USA Ultimate

Men's Division teams from four regions will battle it out at Regionals this weekend with their sights set on a berth at the 2013 National Championships in Frisco, Texas.       Mid-Atlantic   Northeast   Southeast   Southwest

 
Mid-Atlantic Men's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 12 teams / 1 bid Pool Play – Saturday; Sunday – 8-team Championship bracket

Pool A   Pool B Team Rank Sectionals  Truck Stop 13 CAP-n/a Dire Wolf 38 FOU-2 Garden State Ultimate n/a FOU-3 Kaptain Krunk n/a CAP-3 Grantham U. 64 FOU-6 John Doe 67 CAP-5   Team Rank Sectionals  Oakland 24 FOU-1 Floodwall 37 CAP-1 Medicine Men 42 CAP-2 Hypnotoad 63 FOU-4 Lancaster 53 FOU-5 RUNTIME 101 CAP-4

Not many ultimate fans doubt the outcome of the Mid-Atlantic’s Men’s Regional. Truck Stop is the heavy favorite heading into the weekend, based on both historical performance and quality of competition in the field. 

Truck Stop has made Nationals in each of the last seven years. Though their finishes have been up and down, most recently on the downswing having left Sarasota tied for 13th last year, they’ve still qualified. Their road to the Championships got a little easier after last year’s restructuring, too. Without long-time rival Ring of Fire in their region, they cruised to Nationals with a win over Southpaw. This year, with the dissolution of Southpaw, Truck Stop’s road got even easier. 

The biggest question for the weekend is where Truck will find their toughest competition. All signs point to Oakland as the most likely candidate. The largely-University of Pittsburgh squad had a strong showing at the Chesapeake Open, where they went undefeated. But, like Truck Stop, things turned around at the Chesapeake Invite. Oakland played relatively close games against PoNY and Chain Lightning but only claimed wins against Madcow. They rolled to the championship at Founders Sectionals with only a couple close games. 

One of their close games came from first-year team Garden State Ultimate who sits in the three-spot in Pool A. Garden State hasn’t played much high-end competition this year, but when they have, they’ve kept it close: a one-point loss to Lancaster and two-point losses to Oakland and Dire Wolf, who finished second in the Founders Section. 

Dire Wolf is another team without much experience against high-level teams. But they do have wins over Sixpack and Queen City Thunder, both of whom will be competing at Southeast Regionals this weekend. Their rematch against Garden State Ultimate in Saturday’s last round may be one of the more exciting games to watch in Poolesville this weekend. 

Truck Stop should easily claim the region’s lone bid to Nationals, but there will likely be some tough grudge matches across the rest of the field.

 

Northeast Men's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 16 teams / 3 bids Saturday – 16-team Championship bracket  Sunday – Championship game & 2nd-place game

Bracket   Team Rank Sectionals  GOAT 4 UNY-n/a Ironside 8 ENE-n/a PoNY 7 MNY-n/a Dark or Light 34 WNE-1 Garuda 27 ENE-1 The Nights Watch 45 MNY-1 Phoenix n/a UNY-1 Big Wrench 57 ENE- 2 Mephisto n/a WNE-2 Red Circus n/a ENE-3 Red Tide 66 ENE-4 Youngbloods 65 MNY-2 Jerk Factory n/a ENE-5 Genny Tall Boys 84 UNY-2 Stonefish n/a MNY-3 Pride Rock n/a MNY-4

Ironside. GOAT. PoNY. Three of the most talked-about teams of the season will take the field this weekend in Massachusetts to try and work their way to Frisco. Ironside is one of the most successful teams of the last five years, but their shortcomings this season have been well-documented. After starting the season with a strong showing at the U.S. Open, Ironside began to falter. But they’re still Ironside. They still have George Stubbs and Peter Prial, not to mention Josh Markette, Russell Wallack and a cache of other talented players with loads of elite-level experience. Despite their up-and-down season and less-than-stellar performance at the Pro Flight Finale, Ironside is expected to bounce back in time for Nationals. Given the strength of the Northeast Region this year, Regionals should be a good warm-up. They may take the first bid out of the region, but it would be crazy to think we won’t see them in Frisco. 

GOAT and PoNY have both had surprisingly successful seasons. Most people knew about GOAT’s crazy athleticism, but no one knew how they would actually perform this year. They ended up sixth at the Pro-Elite Challenge at Terminus with a short-handed roster and bounced back quickly at the Chesapeake Invite. Their one loss on the weekend, which came to Ironside, kept GOAT from the championship bracket. It was a minor blip on an otherwise stellar weekend. Then they shocked everyone by winning the Pro Flight Finale with an incredibly short roster of about 16 guys. By then, their athleticism wasn’t just a rumor. They are still beatable, but no team is going to overlook them any time soon. In their two meetings this season, Ironside won the first, and GOAT won the second. Maybe they’ll continue to alternate, and Ironside will come out on top this weekend. Or maybe another team, PoNY seems like a good option, will throw a wrench in everything. 

PoNY was arguably the most exciting team of the early season. They left the Pro-Elite Challenge at Terminus with only one loss, to D.C. Truck Stop, and a tournament championship. And they nearly repeated their feat a month later at the Elite-Select Challenge at Colorado Cup. They fell in the semifinals to home team Johnny Bravo but finished in third place after a thunderstorm shortened the final round. PoNY again found themselves in third place at the end of the Chesapeake Invite after losing in the semifinals to one of the most talked-about teams in second half of the season, Sub Zero. PoNY competed in Sarasota last year but finished dead last. They’ll be looking to start off this year’s postseason with a statement this weekend, with hopes to outshine their 2012 Nationals performance in Frisco. 

Waiting in the wings to challenge the big three are a bunch of young and more inexperienced teams with nothing to lose. They’ll try to make it interesting, but expect Ironside, GOAT and PoNY to walk away with the region’s three bids. The fun part will be watching them battle for higher seeds in Texas.

  

Southeast Men's Preview, by Andrew Francis & Michael McNeil

Format: 16 teams / 3 bids Saturday – 16-team Championship bracket Sunday – Championship game & 2nd-place game

Bracket   Team Rank Sectionals  Ring of Fire 10 NC-n/a Chain Lightning 9 EC-n/a Florida United 12 FL-1 Omen 28 FL-2 Southern Hospitality 29 GC-1 Cash Crop 32 NC-1 Ironmen 46 GC-2 Six Pack 49 EC-1 Freaks Uv Nature 47 GC-3 Jollytown Lollipops 51 EC-2 Tanasi 35 EC-3 Vicious SharkForce n/a FL-3 Shrimp Boat 39 FL-4 Prairie Squids 97 GC-4 Jockamo 48 GC-5 Queen City Thunder 93 NC-2

Regionals in the Southeast got a lot more interesting this year when second-year team Florida United secured a top-16 finish and a third bid to Nationals. We had a taste of three bids a few years ago when Tanasi advanced to Nationals (along with the usual suspects in the old South region, Chain and Doublewide), and that was a way more exciting tournament than the snoozefest of Chain and Ring going one-two in Orlando last year. Chain and Ring should easily finish one-two again this year, and both are really just playing for better seeding at Nationals.

FLU has collected a lot of elite-level college and club talent from across Florida, and they are rightfully the third seed. While they did finish 13th in the nation, they really didn’t score any super-impressive wins, so I know many teams think they have a shot to steal their spot in Frisco. FLU is eyeing both Chain and Ring, so they think they have what it takes to knock off the overwhelming favorites.

Seeds 4-6 are all at about the same level (#28 Omen, #29 Southern Hospitality and #32 Cash Crop). Omen is made up by the core of Central Florida’s recent Nationals teams. Dealing with giants Mike Ogren and Mischa Freystaetter will be tough for most teams. In the Florida sectional final, Omen stayed closer to FLU than Voodoo, Chicago Club and Madcow did at Colorado Cup, so there is obviously a lot of talent on the team. 

Southern Hospitality is a first-year team that has yet to lose a game, although most of their games were against lesser competition. The team is made up of the best alums and current players from Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State. They haven’t faced the four teams seeded above them, but they have beaten eight of the remaining 10 teams. Their two wins over Tanasi scored them the five seed over Cash Crop (who lost to Tanasi early on in the summer). Cash Crop is a solid team again in 2013, but I don’t think they are at the same level as they were when they upset Ring in the North Carolina sectional final in 2012.

The rest of the teams are all jumbled up because of a bunch of Sectionals upsets. Birmingham’s Ironmen claimed the seven spot after beating Huntsville’s Freaks uv Nature in the 2 vs. 3 game at Gulf Coast Sectionals. Huntsville was down 13-10 to SoHo, then rattled off three straight to force double-game point in the finals. They never recovered from that loss and were thrashed by Ironmen. In the East Coast section, Sixpack surprised just about everyone by recovering from their lackluster summer to upset Chattanooga/Knoxville’s Tanasi in the semis and then Nashville’s Jollytown Lollipops in the finals. 

The 2013 version of Tanasi is very different from teams of the past two years. The Alabama contingent is now on SoHo, most of the Nashville guys are playing with the new hometown team Jollytown, and a couple of their old non-Central/East Tennessee are playing with other teams. To replace these large losses, they picked up a bunch of Chattanooga players who had been playing in the mixed division for the last couple of years.

Jollytown is the first Nashville-centric competitive open team since Duel. They have a lot of good players that have recently played for Tanasi, Ironmen, Brah, Freaks and Reckon. I think they could be a dangerous team at Regionals based on their upper-level experience.

The other two Florida teams, seeded at 12 and 13, are very similar. Gainesville’s Vicious Sharkforce is mostly current University of Florida guys, and Tallahassee’s Shrimp Boat is mostly Florida State guys. With each school’s top stars playing for Florida United, it’ll be hard for these teams to pull off any upsets. 

Prairie Squids at #14 is the first Memphis team to qualify for Regionals in ages. They pulled off a stunning upset over Baton Rogue’s Jockamo on Sunday at Gulf Coast Sectionals. Jockamo is the more talented team but just didn’t play well, despite having LSU’s and Tulane’s best players from the last few years.

Charlotte’s Queen City Thunder comes in at the #16 spot. After going 0-3 on Saturday at N.C. Sectionals, they won four straight win-or-go-home games to claim the second bid. Pretty impressive feat.

Predictions:

I fully expect Chain and Ring to make the finals fairly easily (and win the 2 vs. 3 game). The race for the third spot may get a little more interesting. I think someone outside the top eight will make it to Sunday (top six), and I am going to put Jollytown, Tanasi and the Freaks at the top of the list. Florida United will probably defend their third bid, but I don’t think it will be an easy task for them at all. 

 

Southwest Men's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 10 teams / 2 bids Pool Play – pool play; Sunday – 4 team championship and 2nd-place bracket

Pool A   Pool B Team Rank Sectionals  Revolver 1 NCAL-n/a Boost Mobile 15 NCAL- Streetgang 17 SCAL-4 Gridlock 74 SCAL-5 BD Air Show 102 SCAL-6   Team Rank Sectionals  Condors 19 SCAL-1 LA Renegade 22 SCAL-2 Sprawl 26 SCAL-3 Oaks 36 NCAL-2 Brawl n/a SCAL-10

Revolver has been a little more susceptible in 2013 than in years past. They tallied four losses in this year’s regular season, but they had a similar record in 2010, and it didn’t have any effect on their clean run through the postseason. This weekend will be the first time Revolver has seen any of their regional competition this year, but no one expects they won’t take the first bid out of the Southwest. 

The rest of the field is much more up in the air. The Southwest may have more teams legitimately competing for the last bid than any other. The Condors, LA Renegade and Boost all have a shot at coming away with the trip to Frisco, but, at least for now and if they can stay healthy, the Condors look like the most likely candidate. They’ve had some tough losses over the course of the season to teams sitting below them in the USA Ultimate rankings, but they had two convincing wins over LA Renegade at SoCal Sectionals and head-to-head wins against both Boost and Streetgang, who they may also run into sometime on Sunday. Admittedly, the wins over Boost and Streetgang were close and from early in the season, but knowing they’ve already defeated them this year may give the Condors a little extra confidence heading into the weekend. 

Of the second-place contenders, Boost is the only one who attended the Club Championships last year; they finished 15th, but they were there. They’ve played a very light schedule in 2013 with only two tournaments under their belts before heading to NorCal Sectionals: Cal States in June and the Pro-Elite Challenge at Terminus in July. They had some big wins at Terminus, including one over Johnny Bravo, but they also had some tough losses to Chain Lightning, Truck Stop and Machine (after leading at half). Boost didn’t have a single close game at Sectionals, but the competition was spotty. It’s been so long since they’ve played higher-level teams that it’s anyone’s guess as to what they look like come Saturday. 

LA Renegade has done exactly what they’re supposed to do – they’ve lost to teams ranked above them and beaten teams ranked below them. Two big losses to the Condors at SoCal Sectionals doesn’t bode well for Renegade heading into this weekend. They’ll play each other again first thing on Saturday in pool play. Streetgang looks primed to wreak some havoc from their third spot in Pool A; they too have some big wins and some tough losses. 

When the dust settles on Sunday afternoon, Revolver should have walked away with a pretty easy win and the first of the region’s bids to Frisco. The second bid is still completely up for grabs. Although the Condors look to have an edge going in, they’ll have to fight off plenty of contenders who have nothing to lose.
 

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