USA Ultimate

Open Division Southwest Regionals Recap

Event recap by Asuza Pacific assistant coach James Erdmann, as a part of our 2013 Regionals coverage.

The Southwest Regional Tournament certainly lived up to the hype of being an exciting and unpredictable weekend of ultimate. Sixteen teams from California and Arizona headed to Santa Barbara in hopes of earning one of the two bids afforded the region for the College Championships.

Pool Play

Pool play went pretty much as expected on Saturday. Stanford, California-Davis and Arizona cruised to the top of their brackets and into the semifinals. California-Santa Cruz snagged the other semifinal spot due to point differential, after they finished out pool play with a 2-1 record and in a three-way tie with Las Positas and California-San Diego.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was Chico State, who came in seeded 12th and finished 7th. 

The Championship

California-Davis and Arizona faced off for the right to head straight to Madison. The loser would still be alive, but would have to win in the backdoor final to earn the second bid. Davis got their first lead at 3-2 and never looked back. The Arizona offensive line struggled most of the game to get by the Davis zone defense. Davis, on the other hand, executed a very crisp zone offense. They could have gone up big in the middle of the game had it not been for two goal-line turnovers in consecutive points.  Arizona tied the game at nines late, but Davis scored three straight points to win this sloppy but very exciting game.

Backdoor Bracket

In the game to go to the game to go, Stanford and California-Santa Cruz were tied at eights, battling for the chance to face Arizona to claim the second bid to Nationals. Then Stanford went on a 7-0 run, crushing the Slugs’ chance of going to Madison.

Stanford continued their momentum in their game against Arizona. Led by Ben Funk and Phil Brodrick, the Blood Thirsty O-line was making easy work of Arizona’s defense. Sunburn wouldn’t go away, and behind the hucks of Brice Dixon and the cutting of Jacob Lien and Nolan Schmalenberger, they battled back to tie the game at 8-8. Tyler Boyd-Meredith and Funk worked the chilliest of zone offenses, and Jordan Marcy made big plays on both sides of the disc for Stanford. Arizona’s man defense forced a couple of turns late, and Sunburn found themselves up 11-9. But Stanford would not go away. With "We all we got, we all we need" as their battle cry, they tied it up at 11s. With the soft cap on and a game to 13, it looked like it could be anyone’s game.

Arizona had already overcome a big deficit, and at one point it seemed that maybe Stanford had exerted too much effort in the second half of their previous game against the Slugs. The next point, which turned out to be the last, was a microcosm of the entire weekend and the Southwest region in general. It was not the cleanest ultimate, which led to the point lasting into the hard cap, but it was exciting, fast-paced action that was fun to watch. After several turns from both sides, Lien threw a 10-yarder for the win and punched Sunburn’s ticket to Madison.

Outlook

Based on their rankings, neither California-Davis nor Arizona should win Nationals. But based on their rankings, neither team should be going to Nationals, either. Both teams have the experience and talent to compete against anyone in the country. We’ll see how it all plays out in a couple of weeks.