USA Ultimate

@TripleCrownTour Scoreboard

The heart of the inaugural Triple Crown Tour season is here. This weekend, the Elite-Select Challenge takes center stage. For the nation’s mixed teams, the site is the Emerald City Classic in Seattle, Wash. The Triple Crown Tour format has changed the look and feel of the season for many teams. Case in point for the 16 teams representing the Elite, Select and Pro Flights in mixed division this weekend. Many of the teams who will appear in Seattle would typically stay within their own regions, rarely travelling for big tournaments with tough competition across the board. Tournaments like the Elite-Select Challenge set up higher-level match ups throughout the weekend than most teams are used to.  The field is diverse. It includes teams from all eight regions, 11 of 24 sections, former Nationals participants and relative newcomers. For nearly all teams, this weekend will not be their first time around the block this year; between them, they have already claimed nine sanctioned tournament championships. But one team will show up as complete mystery – Death by Jubilee has not played in a single tournament this season. In a similar boat, Minnesota Star Power has only played in one unsanctioned tournament. Holding up residency on the other end of the spectrum, Cahoots has already racked up five sanctioned tournament appearances, including three championship titles. Appropriately, the tournament’s overall one and two seeds, Philadelphia’s AMP and San Francisco’s Mischief, seem to be the early frontrunners to come out of Seattle with a win. But there is plenty of talent looking to overthrow them this weekend.

 

Pool A

A1		A2		A3		A4
Philadelphia AMP		Boulder Love Tractor		Morristown Termite's Entourage		Sunnyvale BW Ultimate

 

Pool A looks like it could be the always-feared pool of death. The first round features a rematch of last weekend’s Chesapeake Open finals between AMP and Termite’s Entourage. In their only close game all weekend, AMP pulled out the win 12-11. These two teams are pretty familiar with one another, which always brings some additional excitement. Their first-round match should start the weekend off with a bang.

AMP has been a team on the verge for several years, always in the Nationals picture but never really rising to the top echelon of teams. If they can finish the season with the same fervor they’ve used to start it, that could all change this year. But it still remains to be seen how they’ll match up against the big guns from the west coast.

Wedged between AMP and the Termites, sitting in the pool’s two spot, is Boulder’s Love Tractor. They have a regular-season tournament victory under their belts already this year from Solstice in late June. They have also earned wins at two unsanctioned hometown tournaments this summer, but this weekend marks the first time this year they’ve travelled outside Colorado. It will be interesting to see how they match up with less familiar teams on foreign turf.

One of a continually growing supply of Bay Area mixed teams, BW Ultimate is another squad largely untested outside their state. They have a tough road ahead of them in trying to break into Sunday’s championship bracket.
 

Pool B

B1		B2		B3		B4
San Francisco Mischief		Asheville Cahoots		Denver Mesteno		Washington, D.C. Death by Jubilee

 

In another tough pool, Mischief is the headliner, followed closely by North Carolina’s Cahoots. Mischief earned several quality wins over big competition at the U.S. Open before falling in the finals to Odyssée. The one real blip on their radar is a 14-10 loss against Ambiguous Grey in the last round of pool play at the U.S. Open; Ambiguous ended up with only two wins on the weekend. Mischief last hit the fields together the last weekend in July where they definitively bested their competition at Revolution. They met Groove in the finals and trailed for part of the game before squeaking out a narrow win.

Cahoots was also at the U.S. Open with Mischief, where they came out on the wrong side of a 15-9 game against the pool’s one seed. Their multiple tournament appearances can only help their on-field chemistry, but they haven’t seen much solid competition since the Fourth of July. Nevertheless, they are an athletic team who added some extra experience and talent this year, particularly amongst their women, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Their third-round game against Mischief could be one of the most exciting of the weekend.

Denver’s Mesteno and D.C.’s Death by Jubilee round out Pool B. Both teams had relatively strong seasons in 2012 and have since had to deal with some top-end roster turnover. Mesteno played at Solstice in June and walked away with two losses to Love Tractor. It’s likely that the Denverites will have a small roster in Seattle this weekend which certainly won’t help their chances against tough competition. This weekend will be Death by Jubilee’s first tournament of the season, and it doesn’t look like it will be a particularly easy place to start. Given their late start to the season and a tough draw for pool play, this weekend will be a tough test for DBJ.

Pool C

C1		C2		C3		C4
Washington, D.C. Ambiguous Grey		San Francisco Groove		Seattle The DOH Abides		Minneapolis Minnesota Star Power

 

The second team out of Washington, D.C., Ambiguous Grey leads a pool that looks primed for an upset or two. Ambiguous started out their season at the U.S. Open and struggled overall. They improved throughout the weekend but still left Raleigh with only two wins to their five losses. As the beneficiary of some of the aforementioned roster turnover from D.C.-area squads, they arrived two weeks later at the Philly Invite looking like a different team. They scored several upset wins and ended up tied for third.

Lurking right behind Ambiguous in the two spot is the Bay Area’s Groove. They are 9-4 heading into the weekend, but two of those losses were to Pro Flight teams and fellow Californians Blackbird and Mischief, by two and one points respectively. With the necessary cross-country trip, Ambiguous may have low numbers in Seattle. With what will likely be a much more complete squad, Groove could notch an upset come Saturday afternoon.

The DOH Abides and Minnesota Star Power finish out Pool C. Seattle’s The DOH Abides has some veterans of the old D’oh! team that last qualified for the Club Championships in 2009. Though they don’t have many results yet, their season started strong just last weekend with a tournament win at Kleinman Eruption in Portland. While the field didn’t feature many teams notable on the national scene, DOH’s weekend did include a tight win in the finals over Engine 45 who will also be in Seattle this weekend. Minnesota Star Power is in a similar situation. They have only played one tournament so far this year, and it didn’t feature much strong competition. Historically, they have been pretty strong in the North Central region but haven’t often ventured outside their own stomping grounds.

Pool D

D1		D2		D3		D4
Missoula Mental Toss Flycoons		Boston Wild Card		Portland Engine 45		Cincinnati Steamboat

 

Missoula’s Mental Toss Flycoons may seem like an odd choice as this weekend’s fourth overall seed given their performances so far this year, but they have a strong history. That strength just didn’t quite show itself at the Philly Invite, where they posted a 3-4 record. They finished third at WUCC in 2010 and is one of only four teams in this weekend’s field that qualified for Nationals last year (the others being Mischief, AMP and Wild Card). Perhaps a tournament a little closer to home will work in their favor. But this pool might also just be waiting for an upset.

It’s very likely that upset will come in the form of Wild Card. They finished just above Mental Toss Flycoons in Sarasota last year, and while they haven’t posted any serious results so far in 2013, they had a helpful offseason. They added Thomas Sayre-McCord, Lily Steponaitis and Dan Rosengard to their roster, none of whom were with the team at Philly Invite. Assuming everyone makes the trip, they will also have Ian Engler and Lee Farnsworth back who were busy winning gold medals at the U-23 World Championships while Wild Card was in Philadelphia. Like most 4 v. 5 seeded match ups, their game against the Mental Toss Flycoons in round three should be one to watch.

Hailing from the perennially strong Northwest, Engine 45 had a strong first year in 2012. They improved throughout the season and went 5-1 at Northwest Regionals, but their single loss came in the game that mattered – the quarterfinals. Now in their second iteration, they’re back for more. In their first tournament appearance of the 2013 season last weekend, they went 5-1 again, with their only loss this time coming in the finals to Pool C’s The DOH Abides. Cincinnati’s Steamboat could be a team on the rise. In their two sanctioned tournaments on the year, they have a championship from Cin City Classic and a third-place finish from Motown Throwdown. They’ve been a steady presence in their own region, but Overhaul has traditionally dominated the Nationals bid from the Great Lakes. With the new absence of Overhaul, Steamboat might have a little more room to maneuver, and a strong performance this weekend would go a long way to helping them along. The snake pool structure typically sets up some fun games in the D pool, and this one should be no different. By the end of Saturday, things could look topsy-turvy for these teams.

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