USA Ultimate

 

Paideia Girls Take Center Stage; Several Open Contenders (girls results / open results)

 

This was supposed to be Saga’s tournament to win—and it may still be. But the girls from Atlanta’s Paideia drew a line in the sand in the final game of the day, coming back to down Saga 7-6. Paideia ended the day 4-0, while Saga, a combo-team of players in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle area, finished 3-1.

 

Both teams advance to today’s semifinals, with Saga to play the HB Woodlawn varsity while Paideia will take on the winner of the the day’s early game contest between University School of Nashville and the HB Woodlawn JV.

 

Saga had survived a serious challenge earlier in the day from HB Woodlawn, winning 7-6. Both teams had played stifling zone defenses and field positions on turnovers made just a difference for Saga. Likewise, Paideia had a hard fight with HB Woodlawn, winning 8-5. 

 

 

In the open division the championship is up for grabs as University School of Nashville, Friends School from Durham, and Paideia all finished 3-0 on the day. If you go by scores alone, Carolina Friends appeared to be most dominant, winning their bracket by a combined score of 39-3. But they may have also had the easiest draw.

 

In their bracket Paideia defeated Virginia’s Yorktown 13-3 and Louisiana’s Catholic High School, 13-4. As their bracket had only three teams that put Paideia into a tough and entertaining late-day crossover match against Chapel Hill High School’s CHUF. Padeia appeared as have more gas left in the tank as they went up early then managed to hold off CHUF at the end, 13-9.

 

In their bracket, University School of Nashville were challenged early in their first game of the day against East Chapel Hill High School but pulled away to win 13-6. They had an easier time against HB Woodlawn (13-4) and Atlanta’s Brookwood High School (13-3).

 

Coming into the tournament the question mark in the open division was whether Carolina Friends was a good as their undefeated record. To some extent that question still remains. They looked dominant and were never even close to being challenged by Virginia’s LC Bird School, Tennessee’s McCallie School, or Atlanta’s Lakeside High School.

 

They will get more challenge this morning from Virginia’s Yorktown High School in the quarterfinals. They defeated Yorktown 13-6 in tournament play back in March.

 

University School of Nashville will take on Catholic High School in their quarterfinal while Paideia is matched with HB Woodlawn’s varsity. In the fourth quarterfinal, Atlanta’s Brookwood is pitted against CHUF.

 

Potential semifinals featuring Paideia against Carolina Friends and CHUF against University School of Nashville are high anticipated. But Yorktown and HB Woodlawn, in particular have looked very good at times—they would need to sustain those periods to have a chance to move into the semifinals.