USA Ultimate

Women'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 Women's Preview, by USA Ultimate

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

Pool A   Pool B Team Rank Sectionals  Scandal 3 CAP-n/a Hot Metal 22 FOU-2 Backhanded 36 CAP-2 Veto 42 CAP-4   Team Rank Sectionals  Green Means Go 18 FOU-1 VA Rebellion 28 CAP-1 13ossyPants n/a FOU-3 Mother Apocalypse n/a CAP-3

Scandal’s rise to the top of the women’s game has been a popular topic of discussion in the ultimate world this year. This weekend should be the start of a strong postseason for the women from D.C. After adding some extra top-end talent to their roster and picking up one of the best coaches in the game in Alex Ghesquiere, Scandal has had an exciting season. They’ve scheduled well, getting in a warm-up tournament before heading to the U.S. Open, faced strong east-coast competition at the Chesapeake Invite before heading to California to face the best of the rest at the Pro Flight Finale. They also managed to squeeze in one last tournament at Virginia Fusion to work out any remaining kinks before hitting the postseason. Scandal has faced all types of teams and seen strategies from across the tactics spectrum. All their preparation will surely pay off, starting this weekend. 

Scandal will likely face Philly Green Means Go or Pittsburgh Hot Metal in the finals. Both teams have played tough competition all season long without many wins to show for it. Green Means Go finished with an 8-16 record; Hot Metal stands at 4-14. The exposure to better squads will surely help with player and team development, but it’s not an easy way to spend a summer. In their three meetings on the season, Hot Metal hasn’t been able to usurp Green Means Go’s hold on the rivalry. They’ve always been close, so maybe this is the weekend Hot Metal breaks through. As a reward, they would get to face Scandal in the finals for the region’s one bid to Frisco.

 

Northeast Women's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 12 teams / 4 bids Saturday – pool play Sunday – final round of pool play, championship game and 2nd-4th place brackets

Pool A   Pool B Team Rank Sectionals  Brute Squad 6 ENE-n/a Nova 13 WNE-1 The Collective n/a ENE-1 A NE Women's Team n/a ENE-2 Vice 26 ENE-4 Mystik n/a WNE-4   Team Rank Sectionals  Capitals 10 UNY-n/a Bent 12 MNY-1 Storm n/a WNE-2 Baywatch 32 MNY-2 Swagger n/a ENE-3 Brooklyn Book Club 40 MNY-3

The Northeast is one of the more exciting regions in the country across all three divisions this year. In the women’s division, the excitement largely comes from the parity of the region’s top four teams: Boston Brute Squad, Toronto Capitals, New York Bent and Montreal Nova. Luckily for them, they have four bids to go around this time.

In 2012, Bent earned the Northeast a second bid but was unable to take advantage of their work thanks to a surprising Capitals squad who ended up sweeping their section and the region, their first tournaments on U.S. soil in the year. This year, with four bids, the region becomes less dramatic in terms of determining Nationals qualifiers. More interesting will be the seeding implications of the finishing order. 

Brute Squad has looked like the team to beat all year. They added some new, younger talent to their roster in the off-season, and it has paid dividends so far, getting stronger with each tournament. Brute went undefeated at Colorado Cup to take home the tournament title, and they looked good at Virginia Fusion where their only losses were bookends on the weekend to Scandal. Bent’s season has been a little more up and down. While they did come out on top in their only match up against Brute this year, it was early in the season, and Brute has only gotten better. 

Given that they’ve played two tournaments south of the border in 2013, the Capitals are a little less of a mystery than when they showed up in the series last year but not by much. They’ve played high-level competition this year thanks to the new flight structure in the Triple Crown Tour, but their match ups included only one meeting with Brute Squad (an 11-9 win for Brute at the Pro-Elite Challenge at Terminus in July) and no match ups with Bent. Their 5-7 record may not look sparkling to anyone, but it’s good enough for 10th place in the USA Ultimate rankings, where they sit just two spots above their counterparts from New York. 

The frontrunners’ challengers are more inexperienced teams who largely stuck to the local area this year and haven’t encountered much strong competition. Nova is the most vulnerable of the top four. After a pretty successful trip to the Boston Invite early in the year that included a big win over Bent, they had a tough outing at the U.S. Open. They had a few close games in Raleigh but couldn’t pull out a win. Nova has been solid against lesser competition, though, and got a big win at Sectionals over Storm, likely be their closest challenger this weekend. 

The format could be a little tricky. Teams will have to decide when to go all out and when to pull back. Only the winner of the championship match up will avoid a second game against a tough team on Sunday. The second/third-place and fourth-place brackets should create some exciting match ups.  

Brute Squad looks primed to walk away with the region’s first bid, but the 2 vs. 3 game, likely between Capitals and Bent, should be a barnburner. Nova will likely take the fourth bid, but they’ll have to wrest it away from whichever team fights their way through to the game-to-go. Chances are good it’s a fellow Canadian team who may have more insight to their competitors from Montreal than the rest of the field.

  

Southeast Women's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 7 teams / 2 bids Saturday – pool play Sunday – final rounds of pool play, championship game and 2nd-place bracket

Pool A   Team Rank Sectionals  Ozone 7 EC-n/a Phoenix 15 NC-n/a DeSoto 25 EC-1 Tabby Rosa 30 FL-1 Hot 41 GC-1 Golden Girls 43 EC-2 Black Betty 44 GC-2

The Southeast, at least the region’s second bid, looks more up for grabs than in any year in recent history, and that includes years before the restructuring. Ozone is the clear frontrunner; they should easily come away with the Southeast’s first bid to Frisco. If it were a normal year, Phoenix should be the clear favorite to walk away with the second bid, but it’s not a normal year. 

Excepting one, Ozone’s only losses on the season came against the hottest teams of the year: Scandal, Nemesis and Fury. Their only other loss was to Molly Brown in the fifth-place game at the Pro Flight Finale. They’ve played Phoenix twice, and neither game was close. Based on seedings, Ozone’s next closest regional competition should come from DeSoto and Tabby Rosa. They’ve already seen and beaten Tabby Rosa, and no one should expect anything different in the rematch this weekend. DeSoto is a new opponent for Ozone this year, but the Atlanta squad shouldn’t have any problems handling the women from Nashville.

The second-place bracket could get a little ugly. Phoenix and DeSoto look like the most likely candidates to end up playing in the game-to-go. They haven’t seen each other this year, but they do have a common opponent in Tabby Rosa. Both teams beat Tabby and by pretty similar margins. Assuming the math plays out, it should be an evenly matched contest. Outside their leadership, this year’s Phoenix squad is largely much younger and less experienced than teams past, leaving open the possibility of DeSoto pulling off the upset.

The last time a Raleigh women’s team didn’t make it to Nationals? 1997. Stay tuned to this one. The game to go starts at 3:15 ET on Sunday. 

 

Southwest Women's Preview, by USA Ultimate

Format: 6 teams / 2 bids Pool Play – pool play; Sunday – final round of pool play, championship game and 2nd-place bracket

Pool A   Team Rank Sectionals  Fury 1 NCAL-n/a Nightlock 14 NCAL-n/a Viva 27 SCAL-1 Safari 19 SCAL-2 Tempo 37 SCAL-3 Venom n/a SCAL-4

What is there to say about Fury? They have won seven consecutive national titles. The chances they won’t claim the first bid out of the Southwest probably sit somewhere in the realm of .01 percent. 

As for the rest of the field, Nightlock looks like the strongest candidate to accompany Fury on the much-shorter-than-normal trip to Nationals. Nightlock would be making their second-straight appearance at the big show. They broke seed in a big way and finished 10th in Sarasota last year. They’ll be hoping to improve on that performance this year. Their 2013 record may not look great, but they’ve played good teams and done what they needed to do. They generally beat the teams they’re supposed to beat, which bodes well for them this weekend. 

Viva sits as the third seed headed into the weekend, and they don’t currently have any big wins to hang their hats on. They’ve bested the teams seeded below them but haven’t been able to topple a Nationals-caliber team so far this year, admittedly with few real chances. Their only encounter with Nightlock so far this year was early in the season, and it ended as a 6-15 loss.

Barring some major unforeseen circumstances, Fury and Nightlock should leave Arizona one-two on Sunday afternoon without much difficulty. 
 

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