium field to watch Superfly give UC-Davis a thumping. We left to warmup at halftime, when the score was 7-0. Apparently it finished 13-1, and Superfly went 2-2 on the day.
The game against Redding was pretty fun to watch. They were a community team with some old guys, some young and inexperienced guys, and some mix. They had one baller who came down with two or three jump balls in the endzone, but for the most part we were able to get D's on them and work the field with relative ease. We took half 7-4 and I played one point in the second half, as we had a bunch of all-rookie lines out there that took care of business. We won 13-5, securing a berth in the quarters and first round bye for Sunday. On the next field over, UC-Davis was playing UN-Reno and called an "RSD line," where every player's first name began with R, S, or D. I appreciated it.
The tournament party was that night, and the theme was "boatracing" aka nautical aka pirates. We raided a local thrift store owned by a creepy old lady who us about dislocating her toe and asked us to help her over piles of clothes to the cash register side of the counter. We went to the party prepared and excited after watching Stanford pull off a last-minute win over Arizona. There were plenty of people, seven kegs of disgusting Butte Creek organic pale ale, and a bonfire. Our women's team was also encostumed, although only a few people were noticeably pirates. Some commotion was had when someone had to be convinced not to jump over the towering bonfire (although someone much taller did it later when it was much smaller). Eventually we lost a boatrace to Oregon by a few seconds (rookies need to pull their weight!) and the popo rolled up, sending us back to the house. We watched Knocked Up and ordered pizza. It was sweet (in an "aww" way, not an "awesome!" way).
Sunday morning saw us pack up and head to the stadium for our game against LPC. The last time we played LPC was at Sectionals, when we barely held on for a 16-14 win after leading 10-4. They had done a great job of jumping and poaching on our dump sets, as well as coming down with a lot of hucks to Robot and their other cutters. This game would be different, but not really by that much. The wind was extremely strong upwind/downwind, which made throwing really difficult for the rookies. We jumped out to an early 5-3 lead, capitalizing on some swilly crossfield throws and utilizing our patience to work the disc up the field and punch it in. Our grad student and Unabomber lookalike from UChicago made some great throws into the wind - so did Schlag. But then LPC started poaching on the dumpsets again, and we started killing ourselves with drops. We didn't throw into poaches or get stifled, but drops, decisions, and wind-related throwaways led to four quick goals for LPC and we were down 7-5 at halftime.
LPC did a great job of running their ho-stack with dishy passes. We shut down their handlers during their dump sets and hardly got broken, but we got killed on dishys to streaking handlers who would launch hucks to cutters who took advantage of their defender watching the disc instead of the man. It was really well-executed, and they took what we gave them. We'll absolutely have to work on stopping the dishys and ho-stack in practice, but it killed us in the second half. Robot had some great D's and goals, and we struggled a lot in the second half with the wind and decisions. We only got two (maybe three?) goals, one on Schlag's beautiful upwind huck. On the plus side, our rookies got a lot more experience cutting and cutting well on experienced, aggressive defenders, and our vets handled the poaching dump defense a lot better than we did at Sectionals. Marks were *much* improved. Loss, 13-7 (or 8).
The loss dropped us into a 5th-place game against Hops, aka Chico A. We were hungry after losing to LPC, and we jumped out to a quick lead against a Hops squad that was also looking huck-first (aside: are we the only team that doesn't live and die by the huck?). But we learned from our mistakes and defended the hucks a lot better in this game. We pressured them extremely well on defense and worked the disc really well on offense. After letting them back into the game with some costly turnovers, we ran off an 8-1 run to end the game 13-5. We played a lot more all-rookie or one-vet lines. Chico threw zone on a one-vet line, but we didn't miss a beat - we broke through the cup with a hammer from Colin, a sophomore from the B-team, and the freshmen worked it up to the endzone. Win, 13-5.
Overall, we came in a tie for 5th, and LPC won the tournament. Almost every team we played ran some form of the ho-stack, which was difficult to defend against when our players have only ever played with and against a vertical stack. Hopefully we'll work on this at practice before Santa Clara in two weeks, and we'll also be able to work on communicating switches and team defense, which can really shut down a ho-stack. I was definitely pleased with the progress the team made over the course of the weekend, especially with our marks and cutting.
- 5 returners
- 4 freshmen
- 5 sophomores (4 B team)
- 1 junior (B team)
- 3 seniors (B team)
- 3 grad students (1 B team)
We brought a squad that wasn't used to playing together, but we could have two or three experienced handlers on each line to control the game and let the rookies cut. Our first game was against UCSC and their massive army of 47 players that they brought for the weekend.
The game started out sloppy and close, but our downfield defense really took it to Santa Cruz and we found ourselves up 7-2 at halftime. Danny Karlinsky played maybe three points, and both teams played a lot of rookies. They ran both a spread and a vert, and we had success against the spread when we held our marks and didn't let cutters get open deep. In the second half we got a little complacent and they started hucking a lot more, scoring a few goals in a row. Once we started taking those looks away again, we closed out the game 13-6. Our freshmen scored a lot in this game, and our marks got better as the game went on.
The next game was against Barley, the Chico B-team, which included George Van Pelt, former NW All-Region (2006) and UCSC player. They scored early but only once in the first half. The game ended 13-3, and we were coasting. But Barley was making it easy for us, dropping discs, macking D's right to us, etc. The game was pretty forgettable, although it was a confidence-booster for us. But our complacency followed us into our next game, against Oregon State. We saw them at Regionals last year and won 15-7 in pool play, but that was with a full team. This time they were virtually at full-strength, and we were overconfident following our stomping of Barley.
The game opened with a long O point for us that we eventually punched in. But things quickly got out of hand, as their deep pulls and tight downfield defense intimidated our inexperienced cutters and handlers started to get impatient and force throws. We also started tunneling in on our experienced downfield cutters in Tom and Steve, and we quickly found ourselves down 7-1 at halftime. OSU typically ran a ho-stack with three strong handlers back, all looking for the unmarked huck. They had two strong receivers in the middle of the field, and they looked deep a lot. We managed to slow them down a lot more by switching to a backhand force and stopping their break throws and dishy passes. The second half also had every lucky deflection and bounce go straight into an OSU player's arms, and we lost 6-5 for a final score of 13-6.
It was a little bit of a wakeup call for us, but we learned a lot of lessons in fighting back in the second half. The newer players also got their first taste of playing against a tight defense and teams that will do whatever it takes to get their gameplan going - hucking at all costs, in this case. The loss left us with a bye before our prequarters game against Redding, and we stopped by at the stadium field to watch Superfly give UC-Davis a thumping. We left to warmup at halftime, when the score was 7-0. Apparently it finished 13-1, and Superfly went 2-2 on the day.
The game against Redding was pretty fun to watch. They were a community team with some old guys, some young and inexperienced guys, and some mix. They had one baller who came down with two or three jump balls in the endzone, but for the most part we were able to get D's on them and work the field with relative ease. We took half 7-4 and I played one point in the second half, as we had a bunch of all-rookie lines out there that took care of business. We won 13-5, securing a berth in the quarters and first round bye for Sunday. On the next field over, UC-Davis was playing UN-Reno and called an "RSD line," where every player's first name began with R, S, or D. I appreciated it.
The tournament party was that night, and the theme was "boatracing" aka nautical aka pirates. We raided a local thrift store owned by a creepy old lady who us about dislocating her toe and asked us to help her over piles of clothes to the cash register side of the counter. We went to the party prepared and excited after watching Stanford pull off a last-minute win over Arizona. There were plenty of people, seven kegs of disgusting Butte Creek organic pale ale, and a bonfire. Our women's team was also encostumed, although only a few people were noticeably pirates. Some commotion was had when someone had to be convinced not to jump over the towering bonfire (although someone much taller did it later when it was much smaller). Eventually we lost a boatrace to Oregon by a few seconds (rookies need to pull their weight!) and the popo rolled up, sending us back to the house. We watched Knocked Up and ordered pizza. It was sweet (in an "aww" way, not an "awesome!" way).
Sunday morning saw us pack up and head to the stadium for our game against LPC. The last time we played LPC was at Sectionals, when we barely held on for a 16-14 win after leading 10-4. They had done a great job of jumping and poaching on our dump sets, as well as coming down with a lot of hucks to Robot and their other cutters. This game would be different, but not really by that much. The wind was extremely strong upwind/downwind, which made throwing really difficult for the rookies. We jumped out to an early 5-3 lead, capitalizing on some swilly crossfield throws and utilizing our patience to work the disc up the field and punch it in. Our grad student and Unabomber lookalike from UChicago made some great throws into the wind - so did Schlag. But then LPC started poaching on the dumpsets again, and we started killing ourselves with drops. We didn't throw into poaches or get stifled, but drops, decisions, and wind-related throwaways led to four quick goals for LPC and we were down 7-5 at halftime.
LPC did a great job of running their ho-stack with dishy passes. We shut down their handlers during their dump sets and hardly got broken, but we got killed on dishys to streaking handlers who would launch hucks to cutters who took advantage of their defender watching the disc instead of the man. It was really well-executed, and they took what we gave them. We'll absolutely have to work on stopping the dishys and ho-stack in practice, but it killed us in the second half. Robot had some great D's and goals, and we struggled a lot in the second half with the wind and decisions. We only got two (maybe three?) goals, one on Schlag's beautiful upwind huck. On the plus side, our rookies got a lot more experience cutting and cutting well on experienced, aggressive defenders, and our vets handled the poaching dump defense a lot better than we did at Sectionals. Marks were *much* improved. Loss, 13-7 (or 8).
The loss dropped us into a 5th-place game against Hops, aka Chico A. We were hungry after losing to LPC, and we jumped out to a quick lead against a Hops squad that was also looking huck-first (aside: are we the only team that doesn't live and die by the huck?). But we learned from our mistakes and defended the hucks a lot better in this game. We pressured them extremely well on defense and worked the disc really well on offense. After letting them back into the game with some costly turnovers, we ran off an 8-1 run to end the game 13-5. We played a lot more all-rookie or one-vet lines. Chico threw zone on a one-vet line, but we didn't miss a beat - we broke through the cup with a hammer from Colin, a sophomore from the B-team, and the freshmen worked it up to the endzone. Win, 13-5.
Overall, we came in a tie for 5th, and LPC won the tournament. Almost every team we played ran some form of the ho-stack, which was difficult to defend against when our players have only ever played with and against a vertical stack. Hopefully we'll work on this at practice before Santa Clara in two weeks, and we'll also be able to work on communicating switches and team defense, which can really shut down a ho-stack. I was definitely pleased with the progress the team made over the course of the weekend, especially with our marks and cutting.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Chico this weekend
Stanford is sending a team up to Chico for CHUG this weekend. Five returners, thirteen "rookies," and an injured captain to man the clipboard. We should see our main sectional and regional competition with UCSC, Cal, and Oregon all sending teams. It will be good to see how the rookies respond to an actual tournament with "competitive" games.
Expect a full writeup sometime next week.
Expect a full writeup sometime next week.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A Useless Exercise (aka Nationals "Predictions")
Seeds for all divisions were posted yesterday, and running through all 60 teams it looks like there could be some fireworks.
Masters
Last year's champions Throwback didn't make it but the Double Happiness/Bay Area team Troubled Past took the #1 seed. I'd expect OLDSAG to definitely break seed and possibly take a berth in the semis. I can also see Boneyard moving into the quarters. My semifinalists: BIGS, DoG, OLDSAG, and OaITW. Masters is always contentious and there are almost always pool play tiebreakers that give some team a harder road.
Open
I can't see any opening-day pool play upsets except in Pool D, where Chain will try to avenge their Chesapeake loss to Truck Stop and regain their semifinal form against Furious and Sub Zero. Power pools look interesting, and I think GOAT's O will struggle against Bravo but they'll take the 3rd seed out of the power pool and avoid prequarters, where Condors will have to face a determined foe in the Pool H winner - almost certainly the 3rd placed team from Pool D. On the other half, Pool F looks like the Sockeye-Furious rematch again, and this time both teams know that it counts. It looks like Boston will be forced down into the play-in and unenviable game against a scrappy Doublewide team, only for the privilege of facing the Jam-Bravo winner.
Likely quarterfinal matchups pit Bravo against Boston, Sockeye against Condors, GOAT against Furious, and Jam against Sub Zero or Chain. Boston beat Bravo at ECC, but that looks like the only potential upset. Jam-Sockeye looks like a potentially blockbuster semi, and the NW looks super-strong with three teams in the semis. Again.
Women
Everyone's goal is to stop the juggernauts Fury and Riot from meeting in the finals once again, but do any teams really have what it takes? Safari thinks so, and Brute Squad and Capitals will be out to prove that east coast teams can hang with the big dogs. The bottom 9 teams are all capable of beating each other depending on how they deal with the Sarasota wind and big game pressure. The battle for 9th will be immensely entertaining, and possible more interesting than the upper bracket. I'm pulling for Loose Cannon - they're much stronger than a 15 seed.
Mixed
Shazam Returns (what a terrible name, by the way) beats out Fury for Most Dominant Team in Any Division. They've won every tournament they've entered, and since their loss to Brass Monkey - the sole blemish on their record - they've beaten them twice since then. But there is a large group of teams that can cause an upset, and the Flycoons have an intriguing pool play matchup against Slow White, one that is definitely winnable for them. Every single pool except Pool C looks like the 2-3 game will be incredibly close, and the difference between going into the upper pool 0-1 and the lower pool 1-0 is immense. And again, except for Pool C, all of the bottom-seeded teams are relatively unpredictable and could make a name for themselves with an upset that sends Day 1 into disarray. But in the end, the NW teams look the strongest, and only they look capable of taking home the title.
(Why, NW, why? At least you might not win Masters)
Masters
Last year's champions Throwback didn't make it but the Double Happiness/Bay Area team Troubled Past took the #1 seed. I'd expect OLDSAG to definitely break seed and possibly take a berth in the semis. I can also see Boneyard moving into the quarters. My semifinalists: BIGS, DoG, OLDSAG, and OaITW. Masters is always contentious and there are almost always pool play tiebreakers that give some team a harder road.
Open
I can't see any opening-day pool play upsets except in Pool D, where Chain will try to avenge their Chesapeake loss to Truck Stop and regain their semifinal form against Furious and Sub Zero. Power pools look interesting, and I think GOAT's O will struggle against Bravo but they'll take the 3rd seed out of the power pool and avoid prequarters, where Condors will have to face a determined foe in the Pool H winner - almost certainly the 3rd placed team from Pool D. On the other half, Pool F looks like the Sockeye-Furious rematch again, and this time both teams know that it counts. It looks like Boston will be forced down into the play-in and unenviable game against a scrappy Doublewide team, only for the privilege of facing the Jam-Bravo winner.
Likely quarterfinal matchups pit Bravo against Boston, Sockeye against Condors, GOAT against Furious, and Jam against Sub Zero or Chain. Boston beat Bravo at ECC, but that looks like the only potential upset. Jam-Sockeye looks like a potentially blockbuster semi, and the NW looks super-strong with three teams in the semis. Again.
Women
Everyone's goal is to stop the juggernauts Fury and Riot from meeting in the finals once again, but do any teams really have what it takes? Safari thinks so, and Brute Squad and Capitals will be out to prove that east coast teams can hang with the big dogs. The bottom 9 teams are all capable of beating each other depending on how they deal with the Sarasota wind and big game pressure. The battle for 9th will be immensely entertaining, and possible more interesting than the upper bracket. I'm pulling for Loose Cannon - they're much stronger than a 15 seed.
Mixed
Shazam Returns (what a terrible name, by the way) beats out Fury for Most Dominant Team in Any Division. They've won every tournament they've entered, and since their loss to Brass Monkey - the sole blemish on their record - they've beaten them twice since then. But there is a large group of teams that can cause an upset, and the Flycoons have an intriguing pool play matchup against Slow White, one that is definitely winnable for them. Every single pool except Pool C looks like the 2-3 game will be incredibly close, and the difference between going into the upper pool 0-1 and the lower pool 1-0 is immense. And again, except for Pool C, all of the bottom-seeded teams are relatively unpredictable and could make a name for themselves with an upset that sends Day 1 into disarray. But in the end, the NW teams look the strongest, and only they look capable of taking home the title.
(Why, NW, why? At least you might not win Masters)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Recruiting (High School)
I was involved in recruitment for my high school ultimate team at Columbia every year except my freshman year. The goal was simple: recruit as many athletic-looking freshmen as possible. Our school, as I'm assuming most high schools do, had a Club Fair on the first or second day of school for freshmen. We, despite not being an official club, got a table and set up shop. We brought jerseys, posters, discs, and ultimate videos and DVDs. And the most important thing of all was our email signup sheet, so we could contact everyone later that night and tell them about practice, etc.
It was important for us to recruit people who were willing to treat the sport the same way we did - as if it were a varsity sport that traveled outside of the state. We practiced every day, like varsity sports. There were tournaments every two or three weekends. We emphasized that we were multiple-time state champions and nationally ranked. This will probably not work for programs that are smaller, that just need to recruit to stay alive. But remember that *everyone* is nationally ranked (thanks Score Reporter!), and usually there are not many teams in a state, so almost every team can say that their goal is to make it to state semifinals. For people who are not exposed to ultimate and used to traditional varsity sports, this is a big deal.
Also, never underestimate the effect of ultimate video footage. It serves three purposes. First, it attracts people to your booth/table. Second, it helps you explain what ultimate is, and show people that there are not, in fact, any dogs. And third, it's actually really, really cool. People love to watch big hucks, skies, and layouts. Spikes help too. If you can have three or four people around the table, scanning the crowd for potential teammates, and one or two people actually at the table to catch people who stop in of their own accord.
Approach everyone, including groups of friends. If an athletic kid's unathletic friends are interested in ultimate, he may be swayed and play when he wouldn't have otherwise. Also, DO NOT BE RUDE to anyone, no matter who they are or what they say. Just mention the running that you do, or the traveling to tournaments.
When you talk to someone, try to play up the legitimacy of the team. If you have a coach, mention that. If not, try to get one before the season starts - approach the local league, club team, alumni, etc. Coaches make a huge difference to players and parents and also the continuity of the team. Mention the fun that the team has, the games that you play, and how often you practice. If they're interested, get their email address or phone number. If they're still undecided, bring them over to the table and show them some video.
Columbia likes to start players out with practice after school the next day. Our girls team used to do informational meetings before the first practice, where people could come, learn about the sport, and ask any questions they had. I'd actually recommend the meeting for fledgling teams - not everyone is willing or able to jump into practice immediately. If you do have a meeting, try to get word out about it by flyering your school hallways, bulletin boards, and bathroom doors.
We generally get about 20 freshmen out for the beginning of the fall. To keep them, we do a lot of throwing instruction and scrimmages (stopping after/during every point to explain things) and build in the force, cutting technique, marking, and downfield defense in about that order so that people can get a hang of things. We let them watch A-team and returning B-team players scrimmage so that they can see how things are "supposed" to look. And we take them to a tournament ASAP so that they can actually play.
Don't be discouraged if not all of them come back for the spring. My freshman year, only two of the 20-some kids returned for the spring. A couple years later, about 18 came back. Try to buy jerseys in the fall, for A-team and B-team players (if you have a B-team). Having a physical tie to the team seems to increase people's willingness to come back. And remember - in order for a team to stay afloat, they need about four players each year to stay, play, and become experienced. Some years will be leaner than others - of the seven classes I played high school ultimate with, three of them were smaller than four - two, two, and three. But you try to recruit in numbers with the goal of having a fraction of them staying on to be future contributors. Our general ratio when I was doing recruiting:
50-60 signups
25-30 at first practice
15-25 at the end of the fall
12-18 at the end of the spring
8-15 at the start of the next fall
6-12 at the end of their sophomore spring
It was important for us to recruit people who were willing to treat the sport the same way we did - as if it were a varsity sport that traveled outside of the state. We practiced every day, like varsity sports. There were tournaments every two or three weekends. We emphasized that we were multiple-time state champions and nationally ranked. This will probably not work for programs that are smaller, that just need to recruit to stay alive. But remember that *everyone* is nationally ranked (thanks Score Reporter!), and usually there are not many teams in a state, so almost every team can say that their goal is to make it to state semifinals. For people who are not exposed to ultimate and used to traditional varsity sports, this is a big deal.
Also, never underestimate the effect of ultimate video footage. It serves three purposes. First, it attracts people to your booth/table. Second, it helps you explain what ultimate is, and show people that there are not, in fact, any dogs. And third, it's actually really, really cool. People love to watch big hucks, skies, and layouts. Spikes help too. If you can have three or four people around the table, scanning the crowd for potential teammates, and one or two people actually at the table to catch people who stop in of their own accord.
Approach everyone, including groups of friends. If an athletic kid's unathletic friends are interested in ultimate, he may be swayed and play when he wouldn't have otherwise. Also, DO NOT BE RUDE to anyone, no matter who they are or what they say. Just mention the running that you do, or the traveling to tournaments.
When you talk to someone, try to play up the legitimacy of the team. If you have a coach, mention that. If not, try to get one before the season starts - approach the local league, club team, alumni, etc. Coaches make a huge difference to players and parents and also the continuity of the team. Mention the fun that the team has, the games that you play, and how often you practice. If they're interested, get their email address or phone number. If they're still undecided, bring them over to the table and show them some video.
Columbia likes to start players out with practice after school the next day. Our girls team used to do informational meetings before the first practice, where people could come, learn about the sport, and ask any questions they had. I'd actually recommend the meeting for fledgling teams - not everyone is willing or able to jump into practice immediately. If you do have a meeting, try to get word out about it by flyering your school hallways, bulletin boards, and bathroom doors.
We generally get about 20 freshmen out for the beginning of the fall. To keep them, we do a lot of throwing instruction and scrimmages (stopping after/during every point to explain things) and build in the force, cutting technique, marking, and downfield defense in about that order so that people can get a hang of things. We let them watch A-team and returning B-team players scrimmage so that they can see how things are "supposed" to look. And we take them to a tournament ASAP so that they can actually play.
Don't be discouraged if not all of them come back for the spring. My freshman year, only two of the 20-some kids returned for the spring. A couple years later, about 18 came back. Try to buy jerseys in the fall, for A-team and B-team players (if you have a B-team). Having a physical tie to the team seems to increase people's willingness to come back. And remember - in order for a team to stay afloat, they need about four players each year to stay, play, and become experienced. Some years will be leaner than others - of the seven classes I played high school ultimate with, three of them were smaller than four - two, two, and three. But you try to recruit in numbers with the goal of having a fraction of them staying on to be future contributors. Our general ratio when I was doing recruiting:
50-60 signups
25-30 at first practice
15-25 at the end of the fall
12-18 at the end of the spring
8-15 at the start of the next fall
6-12 at the end of their sophomore spring
Friday, October 5, 2007
A New Season
The fall is always a very exciting time for an ultimate team. It has a vibe so unlike anything I've encountered in any other sport. The ultra-competitive spring season is the championship season - 20+ guys working together for the ultimate (no pun intended) goal. But the fall is interesting and gratifying for other reasons. When practices start, there is an incredible feeling of starting anew. Anything is possible at the beginning of the season. You have a mix of savvy vets, players who are no longer rookies and need to step up, B-team players trying to impress, and completely new players.
There is nothing quite like seeing a freshman at out at the Club Fair, bringing them out to that first practice, and watching them develop over the course of the fall. I love seeing players come up to you, excited about learning how to throw a forehand, or just after getting their first layout D. Everyone has the same chance to make the A-team at the start. And as time goes on, the air gets colder and the wind stronger, and the people who really want it began to rise above the rest.
I've been involved in the "teaching" aspect of fall recruitment and tryouts since my junior year of high school. Personally, I don't really have the patience or desire to teach people how to throw and catch. I have a lot of respect for the players and coaches who are good throwing instructors. I don't mind correcting someone's form or telling them about a hitch in their motion that keeps the disc turning over. But I do it best one-on-one, not in large groups. And, while throwing is extremely important, I think that the concepts of offense and defense are ultimately more valuable and indicative of who can "make it" as an ultimate player by the end of the fall.
I am a huge proponent of doing drills that isolate concepts within a game context. For instance, teaching players about beating their defender in a man-defense matchup shouldn't happen in a vacuum. I like a drill that has the entire stack set up appropriately on the field, with defense, and a thrower with a marker. Then the last person in the stack will cut against their defender until they get open or the thrower looks them off (after about three stall counts). Then they will cycle back into the front of the stack, or become the thrower, or go to a "waiting position" as the dump/dump defender, and the rotation through the positions/stack will continue.
In a drill like this, the player doesn't have all day to get open on their cut, or the entire field. They have to be aware of the two cutting lanes, avoid causing a pick by cutting too close to or through the stack, and realize when a thrower will think that they're open, which is often different than when a receiver thinks that they're open. And for the thrower, it works on their decision-making. A coach watching can chastise a thrower for not throwing to the open man or applaud a no-throw. And alternatively, if an ill-advised throw goes up, everyone will see and realize it.
The same drill can be a defensive drill, depending on the emphasis placed on defensive positioning vs. cutting, etc. Defenders can't be expected to shut down the players they're guarding for all 10 seconds of the stall count in all directions, like some drills seem to expect. It's not a failure if your man gets open deep on you at stall five after the thrower is no longer looking.
And then there is the part of practice that new players look forward to the most - the scrimmage. It's a chance for freshmen and tryouts to show off what they've learned at practice, for returners to assess which players actually "get it," and a way to see what the focus of the next practice should be. The role of the vets in the early scrimmages is to be the handlers and the dumps - bailouts for anyone who gets stuck, keeping the offense moving, and constantly watching to see what points to make on the sideline or before the next pull. I have mixed feelings about whether or not I actually enjoy this. I alternate being extremely frustrated with the level of play or just letting it all go and treating it like a meaningless summer league game or coed tournament.
One of the darker tradeoffs about fall ultimate is balancing the desire to separate the wheat from the chaff with making sure someone doesn't slip through the cracks. I don't know of any veteran or captain who hasn't thought about running everyone insanely hard at an early practice to see who quits and who is actually interested in working and making the team. Weeding out the jokers, hippies, and no-hopers early-on would dramatically raise the level of practice, but everyone is always worried that someone with potential would get swept out with the rest of them. I lean towards the hard early practices, because I'm not convinced that someone unwilling to work hard in the fall will be willing to work hard and commit in the spring when it counts. But looking back at some ex-teammates, I see players who probably would have quit if we'd run them into the ground early. Some of them turned out to be great players. But did we lose other players that we weren't serious or athletic enough for? You never know, but therein lies the dilemma.
There is nothing quite like seeing a freshman at out at the Club Fair, bringing them out to that first practice, and watching them develop over the course of the fall. I love seeing players come up to you, excited about learning how to throw a forehand, or just after getting their first layout D. Everyone has the same chance to make the A-team at the start. And as time goes on, the air gets colder and the wind stronger, and the people who really want it began to rise above the rest.
I've been involved in the "teaching" aspect of fall recruitment and tryouts since my junior year of high school. Personally, I don't really have the patience or desire to teach people how to throw and catch. I have a lot of respect for the players and coaches who are good throwing instructors. I don't mind correcting someone's form or telling them about a hitch in their motion that keeps the disc turning over. But I do it best one-on-one, not in large groups. And, while throwing is extremely important, I think that the concepts of offense and defense are ultimately more valuable and indicative of who can "make it" as an ultimate player by the end of the fall.
I am a huge proponent of doing drills that isolate concepts within a game context. For instance, teaching players about beating their defender in a man-defense matchup shouldn't happen in a vacuum. I like a drill that has the entire stack set up appropriately on the field, with defense, and a thrower with a marker. Then the last person in the stack will cut against their defender until they get open or the thrower looks them off (after about three stall counts). Then they will cycle back into the front of the stack, or become the thrower, or go to a "waiting position" as the dump/dump defender, and the rotation through the positions/stack will continue.
In a drill like this, the player doesn't have all day to get open on their cut, or the entire field. They have to be aware of the two cutting lanes, avoid causing a pick by cutting too close to or through the stack, and realize when a thrower will think that they're open, which is often different than when a receiver thinks that they're open. And for the thrower, it works on their decision-making. A coach watching can chastise a thrower for not throwing to the open man or applaud a no-throw. And alternatively, if an ill-advised throw goes up, everyone will see and realize it.
The same drill can be a defensive drill, depending on the emphasis placed on defensive positioning vs. cutting, etc. Defenders can't be expected to shut down the players they're guarding for all 10 seconds of the stall count in all directions, like some drills seem to expect. It's not a failure if your man gets open deep on you at stall five after the thrower is no longer looking.
And then there is the part of practice that new players look forward to the most - the scrimmage. It's a chance for freshmen and tryouts to show off what they've learned at practice, for returners to assess which players actually "get it," and a way to see what the focus of the next practice should be. The role of the vets in the early scrimmages is to be the handlers and the dumps - bailouts for anyone who gets stuck, keeping the offense moving, and constantly watching to see what points to make on the sideline or before the next pull. I have mixed feelings about whether or not I actually enjoy this. I alternate being extremely frustrated with the level of play or just letting it all go and treating it like a meaningless summer league game or coed tournament.
One of the darker tradeoffs about fall ultimate is balancing the desire to separate the wheat from the chaff with making sure someone doesn't slip through the cracks. I don't know of any veteran or captain who hasn't thought about running everyone insanely hard at an early practice to see who quits and who is actually interested in working and making the team. Weeding out the jokers, hippies, and no-hopers early-on would dramatically raise the level of practice, but everyone is always worried that someone with potential would get swept out with the rest of them. I lean towards the hard early practices, because I'm not convinced that someone unwilling to work hard in the fall will be willing to work hard and commit in the spring when it counts. But looking back at some ex-teammates, I see players who probably would have quit if we'd run them into the ground early. Some of them turned out to be great players. But did we lose other players that we weren't serious or athletic enough for? You never know, but therein lies the dilemma.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Club Regionals Preview: NW, SW, SO
Northwest:
Favorite: Seattle Sockeye. Sockeye has had a dream season, picking up a few more star players who seem to have fit right into the system. They beat the defending world champions twice, and they have two losses on universe point (Boston, Jam) and another while short-handed (Johnny Bravo). They are beatable, but they are cut above the rest of the teams in the country. They should come in extremely focused and will not falter at regionals.
Contenders: Revolver has the second seed by virtue of their sectionals win over Jam, and Jam is the only team in the NW with a win over Sockeye. Furious has looked unimpressive all season, except for a dominant performance at Canadian Nationals, where they stormed past an extremely determined and likely UPA quarterfinalist GOAT. Rhino has been lurking in the background all season, but they seem to have cooled off following their finals appearance at Solstice. They are still firmly ahead of Voodoo and YR, two young teams that seem unlikely to break through for a few years.
Qualifiers: Sockeye storms through to the finals, beating a resurgent Furious in the semis, and meeting a Jam team that avenged their sectionals loss to Revolver. In the backdoor, Furious and Revolver roll through YR and Rhino and Furious secures the third bid when they beat Revolver. Revolver comes out as the NW #4 and will be a very difficult draw as the second seed in pool play at Nationals.
Southwest
Favorite: Johnny Bravo has had an extremely impressive summer and fall season. This may finally be the year that they can step up and make a finals appearance at Nationals. They're 4-1 against Jam (1-0 on neutral ground) and 1-1 against Sockeye. They lost to Condors, their regional rival, in their only meeting, but they will be the favorite by virtue of their impressive performances at Colorado Cup and Labor Day. This is a team that has had time to gel and teammates know each other. And having Beau to fall back on never hurts.
Contenders: Barring a monumental upset, Condors are the only other team with a shot at Nationals. SD United, Monster, and Last Call all fell way behind Condors at SoCal Sectionals, and Condors have posted some impressive wins at elite tournaments (Bravo, Boston, Jam). They're a bubble team at Nationals between prequarters and quarters, depending on which Condors team shows up.
Qualifiers: Bravo takes the region in commanding fashion, and Condors are clearly a cut above the rest.
South
Favorite: Last year's surprise semifinalist Chain Lightning remains the favorite from the South. They've added Josh Ziperstein and traveled across the country this summer. They beat Doublewide on their own turf and got experience playing NW teams at ECC, even beating Johnny Bravo in a shortened game. But Chain has not fared as well close to home, falling to Ring, Truck Stop, and Boston. Still, they are the regional favorites, but their Nationals results may end up depending on whether or not they match up favorably against their opponents.
Contenders: Doublewide is the clear choice to take the second bid out of the South, but a new-look Vicious Cycle and the other Florida teams believe that they have a shot at Nationals. DW looked impressive at Labor Day, and their aggressive style may have ruffled some feathers. But South region teams are more used to physical play and will not be intimidated.
Qualifiers: Chain Lightning wins the region in a close game over Doublewide, who win an equally close game-to-go over Vicious Cycle. We'll see whether Doublewide brings the stylish or hideous uniforms to Nationals this year.
Favorite: Seattle Sockeye. Sockeye has had a dream season, picking up a few more star players who seem to have fit right into the system. They beat the defending world champions twice, and they have two losses on universe point (Boston, Jam) and another while short-handed (Johnny Bravo). They are beatable, but they are cut above the rest of the teams in the country. They should come in extremely focused and will not falter at regionals.
Contenders: Revolver has the second seed by virtue of their sectionals win over Jam, and Jam is the only team in the NW with a win over Sockeye. Furious has looked unimpressive all season, except for a dominant performance at Canadian Nationals, where they stormed past an extremely determined and likely UPA quarterfinalist GOAT. Rhino has been lurking in the background all season, but they seem to have cooled off following their finals appearance at Solstice. They are still firmly ahead of Voodoo and YR, two young teams that seem unlikely to break through for a few years.
Qualifiers: Sockeye storms through to the finals, beating a resurgent Furious in the semis, and meeting a Jam team that avenged their sectionals loss to Revolver. In the backdoor, Furious and Revolver roll through YR and Rhino and Furious secures the third bid when they beat Revolver. Revolver comes out as the NW #4 and will be a very difficult draw as the second seed in pool play at Nationals.
Southwest
Favorite: Johnny Bravo has had an extremely impressive summer and fall season. This may finally be the year that they can step up and make a finals appearance at Nationals. They're 4-1 against Jam (1-0 on neutral ground) and 1-1 against Sockeye. They lost to Condors, their regional rival, in their only meeting, but they will be the favorite by virtue of their impressive performances at Colorado Cup and Labor Day. This is a team that has had time to gel and teammates know each other. And having Beau to fall back on never hurts.
Contenders: Barring a monumental upset, Condors are the only other team with a shot at Nationals. SD United, Monster, and Last Call all fell way behind Condors at SoCal Sectionals, and Condors have posted some impressive wins at elite tournaments (Bravo, Boston, Jam). They're a bubble team at Nationals between prequarters and quarters, depending on which Condors team shows up.
Qualifiers: Bravo takes the region in commanding fashion, and Condors are clearly a cut above the rest.
South
Favorite: Last year's surprise semifinalist Chain Lightning remains the favorite from the South. They've added Josh Ziperstein and traveled across the country this summer. They beat Doublewide on their own turf and got experience playing NW teams at ECC, even beating Johnny Bravo in a shortened game. But Chain has not fared as well close to home, falling to Ring, Truck Stop, and Boston. Still, they are the regional favorites, but their Nationals results may end up depending on whether or not they match up favorably against their opponents.
Contenders: Doublewide is the clear choice to take the second bid out of the South, but a new-look Vicious Cycle and the other Florida teams believe that they have a shot at Nationals. DW looked impressive at Labor Day, and their aggressive style may have ruffled some feathers. But South region teams are more used to physical play and will not be intimidated.
Qualifiers: Chain Lightning wins the region in a close game over Doublewide, who win an equally close game-to-go over Vicious Cycle. We'll see whether Doublewide brings the stylish or hideous uniforms to Nationals this year.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Club Regionals Preview: NE, MA, CN
Northeast:
Favorite: GOAT - the Canadian runners-up have had the most impressive season of any east-coast team, winning five tournaments and coming second in two others. They have since avenged their double-game point loss to BAT and their only other losses come to Boston Ultimate during tryout season and Furious in the finals of Canadian Nationals. They've beaten every team with Nationals aspirations in the Northeast, Central, and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Contenders: This is a three-team race, with Boston Ultimate and PoNY rounding out the field. New Noise is the fourth-best team but a long distance back. Boston has had the better season to date, and although their head-to-head with PoNY is 2-2, they won the most recent meeting 13-6 at Chesapeake. Their travels out west to the Colorado Cup and ECC brought better competition than CHC, and they performed better against the higher-caliber teams. Both Boston and PoNY are struggling with a lot of new additions trying to gel, and I expect that this matchup will be for 1/2 in the region next year, not 2/3.
Qualifiers: GOAT wins and Boston beats out PoNY in a close game-to-go.
Mid-Atlantic:
Favorite: Ring of Fire. It's been a long time since Ring has lost MA Regionals. They proved that they were in good form with a second-place finish at Chesapeake, and their wins over Chain and Boston earlier in the season bode well for their performance at Nationals, which has been disappointing in the last few years. They traveled out to ECC as well and beat up on the 5th and 6th teams in the NW Region. Ring is a team that relies on their athleticism and aggression to create difficult matchups for opponents, but they have been known to crack under pressure at Nationals.
Contenders: Truck Stop and Pike both have Nationals ambitions, with Burgh lurking in the background. Truck Stop is the clear second team in the region, and they will not be "just happy to be there" if they qualify for Nationals for a second straight year. With that experience under their belts, as well as travels to Colorado Cup and Labor Day, they are well-poised to make pre-quarters at Nationals this year. Pike is looking to play spoiler, still trying to regain the form that saw them upset Sockeye and make the semifinals at Nationals in 2004. Atrocious performances at Chesapeake and a lackluster CHC makes them the definite 3rd option for the Mid-Atlantic.
Qualifiers: Ring of Fire and Truck Stop, with Pike not nearly as close as last year.
Central:
Favorite: Sub-Zero is the clear top dog in the Central Region, and they've only strengthened by picking up six new college champions from Wisconsin and a few young guns from Carleton. They were 3rd at Colorado Cup, 5th at ECC, and 2nd at CHC. They beat Chain, Revolver (twice), Condors, Boston, Truck Stop, and every other contender from the Central region except Front Line, whom they haven't played in a competitive game. Their closest in-region games were two-point wins over BAT and the Van Buren Boys at CHC.
Contenders: The Central Region is the most competitive in terms of the number of teams who legitimately have a shot at Nationals. With the size bid all but wrapped up, BAT, Machine, Madcow, Front Line, Van Buren Boys, and possibly General Strike (should they make the trip to Tulsa) will be fighting for two spots. The way things look to shape out are BAT taking the second bid, and then Madcow, Machine, and Front Line fighting it out for the third. But Madcow seems to be a bogey team for BAT, and they could upset things depending on how the brackets are formed. BAT and Machine are the only teams with victories over Nationals-caliber teams (GOAT/Ring and Revolver/Boston respectively). If chemistry is the decider as it often is, look for Machine to get their return bid to nationals.
Qualifiers: Sub Zero sweeps through the region with little difficulty, but Madcow upsets BAT in the semifinals and loses to Sub Zero in the finals, then BAT in the backdoor in the grudge match. Machine takes the last bid to Nationals over an exhausted Madcow. VBB and Front Line are still on the outside looking in.
Favorite: GOAT - the Canadian runners-up have had the most impressive season of any east-coast team, winning five tournaments and coming second in two others. They have since avenged their double-game point loss to BAT and their only other losses come to Boston Ultimate during tryout season and Furious in the finals of Canadian Nationals. They've beaten every team with Nationals aspirations in the Northeast, Central, and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Contenders: This is a three-team race, with Boston Ultimate and PoNY rounding out the field. New Noise is the fourth-best team but a long distance back. Boston has had the better season to date, and although their head-to-head with PoNY is 2-2, they won the most recent meeting 13-6 at Chesapeake. Their travels out west to the Colorado Cup and ECC brought better competition than CHC, and they performed better against the higher-caliber teams. Both Boston and PoNY are struggling with a lot of new additions trying to gel, and I expect that this matchup will be for 1/2 in the region next year, not 2/3.
Qualifiers: GOAT wins and Boston beats out PoNY in a close game-to-go.
Mid-Atlantic:
Favorite: Ring of Fire. It's been a long time since Ring has lost MA Regionals. They proved that they were in good form with a second-place finish at Chesapeake, and their wins over Chain and Boston earlier in the season bode well for their performance at Nationals, which has been disappointing in the last few years. They traveled out to ECC as well and beat up on the 5th and 6th teams in the NW Region. Ring is a team that relies on their athleticism and aggression to create difficult matchups for opponents, but they have been known to crack under pressure at Nationals.
Contenders: Truck Stop and Pike both have Nationals ambitions, with Burgh lurking in the background. Truck Stop is the clear second team in the region, and they will not be "just happy to be there" if they qualify for Nationals for a second straight year. With that experience under their belts, as well as travels to Colorado Cup and Labor Day, they are well-poised to make pre-quarters at Nationals this year. Pike is looking to play spoiler, still trying to regain the form that saw them upset Sockeye and make the semifinals at Nationals in 2004. Atrocious performances at Chesapeake and a lackluster CHC makes them the definite 3rd option for the Mid-Atlantic.
Qualifiers: Ring of Fire and Truck Stop, with Pike not nearly as close as last year.
Central:
Favorite: Sub-Zero is the clear top dog in the Central Region, and they've only strengthened by picking up six new college champions from Wisconsin and a few young guns from Carleton. They were 3rd at Colorado Cup, 5th at ECC, and 2nd at CHC. They beat Chain, Revolver (twice), Condors, Boston, Truck Stop, and every other contender from the Central region except Front Line, whom they haven't played in a competitive game. Their closest in-region games were two-point wins over BAT and the Van Buren Boys at CHC.
Contenders: The Central Region is the most competitive in terms of the number of teams who legitimately have a shot at Nationals. With the size bid all but wrapped up, BAT, Machine, Madcow, Front Line, Van Buren Boys, and possibly General Strike (should they make the trip to Tulsa) will be fighting for two spots. The way things look to shape out are BAT taking the second bid, and then Madcow, Machine, and Front Line fighting it out for the third. But Madcow seems to be a bogey team for BAT, and they could upset things depending on how the brackets are formed. BAT and Machine are the only teams with victories over Nationals-caliber teams (GOAT/Ring and Revolver/Boston respectively). If chemistry is the decider as it often is, look for Machine to get their return bid to nationals.
Qualifiers: Sub Zero sweeps through the region with little difficulty, but Madcow upsets BAT in the semifinals and loses to Sub Zero in the finals, then BAT in the backdoor in the grudge match. Machine takes the last bid to Nationals over an exhausted Madcow. VBB and Front Line are still on the outside looking in.
Monday, September 3, 2007
DEVYL Registration and Google Group
The Delaware Valley Youth League (DEVYL) league website and registration page are located at: http://ryan-thompson.home.comcast.net/join.html
There is a Google Group for the league with important league information and forms at http://groups.google.com/group/devyl-fall
Registration has begun! Everyone must register online.
There is a Google Group for the league with important league information and forms at http://groups.google.com/group/devyl-fall
Registration has begun! Everyone must register online.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Announcing: New Jersey - Philadelphia (UPA) Youth Fall League
Captains and Players,
I'm excited to announce the formation of a new youth league in the New Jersey and Philadelphia area. In order to strengthen the region's representation on a national scale (at the summer Youth Club Championships) and provide more opportunities for players and teams to play and recruit in the fall, this league is open to anyone born in 1989 or later. Any league participant is eligible to represent the region in either the Open, Girls, or Mixed divisions at the 2008 YCC's, provided they are born after May 31st, 1989. Also, the league is open to several categories of players and teams, combining aspects of both preselected and hat/draft leagues. Depending on interest, we are trying to develop both a Division I and Division II, as well as a Girls league. Registration will be open to any of the following:
Full Teams: Any group of 12 or more players may register in the league as a full team. This team will not pick up other registered players, and is a way for high school teams or groups of friends to play together in the fall. Roster additions will be permitted until late in the season, in order to accommodate any new recruits a team may be able to muster. In rare cases, if teams of 10 or 11 can guarantee attendance, they may petition to enter as full teams.
Partial Teams: Groups of 5 to 11 players that want to play together but can't field a full team. Or parts of high school teams that are splitting in order to get people more experience. Partial teams will combine with other partial teams, packages, and individuals in order to form teams large enough to compete.
Packages: 2 to 4 players who want to play together. Packages will be added to the rosters of partial teams, or combined in order to form teams of their own. These can be a couple of friends, the nucleus of a high school team, etc.
Individuals: Players signing up on their own. This is ideal for someone who has never played organized youth ultimate before and wants to get a taste of it before starting their own high school team, or someone out of high school who is still young enough to play, and so on. All girls must register as individuals.
Currently, we are trying to get each team to play two games per weekend, both on the same day. Depending on the number of teams and field availability, this may change. Right now our possible field locations are Edgely in Philadelphia, MCUDL in Trenton, and Washington Road in Princeton. Our tentative fall schedule starts play on September 22nd and ends with a league championship on November 10th and 11th. This will be (pending acceptance of our application) a UPA-sanctioned league.
If you are interested or able to play, please send me an email at thompsor@stanford.edu with your name and how many people you think you or your team will be able to send. More information will be released in the next two weeks.
I'm excited to announce the formation of a new youth league in the New Jersey and Philadelphia area. In order to strengthen the region's representation on a national scale (at the summer Youth Club Championships) and provide more opportunities for players and teams to play and recruit in the fall, this league is open to anyone born in 1989 or later. Any league participant is eligible to represent the region in either the Open, Girls, or Mixed divisions at the 2008 YCC's, provided they are born after May 31st, 1989. Also, the league is open to several categories of players and teams, combining aspects of both preselected and hat/draft leagues. Depending on interest, we are trying to develop both a Division I and Division II, as well as a Girls league. Registration will be open to any of the following:
Full Teams: Any group of 12 or more players may register in the league as a full team. This team will not pick up other registered players, and is a way for high school teams or groups of friends to play together in the fall. Roster additions will be permitted until late in the season, in order to accommodate any new recruits a team may be able to muster. In rare cases, if teams of 10 or 11 can guarantee attendance, they may petition to enter as full teams.
Partial Teams: Groups of 5 to 11 players that want to play together but can't field a full team. Or parts of high school teams that are splitting in order to get people more experience. Partial teams will combine with other partial teams, packages, and individuals in order to form teams large enough to compete.
Packages: 2 to 4 players who want to play together. Packages will be added to the rosters of partial teams, or combined in order to form teams of their own. These can be a couple of friends, the nucleus of a high school team, etc.
Individuals: Players signing up on their own. This is ideal for someone who has never played organized youth ultimate before and wants to get a taste of it before starting their own high school team, or someone out of high school who is still young enough to play, and so on. All girls must register as individuals.
Currently, we are trying to get each team to play two games per weekend, both on the same day. Depending on the number of teams and field availability, this may change. Right now our possible field locations are Edgely in Philadelphia, MCUDL in Trenton, and Washington Road in Princeton. Our tentative fall schedule starts play on September 22nd and ends with a league championship on November 10th and 11th. This will be (pending acceptance of our application) a UPA-sanctioned league.
If you are interested or able to play, please send me an email at thompsor@stanford.edu with your name and how many people you think you or your team will be able to send. More information will be released in the next two weeks.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Youth Club Championships
This past weekend, in Blaine, Minnesota, the UPA put on the Youth Club Championships for the third time. For the second time, New Jersey had a bid, and for the first time, we accepted and assembled a team. In 2005, we had a mixed bid but low interest, and here in 2007 we created a team with some of the best talent in the state. Unfortunately, a lot of good players could not or would not participate, and we set out with two practices and a tournament under our belt for the eight Columbia and nine other players that we took to Blaine. Under the direction of Columbia coach Anthony Nunez (CHS '98) and Rutgers coach Emilio Panasci (CHS '00), we were determined to break seed and knew that if we played to our potential, we could win the tournament.
Our flight was out of Newark at 1:00 on Friday, so we assembled around 11 at the airport and checked in and got to the gate. We had about 45 minutes before boarding started, so I put Stanford vs. Carleton from Nationals on my laptop (thanks UVTV!) and everyone gathered around. Sherwood absolutely did play out of his mind in this game, and he looks good in the ripper for the interview after the game. After a little more UVTV, we boarded and I broke out my Pride and Prejudice. I rode my combination of reading and sleeping all the way into Minneapolis, and we disembarked, got our bags, and proceeded to the two giant rental vans. It was about a half hour drive to the hotel, which was AMAZING.
This was honestly one of the best hotels and definitely the most fun that I've ever stayed in. While the motel at nationals was ridiculous amounts of fun, that was down to the people and the Kohls parking lot. This hotel made its own fun. There was an indoor water park. How ridiculous is that? I guess they took a cue from the Mall of America, and we thank them for it. Three water slides began indoors and then circled around outside of the hotel. There was a lazy river. And a giant bucket of water that tipped over every 15 minutes or so. It was wonderful. And maybe even better than the water park was the "Beach House Bar and Grill," the hotel's restaurant. With happy hour from 4-7 (meaning half-off appetizers), dinner was affordable AND delicious.
We had a team meeting at 8:30 where we talked about our expectations and rules for the weekend, as well received our kickass jerseys - a green Punisher skull overlayed on a green outline of the state of New Jersey. Even the lettering was badass. We hung around for a while until our 10:30 bedtime, and got ready to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. We wanted to be at the fields by 7:30 in time for a long warmup and plenty of time to cleat up and tape.
When we arrived, we were immediately struck by the lush green fields and immense facility. After practicing and playing on the rock-hand and dusty fields in Princeton, playing on actual grass and soft ground was going to be a real treat. We noticed the wind as soon as we got there too - that did not bode well for us, as it probably meant zone. For some reason, Columbia (and by extension, NJ's YCC team) does not do well against zone. True, we never practiced it, but we'd played against it at Nucci's Cup and done well. But there was no wind then, and no pressure.
New England came out excited, as their hard D and turnover-prone offense showed. The first two points were both long and filled with drops on our side and throwaways on New England's. On the third point we got ourselves under control, and we scored our first O point in three tries when I calmly hit Zander in the endzone to make it 1-2. Our D team came out strong and fired up as we tried to tie the game, but inability to convert on D-team offense hurt us. Once again, we managed to create turnovers, but eventually New England was able to break us down and score. The next point, Jesse threw a loopy forehand to me on what was basically an upline cut in a 2v2 situation, but the disc hung and I fought through fouls by two players to layout between them and catch the disc toeing the back endzone line. I got up excited and angry, punched the disc away in celebration, and roused our sidelines.
Unfortunately, this is when New England threw their zone. It went quickly from a 3-2 game to an 8-3 game, as they began to pull away. Until this point, we had been stopping their offense with our straight-up marks and fronting defense, and our offense had started to judge the wind and stop dropping the disc. However, their zone took us by surprise and stupid decisions led to our downfall. At halftime we talked about breaking the zone and came out a lot stronger. We started trading again, and even got in some breaks. Nobody on their team stood out besides Alex Kapinos, and Zander and I took turns containing him while other players prevented hucks to him. He was the only player we faced all tournament that I felt was impossible to shut down on defense - he could only be contained, unlike every other player we played against. He proved his worth even on defense, when he caught his own point block for a Callahan, stopping our run and putting them on top 10-6. It was the second Callahan we threw in that game, and it really took the wind out of our sails.
Still, we managed to break their zone several times in the second half, and on defense we could still force them to turn it over. It was a disappointing loss, because had the conditions been better or their zone had been taken out the equation, I had no doubt that we would have been able to beat them. But unfortunately, their zone proved too much for us to handle, and in the windy conditions our overhead throws struggled or weren't even attempted. Some of the bright spots included the defense of Jake Rainwater, whose long arms and surprising speed created a lot of D's, and Alex Kinsey's smooth handling in the zone. We moved on, tired, to Derek Gottlieb-coached Denver, the 3rd seed whose first game had been an easy romp over Madison.
We started this game lackluster and uninterested, once again going down 2-0 and 5-2. Fortunately, Denver's offense was predicated on hucks to their tall, athletic receivers, but once we managed to clamp down on the marks, the hucks stopped and our quicker defenders were able to stifle the in-cuts downfield. After trading to 7-5, we scored 4 straight to take half, then go up 9-7. Then it was our turn to collapse, as Zander threw his second Callahan of the day, their deep pulls continued to pin us back, and nervous throws and a lack of cuts sent them on their own 4-0 run to go up 11-9. But calm and collected, we stormed back with yet another 4-0 run, inspired by strong downfield defense that frustrated handlers into forcing hucks against our marks that all ended up either far beyond the arms of the receivers, or in our defenders' grasp.
Receiving at 13-12, Josh hucked to me and I almost killed myself with a futile layout into Will Deaver and a golf cart, but I slowed up and saw that the disc was well out the back of the endzone. We got the disc back quickly enough, I picked up, and saw Zander curling around the breakside towards the openside back corner of the endzone. I threw the backhand, hoping that the winds that pushed Josh's huck out the back wouldn't do the same to my throw, and Zander reeled in the throw 50 yards away in the back corner of the endzone in front of two defenders, with a couple feet to spare. The last two points were turnover free, and we closed out the game 15-13 for the upset win.
Denver was a team that relied a lot on their handlers and big receivers going away from the disc. We were able to limit the damage their handlers could do with give and gos and upfield resets, while taking away the deep options with our marks and shutting down in-cuts with our legs. Standout players on Denver were handlers #8 and #12, along with #10 who was their go-to guy downfield. He came up huge on a lot of early grabs, although we thankfully managed to limit his damage later on. We did have two ridiculous plays of our own - Jesse hucked backhand around a forehand forcing mark, throwing a bullet to the breakside of the endzone, which Stephen tracked down, utterly roasting his defender. And earlier, Jake Rainwater annihilated his defender on a jump ball just outside the endzone, for his first real sky of the weekend. We called the play "Make it Rain."
Our final pool play game was against 0-2 Madison, who had just come off of a 15-7 loss to New England. We started strong for once, and we took half 8-5, finishing the game 15-9. Madison, like Denver, loved to huck. But unlike Denver, they had a massive disconnect between their handlers and receivers. Their handlers would huck whenever they got the disc, regardless of whether or not the cuts were there, and the receivers were usually well-covered and indecisive cutters. Except for one receiver, #14, they never had anyone on the receiving end of the countless hucks they tried to unleash on our straight-up marks. The game passed pretty uneventfully, as we worked the disc on the breakside easily on offense, and on defense we didn't have to work for turns, they gifted them to us.
That left us 2-1, in second place in our pool, awaiting the winner of the Minnesota-Cincinnati game from Pool A. We had a bye now, and I chose to go over to the Atlanta-Philly mixed game, a preview of the finals. It was an exciting and back-and-forth game, but hard cap put a damper on Philly as they fell 12-9 to a strong Atlanta team. But drops looked like Philly's main problem, and if they could cut those out then they would be even with Atlanta. Eddie Peters had some great D's on Ollie, and the teams looked pretty close.
Afterwards was "dinner at the fields," which turned out to be nothing more than salad, cheese, and two half-slices of pizza while watching a slideshow. After we ate our free food, our team just got up and left; there was no reason to be in there. Interestingly enough, I was the only shirtless person in the room. We quickly returned to the hotel, where we showered and waterparked. The hot tub felt amazing, as did the lazy river. Fun times, and we headed back to the hotel restaurant for a late-night meal, since the dinner we'd been provided was not sufficient. Soup and salad at the hotel bar and grill was delicious. I wish we had one of these places everywhere we went. Wow. In bed by 11, we had to get up at 6:15 because our games started at 8:30 the next morning.
When we made our way down to the hotel lobby, we had a table set up with bagels, croissants, bananas, etc. for us to munch on as we waited for everyone to come down. The day before, when some people went to Mall of America I asked for them to pick me up some long green socks to match our uniforms. Well, there was a much-anticipated presenting of the socks, and it turns out that I got fuzzy green frog socks. The foot was basically a frog sticking its tongue out. Cute, comfortable, and completely unexpected. I wore them and played great. They even had little grips on the bottom!
Our quarterfinal matchup was against Minnesota, a team that had been shellacked by Seattle and Pittsburgh the day before. We came out strong and started to do the same. Our man defense and offense took us up 5-2 before long. There was a hell point that we won mainly as a result of our defense forcing turnovers closer and closer to their endzone, since they absolutely could not work the disc on our defense. Fred Tsai and Jake Rainwater got D after D, and Freddy even scored two of our first 4 goals. Ben Feldman was consistently D'ed up by Zander, and if not, he would throw the disc away right afterwards. After my huck was just out of reach of three of our players, I got a layout D right outside the endzone. It was my first baited layout D in a while - I hadn't quite gotten the hang of it in college, and most of my tournament so far was focused on completely denying my man the disc. A few points later we scored twice, as our first goal, a huck from Freddy to Bo was called back on a travel. Right afterwards, Josh hucked to Jake, but Brian Li spoiled the party as he skied both Jake and Jake's defender and put us up 5-2. Minnesota went into a huck and set zone D right after receiving the pull. Our D line was caught by surprise and turned it over quickly, but we worked it on their man defense again to go up 6-3.
This was the turning point in the game, when Minnesota threw their four-man cup and absolutely shut us down. We started moving the disc well enough, but silly drops and turnovers brought it quickly to 6-5. With the heavy crosswind, they trapped us on the sideline where any hammers or overheads were directly into the wind, and we couldn't cope. Our handler give and gos weren't gaining us any yards, and the downfield poppers and wings were not getting us anything. At 6-5 we turned it over after working the entire field, and again at 6-6. At 6-7, we started moving the disc better, but all it took was one throw to put us on defense and them just outside our endzone. After a D, one of their players laid out to get the second-effort in the back of the endzone, for them to take half.
Coming out in the second half was more of the same - although there were turnovers both at our own endzone and theirs, we could never punch it in, no matter how many times we stopped them from scoring. At 8-6 we dropped a hammer in the endzone. Up 9-6 Minnesota called a timeout, and during the timeout we discovered that hard cap would go on in 5 minutes. Throughout the whole game they'd been taking a lot of time between points, which resulted in me yelling "90 seconds" to them a whole lot and then my team yelling at me to stop being an asshole. But when it came down to it, I was right and they were wrong. After Minnesota took forever on the timeout, they scored and we received at 10-6. Our strategy was reminiscent of wildwood - go for the two-pointer, aka big huck. My throw to Zander was just out of his reach, but our man defense forced a turnover close to their goalline and we scored quickly. Hard cap could only have been minutes away. We pulled, went down, got the D, and hard cap went on. Demoralized, we turned it over, before playing good defense again and I threw the game-ending goal to Zander for us to lose 10-8.
It was a real heartbreaker. With our man defense and man offense, we outscored Minnesota 7-2 in that game. Unfortunately, we could only score once on their zone defense. That was the difference. The crosswinds stopped the majority of our crossfield hammers and overhead throws, leaving us with swings and quick handler motion that they could stop as they flooded the middle of the field. I really, really wanted to play in the semifinals against Seattle. This game was especially brutal because when we finally did break their zone, we scored again but didn't have time to complete our comeback. It's games like these where I wish we had observers or timekeepers or something to keep timeouts short and limit the time between points to 90 seconds. I have no doubt that we could have had 15-20 minutes or 4 or 5 more points in that game.
That led us into another game against Madison, 15-1 losers against Seattle. We started off strong, going up a couple of breaks, but our defense was extremely lackluster. Our marks were terrible, and we gave up too many hucks to open receivers. Despite being up 12-8, we found ourselves receiving on universe point, which we scored without any turnovers. The Madison team played as we expected them to, basically the same as they did when we beat them 15-9. But we did not come out sharp at all, and we almost paid for it. I don't remember much from that game, besides our terrible marks and equally terrible decisions on offense. I think this was the game where I basically threw a blade to Freddy, who made an amazing catch about ten yards out of the endzone. As soon as he caught it, I walked off of the field and hid behind a trashcan. He threw to Zander for the goal, and my defender was puzzled, I'm sure. We faced Denver again next, who wanted to play a shortened game. We agreed to play to 9.
This game was never in any question. We came out harder and actually focused, and Denver played like we did in the last game. They turned the disc over a lot and made poor decisions, while we played hard defense and played reasonably good offense. I had a few turnovers in this game before Nunez reminded me to play simple, and I started to move the disc faster and smarter. We had one point where all seven of us on the field touched the disc that was probably our smoothest offensive point of the tournament. We closed out this game 9-4, and it was an amicable, good-spirited game that gave us plenty of time to decide what we wanted to do after we finished.
Half of us decided to stay and watch the finals, which unfortunately were happening at the same time. I started out watching the open finals, but after a few boring points typical of a finals game, I decided to head over to watch the mixed and girls finals. I did manage to catch Alex Kapinos being an absolute beast, but New England was still losing. On the girls side, Seattle jumped out to a quick 6-2 lead. I'm convinced that if Oregon had started sooner, they would have been able to win the game. As it was, they closed to within 9-7 but no further, as they ended up losing 14-10. Seattle tore through Oregon's zone early on, and I wonder if that was the ultimate difference.
The mixed final was where the action was. As I got there, Philly took a 6-4 lead that continued to 7-5. For one of the goals, Aman took Grant deep and skied him for the goal - that was a familiar sight for the Philly and NJ players, but not the Paideia sidelines! Then Noah pulled a fast, bladey backhand that one of the Atlanta girls dropped. Afterwards, we found out that we both called a drop if Atlanta had a girl catch it. Noah told Grant that he was going to break him for the goal, then proceeded to throw the around backhand to Justin Principi to take half 8-5. But Atlanta was a changed team after the half, as they methodically worked the disc down the field and opened the game up with hard defense and big hucks.
It didn't hurt that Philly started trying to huck to their girls - I counted three overthrown or misread hucks to girls that looked perfect on the release, as well as one huck from a girl that tailed out of bounds. Atlanta took advantage, at tied at 9-9, Mark Dundala tried to lead Noah into space on a dump throw that got picked up in the wind, and Grant skied Noah for the Callahan for Atlanta to go up 10-9. After the previously mentioned girl huck that tailed out of bounds, Atlanta went up 11-9 before Philly could stop the bleeding. They almost got a break when Scotty came off his man to get a poach D on a girl, but the disc floated more than he anticipated and he could only lightly tip the disc, not enough to get it away from George, who was waiting patiently behind him. Atlanta, 11-9.
During that point, incidentally, I saw/heard some of the nastiest and really uncalled for comments by some Paideia parents. When Noah made a clean bid on Michael Terry (nearly getting the D), his momentum caused him to roll on the ground afterwards, coming up on Terry's ankle/achilles from behind. Mike Terry crumpled to the ground and had to take an injury after this accidental and freak injury. But the Paideia parents accused Noah of trying to injure him, saying that he'd been making reckless and unspirited bids all game, which was just a ridiculous claim. First of all, Michael Terry had taken injury subs earlier in the game after no contact with Philly players, meaning he was nowhere near 100%, and also, Noah's bid was completely clean, as were all of his during that game. It wasn't a no-chance bid where he landed in his knees from behind, it was a legitimate bid where he bumped him from behind after rolling on the ground. Rob Olson and I got loud and obstinate defending Noah at that point.
After the goal, Philly finally managed to punch it in, after working the disc cleanly and calmly down the field. But they couldn't manage to break Atlanta, no matter how hard they tried. By this point, Atlanta was playing George, Grant, Ollie, and Allen Jarvis, trying to prevent the break as much as possible. In fact, Atlanta's next three goals were all thrown to girls - Sophie, Paula, and Lane for the win. Lane's goal was a really nice layout grab at the front cone of the endzone to end the game - if she hadn't made that catch, the game would have almost certainly gone to universe point. All in all, it was a great game that I loved to watch as a fan, not just because I knew 75% of the players on both teams.
We saw Ben Swerdlow pick up yet another individual spirit award, and somehow New England got the team spirit award with a perfect 5. Stephen and I wanted Ben to give them a 3 or 4 after our game, but Ben gave them a 5 anyway, robbing Cincinnati of their deserved glory. Oh well. I'm just wondering what Pittsburgh did to have a 3.5, even lower than our 3.83. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed a dinner made up almost entirely of half-price appetizers. We were sitting nearby the Philly guys and had some nice conversation and banter - they're really my favorite team/area, probably because we play the game the same way - take no prisoners defense and hard, gritty play.
Later, when we tried to get back to the restaurant for half-price desserts, we found out that the kitchen was closed (oh no!), so we walked to Wendy's after some SEPDA kids to get some Frostys. After yet another walking through the drive through adventure, we had our delicious treats. Back at the hotel, I spent about an hour or 90 minutes hanging out with SEPDA and a few North Hills kids (who never actually did come inside the room) before heading to bed before our 5 am departure. Thankfully I packed before bed, unlike Brian Walter, who held the whole team up in the morning. But it didn't matter, as we got to the gate right as the plane started boarding - perfect timing!
My next post will be more of a reflection than a summary of YCC's, and if I'm feeling ambitious I might even write about what it feels like to play in my last-ever juniors tournament. *sigh*
Our flight was out of Newark at 1:00 on Friday, so we assembled around 11 at the airport and checked in and got to the gate. We had about 45 minutes before boarding started, so I put Stanford vs. Carleton from Nationals on my laptop (thanks UVTV!) and everyone gathered around. Sherwood absolutely did play out of his mind in this game, and he looks good in the ripper for the interview after the game. After a little more UVTV, we boarded and I broke out my Pride and Prejudice. I rode my combination of reading and sleeping all the way into Minneapolis, and we disembarked, got our bags, and proceeded to the two giant rental vans. It was about a half hour drive to the hotel, which was AMAZING.
This was honestly one of the best hotels and definitely the most fun that I've ever stayed in. While the motel at nationals was ridiculous amounts of fun, that was down to the people and the Kohls parking lot. This hotel made its own fun. There was an indoor water park. How ridiculous is that? I guess they took a cue from the Mall of America, and we thank them for it. Three water slides began indoors and then circled around outside of the hotel. There was a lazy river. And a giant bucket of water that tipped over every 15 minutes or so. It was wonderful. And maybe even better than the water park was the "Beach House Bar and Grill," the hotel's restaurant. With happy hour from 4-7 (meaning half-off appetizers), dinner was affordable AND delicious.
We had a team meeting at 8:30 where we talked about our expectations and rules for the weekend, as well received our kickass jerseys - a green Punisher skull overlayed on a green outline of the state of New Jersey. Even the lettering was badass. We hung around for a while until our 10:30 bedtime, and got ready to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. We wanted to be at the fields by 7:30 in time for a long warmup and plenty of time to cleat up and tape.
When we arrived, we were immediately struck by the lush green fields and immense facility. After practicing and playing on the rock-hand and dusty fields in Princeton, playing on actual grass and soft ground was going to be a real treat. We noticed the wind as soon as we got there too - that did not bode well for us, as it probably meant zone. For some reason, Columbia (and by extension, NJ's YCC team) does not do well against zone. True, we never practiced it, but we'd played against it at Nucci's Cup and done well. But there was no wind then, and no pressure.
New England came out excited, as their hard D and turnover-prone offense showed. The first two points were both long and filled with drops on our side and throwaways on New England's. On the third point we got ourselves under control, and we scored our first O point in three tries when I calmly hit Zander in the endzone to make it 1-2. Our D team came out strong and fired up as we tried to tie the game, but inability to convert on D-team offense hurt us. Once again, we managed to create turnovers, but eventually New England was able to break us down and score. The next point, Jesse threw a loopy forehand to me on what was basically an upline cut in a 2v2 situation, but the disc hung and I fought through fouls by two players to layout between them and catch the disc toeing the back endzone line. I got up excited and angry, punched the disc away in celebration, and roused our sidelines.
Unfortunately, this is when New England threw their zone. It went quickly from a 3-2 game to an 8-3 game, as they began to pull away. Until this point, we had been stopping their offense with our straight-up marks and fronting defense, and our offense had started to judge the wind and stop dropping the disc. However, their zone took us by surprise and stupid decisions led to our downfall. At halftime we talked about breaking the zone and came out a lot stronger. We started trading again, and even got in some breaks. Nobody on their team stood out besides Alex Kapinos, and Zander and I took turns containing him while other players prevented hucks to him. He was the only player we faced all tournament that I felt was impossible to shut down on defense - he could only be contained, unlike every other player we played against. He proved his worth even on defense, when he caught his own point block for a Callahan, stopping our run and putting them on top 10-6. It was the second Callahan we threw in that game, and it really took the wind out of our sails.
Still, we managed to break their zone several times in the second half, and on defense we could still force them to turn it over. It was a disappointing loss, because had the conditions been better or their zone had been taken out the equation, I had no doubt that we would have been able to beat them. But unfortunately, their zone proved too much for us to handle, and in the windy conditions our overhead throws struggled or weren't even attempted. Some of the bright spots included the defense of Jake Rainwater, whose long arms and surprising speed created a lot of D's, and Alex Kinsey's smooth handling in the zone. We moved on, tired, to Derek Gottlieb-coached Denver, the 3rd seed whose first game had been an easy romp over Madison.
We started this game lackluster and uninterested, once again going down 2-0 and 5-2. Fortunately, Denver's offense was predicated on hucks to their tall, athletic receivers, but once we managed to clamp down on the marks, the hucks stopped and our quicker defenders were able to stifle the in-cuts downfield. After trading to 7-5, we scored 4 straight to take half, then go up 9-7. Then it was our turn to collapse, as Zander threw his second Callahan of the day, their deep pulls continued to pin us back, and nervous throws and a lack of cuts sent them on their own 4-0 run to go up 11-9. But calm and collected, we stormed back with yet another 4-0 run, inspired by strong downfield defense that frustrated handlers into forcing hucks against our marks that all ended up either far beyond the arms of the receivers, or in our defenders' grasp.
Receiving at 13-12, Josh hucked to me and I almost killed myself with a futile layout into Will Deaver and a golf cart, but I slowed up and saw that the disc was well out the back of the endzone. We got the disc back quickly enough, I picked up, and saw Zander curling around the breakside towards the openside back corner of the endzone. I threw the backhand, hoping that the winds that pushed Josh's huck out the back wouldn't do the same to my throw, and Zander reeled in the throw 50 yards away in the back corner of the endzone in front of two defenders, with a couple feet to spare. The last two points were turnover free, and we closed out the game 15-13 for the upset win.
Denver was a team that relied a lot on their handlers and big receivers going away from the disc. We were able to limit the damage their handlers could do with give and gos and upfield resets, while taking away the deep options with our marks and shutting down in-cuts with our legs. Standout players on Denver were handlers #8 and #12, along with #10 who was their go-to guy downfield. He came up huge on a lot of early grabs, although we thankfully managed to limit his damage later on. We did have two ridiculous plays of our own - Jesse hucked backhand around a forehand forcing mark, throwing a bullet to the breakside of the endzone, which Stephen tracked down, utterly roasting his defender. And earlier, Jake Rainwater annihilated his defender on a jump ball just outside the endzone, for his first real sky of the weekend. We called the play "Make it Rain."
Our final pool play game was against 0-2 Madison, who had just come off of a 15-7 loss to New England. We started strong for once, and we took half 8-5, finishing the game 15-9. Madison, like Denver, loved to huck. But unlike Denver, they had a massive disconnect between their handlers and receivers. Their handlers would huck whenever they got the disc, regardless of whether or not the cuts were there, and the receivers were usually well-covered and indecisive cutters. Except for one receiver, #14, they never had anyone on the receiving end of the countless hucks they tried to unleash on our straight-up marks. The game passed pretty uneventfully, as we worked the disc on the breakside easily on offense, and on defense we didn't have to work for turns, they gifted them to us.
That left us 2-1, in second place in our pool, awaiting the winner of the Minnesota-Cincinnati game from Pool A. We had a bye now, and I chose to go over to the Atlanta-Philly mixed game, a preview of the finals. It was an exciting and back-and-forth game, but hard cap put a damper on Philly as they fell 12-9 to a strong Atlanta team. But drops looked like Philly's main problem, and if they could cut those out then they would be even with Atlanta. Eddie Peters had some great D's on Ollie, and the teams looked pretty close.
Afterwards was "dinner at the fields," which turned out to be nothing more than salad, cheese, and two half-slices of pizza while watching a slideshow. After we ate our free food, our team just got up and left; there was no reason to be in there. Interestingly enough, I was the only shirtless person in the room. We quickly returned to the hotel, where we showered and waterparked. The hot tub felt amazing, as did the lazy river. Fun times, and we headed back to the hotel restaurant for a late-night meal, since the dinner we'd been provided was not sufficient. Soup and salad at the hotel bar and grill was delicious. I wish we had one of these places everywhere we went. Wow. In bed by 11, we had to get up at 6:15 because our games started at 8:30 the next morning.
When we made our way down to the hotel lobby, we had a table set up with bagels, croissants, bananas, etc. for us to munch on as we waited for everyone to come down. The day before, when some people went to Mall of America I asked for them to pick me up some long green socks to match our uniforms. Well, there was a much-anticipated presenting of the socks, and it turns out that I got fuzzy green frog socks. The foot was basically a frog sticking its tongue out. Cute, comfortable, and completely unexpected. I wore them and played great. They even had little grips on the bottom!
Our quarterfinal matchup was against Minnesota, a team that had been shellacked by Seattle and Pittsburgh the day before. We came out strong and started to do the same. Our man defense and offense took us up 5-2 before long. There was a hell point that we won mainly as a result of our defense forcing turnovers closer and closer to their endzone, since they absolutely could not work the disc on our defense. Fred Tsai and Jake Rainwater got D after D, and Freddy even scored two of our first 4 goals. Ben Feldman was consistently D'ed up by Zander, and if not, he would throw the disc away right afterwards. After my huck was just out of reach of three of our players, I got a layout D right outside the endzone. It was my first baited layout D in a while - I hadn't quite gotten the hang of it in college, and most of my tournament so far was focused on completely denying my man the disc. A few points later we scored twice, as our first goal, a huck from Freddy to Bo was called back on a travel. Right afterwards, Josh hucked to Jake, but Brian Li spoiled the party as he skied both Jake and Jake's defender and put us up 5-2. Minnesota went into a huck and set zone D right after receiving the pull. Our D line was caught by surprise and turned it over quickly, but we worked it on their man defense again to go up 6-3.
This was the turning point in the game, when Minnesota threw their four-man cup and absolutely shut us down. We started moving the disc well enough, but silly drops and turnovers brought it quickly to 6-5. With the heavy crosswind, they trapped us on the sideline where any hammers or overheads were directly into the wind, and we couldn't cope. Our handler give and gos weren't gaining us any yards, and the downfield poppers and wings were not getting us anything. At 6-5 we turned it over after working the entire field, and again at 6-6. At 6-7, we started moving the disc better, but all it took was one throw to put us on defense and them just outside our endzone. After a D, one of their players laid out to get the second-effort in the back of the endzone, for them to take half.
Coming out in the second half was more of the same - although there were turnovers both at our own endzone and theirs, we could never punch it in, no matter how many times we stopped them from scoring. At 8-6 we dropped a hammer in the endzone. Up 9-6 Minnesota called a timeout, and during the timeout we discovered that hard cap would go on in 5 minutes. Throughout the whole game they'd been taking a lot of time between points, which resulted in me yelling "90 seconds" to them a whole lot and then my team yelling at me to stop being an asshole. But when it came down to it, I was right and they were wrong. After Minnesota took forever on the timeout, they scored and we received at 10-6. Our strategy was reminiscent of wildwood - go for the two-pointer, aka big huck. My throw to Zander was just out of his reach, but our man defense forced a turnover close to their goalline and we scored quickly. Hard cap could only have been minutes away. We pulled, went down, got the D, and hard cap went on. Demoralized, we turned it over, before playing good defense again and I threw the game-ending goal to Zander for us to lose 10-8.
It was a real heartbreaker. With our man defense and man offense, we outscored Minnesota 7-2 in that game. Unfortunately, we could only score once on their zone defense. That was the difference. The crosswinds stopped the majority of our crossfield hammers and overhead throws, leaving us with swings and quick handler motion that they could stop as they flooded the middle of the field. I really, really wanted to play in the semifinals against Seattle. This game was especially brutal because when we finally did break their zone, we scored again but didn't have time to complete our comeback. It's games like these where I wish we had observers or timekeepers or something to keep timeouts short and limit the time between points to 90 seconds. I have no doubt that we could have had 15-20 minutes or 4 or 5 more points in that game.
That led us into another game against Madison, 15-1 losers against Seattle. We started off strong, going up a couple of breaks, but our defense was extremely lackluster. Our marks were terrible, and we gave up too many hucks to open receivers. Despite being up 12-8, we found ourselves receiving on universe point, which we scored without any turnovers. The Madison team played as we expected them to, basically the same as they did when we beat them 15-9. But we did not come out sharp at all, and we almost paid for it. I don't remember much from that game, besides our terrible marks and equally terrible decisions on offense. I think this was the game where I basically threw a blade to Freddy, who made an amazing catch about ten yards out of the endzone. As soon as he caught it, I walked off of the field and hid behind a trashcan. He threw to Zander for the goal, and my defender was puzzled, I'm sure. We faced Denver again next, who wanted to play a shortened game. We agreed to play to 9.
This game was never in any question. We came out harder and actually focused, and Denver played like we did in the last game. They turned the disc over a lot and made poor decisions, while we played hard defense and played reasonably good offense. I had a few turnovers in this game before Nunez reminded me to play simple, and I started to move the disc faster and smarter. We had one point where all seven of us on the field touched the disc that was probably our smoothest offensive point of the tournament. We closed out this game 9-4, and it was an amicable, good-spirited game that gave us plenty of time to decide what we wanted to do after we finished.
Half of us decided to stay and watch the finals, which unfortunately were happening at the same time. I started out watching the open finals, but after a few boring points typical of a finals game, I decided to head over to watch the mixed and girls finals. I did manage to catch Alex Kapinos being an absolute beast, but New England was still losing. On the girls side, Seattle jumped out to a quick 6-2 lead. I'm convinced that if Oregon had started sooner, they would have been able to win the game. As it was, they closed to within 9-7 but no further, as they ended up losing 14-10. Seattle tore through Oregon's zone early on, and I wonder if that was the ultimate difference.
The mixed final was where the action was. As I got there, Philly took a 6-4 lead that continued to 7-5. For one of the goals, Aman took Grant deep and skied him for the goal - that was a familiar sight for the Philly and NJ players, but not the Paideia sidelines! Then Noah pulled a fast, bladey backhand that one of the Atlanta girls dropped. Afterwards, we found out that we both called a drop if Atlanta had a girl catch it. Noah told Grant that he was going to break him for the goal, then proceeded to throw the around backhand to Justin Principi to take half 8-5. But Atlanta was a changed team after the half, as they methodically worked the disc down the field and opened the game up with hard defense and big hucks.
It didn't hurt that Philly started trying to huck to their girls - I counted three overthrown or misread hucks to girls that looked perfect on the release, as well as one huck from a girl that tailed out of bounds. Atlanta took advantage, at tied at 9-9, Mark Dundala tried to lead Noah into space on a dump throw that got picked up in the wind, and Grant skied Noah for the Callahan for Atlanta to go up 10-9. After the previously mentioned girl huck that tailed out of bounds, Atlanta went up 11-9 before Philly could stop the bleeding. They almost got a break when Scotty came off his man to get a poach D on a girl, but the disc floated more than he anticipated and he could only lightly tip the disc, not enough to get it away from George, who was waiting patiently behind him. Atlanta, 11-9.
During that point, incidentally, I saw/heard some of the nastiest and really uncalled for comments by some Paideia parents. When Noah made a clean bid on Michael Terry (nearly getting the D), his momentum caused him to roll on the ground afterwards, coming up on Terry's ankle/achilles from behind. Mike Terry crumpled to the ground and had to take an injury after this accidental and freak injury. But the Paideia parents accused Noah of trying to injure him, saying that he'd been making reckless and unspirited bids all game, which was just a ridiculous claim. First of all, Michael Terry had taken injury subs earlier in the game after no contact with Philly players, meaning he was nowhere near 100%, and also, Noah's bid was completely clean, as were all of his during that game. It wasn't a no-chance bid where he landed in his knees from behind, it was a legitimate bid where he bumped him from behind after rolling on the ground. Rob Olson and I got loud and obstinate defending Noah at that point.
After the goal, Philly finally managed to punch it in, after working the disc cleanly and calmly down the field. But they couldn't manage to break Atlanta, no matter how hard they tried. By this point, Atlanta was playing George, Grant, Ollie, and Allen Jarvis, trying to prevent the break as much as possible. In fact, Atlanta's next three goals were all thrown to girls - Sophie, Paula, and Lane for the win. Lane's goal was a really nice layout grab at the front cone of the endzone to end the game - if she hadn't made that catch, the game would have almost certainly gone to universe point. All in all, it was a great game that I loved to watch as a fan, not just because I knew 75% of the players on both teams.
We saw Ben Swerdlow pick up yet another individual spirit award, and somehow New England got the team spirit award with a perfect 5. Stephen and I wanted Ben to give them a 3 or 4 after our game, but Ben gave them a 5 anyway, robbing Cincinnati of their deserved glory. Oh well. I'm just wondering what Pittsburgh did to have a 3.5, even lower than our 3.83. Back at the hotel, we enjoyed a dinner made up almost entirely of half-price appetizers. We were sitting nearby the Philly guys and had some nice conversation and banter - they're really my favorite team/area, probably because we play the game the same way - take no prisoners defense and hard, gritty play.
Later, when we tried to get back to the restaurant for half-price desserts, we found out that the kitchen was closed (oh no!), so we walked to Wendy's after some SEPDA kids to get some Frostys. After yet another walking through the drive through adventure, we had our delicious treats. Back at the hotel, I spent about an hour or 90 minutes hanging out with SEPDA and a few North Hills kids (who never actually did come inside the room) before heading to bed before our 5 am departure. Thankfully I packed before bed, unlike Brian Walter, who held the whole team up in the morning. But it didn't matter, as we got to the gate right as the plane started boarding - perfect timing!
My next post will be more of a reflection than a summary of YCC's, and if I'm feeling ambitious I might even write about what it feels like to play in my last-ever juniors tournament. *sigh*
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