2013 Pro Flight Finale - Women's Division Recap
Anna Nazarov
Posted: September 4, 2013 01:43 PM
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Scoreboard
@TripleCrownTour
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For all the talk about parity in the women’s division going into the Pro Flight Finale, this past weekend did not disappoint.
Pool Play
The tournament opened with big surprises as the top two seeds were upset during the first round of the weekend. First, Fury would lose 15-13 to Nemesis, who now joins Riot on the short list of teams to take down the top-seeded team in the women’s rankings all season. Lead by several run-through Ds by Kami Groom, a talented Nemesis handling and cutting core punished Fury for every mistake, breaking Fury several times in a row during the second half. Meanwhile, Riot struggled against Showdown, 15-14, and Showdown led the entire game.
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While the rest of pool play went to seed, two more upsets rounded out an exciting Saturday. First, Nemesis took their energy from the first round and powered past Ozone and to the top of the pool with a score of 15-12. On the other side of the bracket, the Capitals beat Showdown on double game point (16-15) in a very long game with five or six turnovers per team in each of the last few points. For Showdown, the loss to the lower seed, coupled with the loss to Scandal in round two, dropped them to last in the pool, even though they beat top-seeded Riot. Luckily for everyone involved, an eight-team tournament meant everyone would advance to quarterfinals on Sunday morning.
Crossover
USA Ultimate had originally scheduled a crossover round where Pool A finishers would have matched up with their counterpart finisher in Pool B. The games would have counted toward the regular season but would not have affected standings going into Sunday’s elimination play. After speaking to each of the team captains, tournament organizers and USA Ultimate decided to leave those games to the discretion of the teams, and the teams decided not to play out that round.
Elimination
Nemesis continued their streak early Sunday morning with a 16-14 quarterfinals win over Showdown. Ozone fought hard against Scandal, but in the end could not pull out the win. Scandal took down the Miranda Knowles-less Ozone 15-12. Fury and Riot did not seem to struggle against Capitals and Molly Brown, respectively.
Unfortunately for Nemesis, their run for the championship game would end with Scandal in the semifinals, where they went down 15-11. Fury suffered a similar fate at the hands of Riot, who powered through Fury with a strong second half to eliminate the top seed and force a pool play rematch in the finals.
The finals game was the only game all weekend to be capped, underscoring the strength of the teams’ respective defenses. Riot took an early lead with a score of 7-3 before letting off a few breaks but holding on to take half 8-6. The second half began with the two teams trading goals during several long points until the game was capped while the score was 11-8. Each team relied on several junk and zone looks in order to slow down the movement between handlers. Riot would ultimately win the inaugural Pro Flight Finale, the last tournament of the regular season, with a score of 13-10. The next opportunity for these teams to see each other will be in October at the Club Championships.
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