Stanford Invite Thoughts

Last weekend 20 mens ultimate teams converged on Palo Alto for the Stanford Invite, the first true test of the spring season for most elite teams. As the Stanford coordinator for the tournament, I worked with Cultimate to provide a challenging tournament and great experience for all teams in attendance. It also meant that I spent hours and hours the two weeks prior making sure everything ran smoothly, and arranging the finer details of our showcase game. The weekend was one of upsets - perennial Nationals contenders Oregon and Carleton both failed to make the winners bracket, and in their place stood UNC-Wilmington, 13-4 losers to Maryland earlier in the season, and Las Positas - a Bay Area junior college. But the end result was no surprise to anyone, as Wisconsin rolled in the finals, 15-4.

Carleton - They came out strong against us in the first game. They were missing Grant Lindsley, Patrick Roberts, and Alex Evangelides, three strong freshmen who were at Junior Worlds tryouts, as well as a couple seniors. However, they moved the disc extremely well against us and scored with relative ease. We came out sluggish on defense, and we could have done much better with better marks and quicker defense immediately after a throw to stop their handler motion. Jerome Potter did not hurt us this game - Sherwood and Jacob Speidel played some great defense on him. But 16 throwaways and 4 drops did do us in - including a couple in the endzone. Had we played more patiently on offense I have no doubt we would have won the game, but we were jittery. We could have also used some smarter matchups. Next time. Carleton looked tired in their next 3 games and finished 2-2 on the day.

UCSD - Our next game was against UCSD, and Danny Cox wasn't playing. Their offense ran through a blond player with a wrist brace - #6, I think, and hucks to #80. They took UNCW to universe point in an ugly, ugly first round game, but they did not look good in any of their Saturday games. They're looking at 5th or 6th in the SW again after having a great SB Invite.

UNCW - I invited UNCW for several reasons, chief among them their attitude. NW teams don't get to play against a lot of fiery teams during the regular season, and this was a great opportunity to see which teams will fold and which teams will rise to the occasion. After a shaky start against UCSD, they upset Carleton and Cal and came into the game against us 3-0. With Rusty Ingold-Smith's (Slow White) play behind the disc and huge grabs by "Condor" downfield, they were feeling great about their chances. But they were tired against us, and Rusty spent part of the 2nd half dry-heaving over a trashcan on the sidelines. We took half 7-4 and pulled away to win 13-5, only allowing one goal in the 2nd half. UNC-Wilmington then upset Colorado in the pre-quarters, capping a great tournament for them, where they came in seeded 18th and finished 7th. It will be interesting to see where they will finish come Regionals - they looked a lot better than the shell of a UNC team that came out west.

Cal - Berkeley beat us 8-7 at Santa Barbara when we were missing a lot of players. This was our chance to show who's on top of the Bay Area section. This was also the showcase game at the Stanford Stadium, and it was quite the show. There was a port-a-field, two observers, announcers with spotters, Ultivillage, the famous Stanford Band, and hundreds of fans, including Stanford students, Cal students, and other ultimate teams. It was also a great game for the fans - there were tons of layouts, skies, D's, and even a greatest for a goal. The field was fast - almost like playing on turf - and cuts were smooth by both teams. With no wind in the stadium, man defense was played almost exclusively.

Cal likes to put up the disc a lot, and this time we responded a lot better with our deep defense - having Sherwood, Tom James, Ezra, and Jacob in this game helped a lot too. We were confident and aggressive on both offense and defense, and Cal could not keep up. We took half 7-2, and not until a 3-0 run at 9-2 did they break us. Typically Cal has great spacing on their horizontal stack, but we cut off their easy under looks and competed with them deep. Tom even got a deep D on one of the 6'7" twins. Ezra had a double deep D on one point, and Tom had the crowd moaning in despair as he dropped what looked like an easy deep goal. He won them back with a greatest at 11-7 to Steve Scardato for the goal, and Brian Neil dropped a D at 12-7 for what could have been a Callahan and the greatest back-to-back plays to end a game ever.

Claremont - The Braineaters are an interesting team. They have several throwers and a ton of deep threats, and their offense will put up 6 or 7 points on any team in the country. Their defense, however, is poor, and if their big guys don't come down with the hucks on offense, they'll lose games against good teams. We won 15-10 on the strength of some deep D's and smart offense. They rely on huge hucks from #13, Maniac, to receivers like Michael Stout, Jay Schulkin, and sometimes-thrower-sometimes-receiver-likely-SW-FOTY Markham Shofner. I also got my lefty bookends against Claremont to go +2 for the weekend.

Texas - They are a good team that somehow scores a lot. They are (generally) smart with the disc and have great handler motion, and they can punish poaches with hammers and breaks. They're not the most athletic team, but they will run with you. They like the around looks and Stephen Presley and co-captain #10 will move the disc around all day in the backfield and on the break side if they have to. There is no way that this game should have been as close as 14-12, but poor decisions on our part helped Texas claw back into the game. And so did my D on Stephen Presley that I immediately threw right back to the thrower for the instant turnover.

Wisconsin - It's no surprise to meet Wisconsin in the finals, but it is a surprise to watch your team's offense just crumble. We came out flat and immediately went down 4-0, and we never really gave our defense a chance to get on the field. We forced turns on at least two of their four O points, but when our offense was playing as poorly as it was, we were never in the game. We were down several handlers, but when Sherwood and Tom are both playing behind the disc we will never do well against a team like Wisconsin, especially if they don't trust the downfield cutters enough to throw to whomever Muffin is poaching off. On the plus side, we got a lot of players good experience in this game, and it's better to get romped by Wisconsin now than in the semifinals of Nationals. The next time we see them, we will not go down so easily.

Colorado - We never played Colorado, but I watched most of their Cal game and they have issues. Their handlers are in serious trouble - turfing regular short throws, unable to break the mark, and turning the disc over on dumps. Downfield they are slightly better, but with Mac making poor hammer decisions and other players dropping passes, they need to get their mind right before they can consider themselves a Nationals-caliber team. There were some spectacular plays on defense, as you would expect from some great players, but in general defenders were just trailing their men and getting beat up and down the field. Cal worked the disc easily and probably should have won the game.

UCSC - Santa Cruz is a very solid team with a few very good players but little depth and without the sheer athleticism necessary to compete at the elite level. In a year when they were looking to move up in the NW, they will struggle to make it far at Regionals unless some favorite slips up.

UNC - This was a shell of the UNC team I saw at Nationals last year, and I know that they were missing a lot of players. But they looked terrible at Invite and if they keep it up, could be looking at 5th place or even lower in the Atlantic Coast. Like the NW, it's an extremely competitive region this year, and preseason favorites can slip out of contention extremely easily.