2014 Masters Championships - Day 1 Recap
Posted: July 18, 2014 03:58 PM
Day one of the 2014 Masters Championships is in the books. Teams returned to the historic and hot, steamy fields at the Sarasota Polo Club in Sarasota, Fla., with eyes on a national title in one of three divisions: men’s masters, women’s masters and grandmasters.
Men’s Masters
The story of the day in the men’s masters division is rooted right in Florida. Woolly Mammoth started the day seeded ninth, but they quickly disproved that theory. They defeated Surly in the first round 14-8. Admittedly, Surly is not the same team everyone has come to expect over the last several years. A large portion of their roster stayed at home in Minneapolis this weekend thanks to the impending travel for Worlds. But Woolly kept on rolling after their first game and took down eighth-seeded Crawl in the second round with a similarly convincing score, 14-9.
"We knew Surly would be a tough game," said Woolly Mammoth’s Jimmy Price. "We have great respect for them and their history. If we played our game and limited the turnovers we thought we could beat them. We don’t think we have played up to our regionals level which included games against Boneyard and Reckon. The field is pretty much wide open with Tejas, Reckon and Horse being the front runners. We think if we play well we can be right in the mix with them."
Elsewhere in the division, Tejas held tight to their second-overall seed with convincing wins over Ra and FoG. In the third round, up against Washington, D.C.’s Black Cans & Highlands – their fellow 2-0 team in Pool B – Tejas squeaked out a 13-12 win to cement themselves as the pool’s top seed and earn a bye into the quarterfinals tomorrow morning.
Third-seeded Reckon also looked strong and, as expected, like a team to keep an eye on during tomorrow’s championship bracket. Reckon is an old team with a new look in 2014. They finished sixth in Denver last year and retooled this season for their trip to Sarasota. The additions of current Ironside and former Chain Lightning handler Josh Markette and longtime Ring of Fire/Boneyard stalwart Robbye Brooks, plus the return of U-23 National Team coach Martin Aguilera make this a dynamic team with enough high-level experience to battle any comers in Sarasota.
Just to keep things interesting, the Bay Area’s BAM! pulled out a last-round 13-9 win over fourth-seeded Horse to move above them in Pool D.
"It was tough," said BAM!’s Bhavin Parikh. "We got a few lucky breaks (and managed to not get broken), and they had a small roster. But it was well-fought both ways."
With BAM!’s win and the Surly loss, the top four initial seeds are all on the same side of the championship bracket. Assuming Surly and Horse advance through the pre-quarterfinals tomorrow morning, we’ll see 3 v. 4 and 1 v. 2 match ups in the quarterfinals at 11:00 a.m.
Women’s Masters
Ripe for a title, perhaps? The North Carolinians were a convincing one seed on Friday. They opened the weekend with a 15-3 victory over fellow Southerners the Atlantiques and, after a second-round bye they used to work on their hacky sack skills, Ripe continued to roll with a 15-5 win over the DC MadDames.
Ripe’s Heather Ann Brauer noted, "It was exciting to be back in Sarasota for many of us. This has been a great opportunity for us to come together as a community of seasoned veterans and newly minted masters players from the Triangle ultimate scene. We warmed up early and had a great showing on our first day, improving as a group throughout and having fun all the while! We look forward to the rest of the weekend ripening in the Florida sun!"
First thing tomorrow morning, Ripe will face Cincinnati’s Hot Flash, a team that surprised the field in the first round with a resounding 15-2 win over the MadDames. They started their second game of the day in a similar stride, taking a lead over the Twin Cities’ COUGARS, but they couldn’t hang on. The youthful COUGARS stormed back to take the win 12-9.
"We came out really well in our first game which surprised since we are a combo team," said Hot Flash’s Kristi Schmeling. "We found pockets of people that worked really well together, and we were able to use that to get us going. Came out very strong versus Atlanta and continued to gel as a team. Last game versus COUGARS was tough. We played well but just couldn’t capitalize on their turnovers. Looking forward to tomorrow’s games against Ripe and into the elimination rounds."
Hot Flash was one of the four teams in the women’s division to play three games on day one. It will be interesting to see if the Hot Flash ladies can take advantage of their extra on-field time to create strong chemistry before they run into Ripe in their last round of pool play.
By the time the third and final round of the day rolled around, no one was questioning that they were playing in Florida. Skyrocketing temperatures made athletes glad for the not-many-games-per-day format and to be finished for the day, free to spend some time on the beautiful beaches of Siesta Key. There was enough wind to require taking down the team tents, so while the breeze was a bit of a respite from the heat, the shade was no longer.
In Pool B, the top two seeds were scheduled to face off in the first round of the weekend; Philadelphia’s Loose Cannon quickly usurped Seattle Mint from the top spot with a 14-8 victory. Loose Cannon cemented themselves as the pool’s leader for the day with a second convincing win, this time 15-6 over tenth-seeded Phoenix Maul.
"It was clear teams were getting to know each other," commented the Loose Cannon leadership. "Half the challenge of this tournament is learning how to play with completely new teammates in a successful and supportive way over the course of only a handful of games."
Only the top three teams in each pool qualify for the championship bracket in the women’s division, and with two losses on the day, the overall two seed is going to need two wins and a little help tomorrow to stay in championship contention. They’ll face winless team Maul to start the day and finish out pool play against undefeated Yeehaw from Austin, Texas.
Grandmasters
The grandmasters division saw the least turnover in participating teams between 2013 and 2014 – 10 of the teams competing in Sarasota this weekend also made the trip to Denver last year – so the field should theoretically be easier to predict. After day one, that theory has held strong. For the most part, the teams that were supposed to win, won - in particular, the top seven seeds.
In Pool A, defending champions and overall one seed No Country was relatively untested on day one, coming away with two victories and an average margin of victory of 7.5 points. The same holds true for their fellow 2013 finalist Georgetown Brewing; they left the Sarasota Polo Club with two wins of their own and a 10-point average margin of victory.
The teams in the C and D Pools each had an extra game to play on day one, and still everything, save on flip flop in Pool D, held. Only the 12 and 13 seeds switched places after the Ozark Hillbillys defeated the Charred Guys 12-11 in the day’s final round.
The 14-team format makes the advancement scenarios a little wonky. In Pools A and B, the two pools with three teams a piece, all teams advance to tomorrow’s championship bracket with the top finisher earning a bye into the quarterfinals. For Pools C and D, the top three teams still advance, again with the top team receiving a bye into the quarterfinals, while the fourth-place finisher in each pool moves directly into the 11th-place bracket.
So far, it looks like we might see a repeat last year’s semifinals when the top four seeds took the top four spots.
Looking Ahead
So the championship brackets in the men’s masters and grandmasters divisions are set and will start first thing tomorrow, while the women’s masters teams will finish out pool play tomorrow morning and end the day with the quarterfinal round.
Check out the brackets and follow along here:
Editor's note: In tomorrow's recap we will be embedding the day's best tweets from competing teams, so snap some great photos and share some great moments with us to #mastersnats. We'll include a report card of your tweets, judging on reporting, photography, creativity, and hashtags.
Photos (by UltiPhotos)
Day 1 Highlight Gallery
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