USA Ultimate

Women's Division Ohio Valley D-I Regionals Recap

Event recap by Penn State coach Alison Murray, as a part of our 2013 Regionals coverage.

Saturday

Only nine teams committed to Ohio Valley Women’s Division I regionals which created two unequal brackets. Teams playing in the A pool were at the field 9am until 7pm with four games to 11. The teams in the B pool played from 11am to 7pm with three games to 15. The top teams had a clear advantage over the lower-seeded teams, and it was apparent during Saturday play.

In the first round of pool play, Ohio State beat Carnegie-Mellon 11-1, and Penn State rolled Edinboro 11-0 after losing to them during Conference Championships. Round two brought in the first games from the B pool where Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve had one of the closer match ups of the day. CWR was led by their two main handlers, Libby Lehman and Justine Ko, who were making great long and break throws hitting their downfield receivers in stride. Justine also played great defense, stopping a lot of near goals by UPenn. For UPenn, Bernie Hsu and Jackie Wong led their team with their quick handler cuts and great throws up-field. Their deep bench was apparent with solid downfield cutting, despite one of their main cutters, Lexa Stambaugh, landing in the hospital with a dislocated elbow after a first-point layout bid in the end zone. After trading points until 6-6, UPenn pulled away to make it 13-9 before finally closing the game out at 14-12. Pittsburgh finished out the second round beating Ohio University 14-3.

The third round offered two solid match ups: Penn State vs. Ohio State and Edinboro vs. West Virginia. Penn State and Ohio State had a closer game than the score might reflect (OSU won the game 11-4). Ohio State’s bench is very deep and full of solid players. Only one or two players stuck out as leading the team, but overall, most of their 25-woman team cut effectively and seemed comfortable throwing up-field. During the entire game, OSU had two turnovers. WVU rounded out the third round of play by upsetting Edinboro in another conference rematch 10-6.

In the 3pm games, CMU beat Edinboro in a quick match 11-4, while Penn State beat WVU 11-0. In the B pool, however, the games were a bit closer. Ohio gave UPenn a tough game, but UPenn pulled it out 15-9 in the end. CWR upset Pittsburgh on universe point 11-12 in a very hard-fought game from both teams. The final round for the A pool had two uneven match ups with Penn State upsetting CMU 11-4 and OSU beating WVU 11-3. CWR finished out their day beating Ohio in a conference rematch 15-4. UPenn and Pittsburgh met up for another close game to follow up their universe point match in the Conference Championship semifinals. Both teams went on several runs, catching up to one another with a lot of zone defense and hucking, but Pitt was able to pull it out, taking the game 13-9.

Carnegie-Mellon had a good run at their Conference Championships with a win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. They came up short, however, on day one of regionals and dropped a seed in their pool. Three of the four teams in the B pool finished the day 2-1. Point differential gave Pittsburgh the one seed going into Sunday with CWR second and UPenn third.

Sunday

The weather conditions on Saturday were close to perfect: minimal wind, sunshine and 70 degrees all day. Every game was played in amazing conditions. Sunday, however, was a different story. The temperature dropped 15 degrees, and the forecast called for a 100 percent chance of rain starting at 7am. It rained straight through the day until the second to last point of finals.

Sunday’s games were played out similarly to Saturday’s games. The winning team scored 15, and the losing team didn’t come close to double digits, with the exception of one game. In the quarters, Ohio State beat Ohio 15-1, Case Western Reserve beat Carnegie-Mellon 15-5, and Pittsburgh took down Edinboro 15-5.

The one exception to the quarterfinal blowout matches was the UPenn vs. Penn State game. UPenn came out strong. They had minimal drops, and Jackie Wang was handling with more strength and consistency than most players at the tournament. The first few points were traded between teams until UPenn broke away to take half 8-3. Penn State switched up their defensive strategy to put a box and one on Jackie Wang, which significantly slowed down UPenn’s offense. Penn State was able to bring the score up to 9-6 before the soft cap went on. Regina Wilkinson and Lyuda Likhonina from Penn State were handing with ease while Chelsea Thomas took down every disc in the air. Once the cap horn blew (9-6, game to 11), UPenn scored an easy point to go up 10-6, but Penn State came out and rallied off three back-to-back points, all scored by freshman Amel Awadelkarim. Penn State was able to get one more break to bring the quarterfinal conference rematch to double game point. After three quick turnovers, Lyuda broke the flick mark to sophomore Alex Fons who set out a perfect backhand to Chelsea Thomas in the end zone to win the game 11-10 in the hard cap.

Semifinals were two easy games. Pitt came off of a 15-5 win to play an exhausted Penn State and won easily 14-2. Ohio State continued their dominance in semis bringing CWR down 15-1. Finals was not a unique game for this tournament. Ohio State rolled off three quick points vs. Pittsburgh putting on lots of pressure and looking calm and collected. At 3-0, Pitt already looked defeated. Pittsburgh, who made quick, smart decisions all weekend long, suffered from drops and missed throws the entire game. Pitt finally got a point off to make the game 7-1.

Ohio State is a marvel to college women’s ultimate. I have been actively involved in the college women’s division for nine years and have only previously seen what Ohio State is pulling off when Courtney Kiesow and Georgia Bosscher captained Wisconsin’s Bella Donna. In the finals, OSU was comfortably and actively rotating in 16 players, all of whom could play defense, cut and comfortably throw up field. While #5 Paige Soper is an integral part of the team and a force to be reckoned with, she could have sat out the entire game, and Ohio State still likely would have won by at least 10 points. She could have sat out all of regionals, and the team still would have won. That’s how deep their bench is. Pittsburgh seemed to be rotating 9 players to OSU’s 16 and just didn’t have the stamina to keep up. Once they opened up their roster, they started playing better and almost scored two more points. At 14-1, OSU turned it over in Pitt’s end zone. Captain Cassie Swafford was on the mark and got an immediate point block, laid out to save a shady around dump throw, stood up and threw the game-winning goal to send Ohio State’s Scarlet Fever to Nationals.
 

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