USA Ultimate

Once again on Sunday in Appleton, Wisconsin for the D3 College Open Championships, play was dictated by the heavy winds. But one team was able to subdue them, and that was Carleton College-GOP. By taming the winds, the Gods of Plastic were able to reach the finals undefeated and largely unchallenged to that point after winning Pool B in Saturday’s play. To get to the finals, they first powered through regional rival St. John’s by starting the game on a 3-0 run, and then taking down Pool C winner North Park in the semi-finals. Event Website

Finals 

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In the finals, they met the Puget Sound Postmen, who defeated the two other pool winners to get there. While the game against Lewis & Clark wasn’t as close, their game against Rice in the semi-finals came down to one point with the Postmen coming out on top. As the championship game began, the wind in Appleton started to pick up to harder gusts than seen at any other point during the two days of play – ensuring that the game would be decided on a team’s ability to grab an upwind break. Even in the heavy wind, each team was able to break the other twice, as the game was tied at 12 with Puget Sound receiving the disc for a downwind point. Rhys Lindmark and Jon Issac for GOP closed off the very patient upwind break by Carleton after a Puget Sound miscue, and one more break would give them the 14-12 victory.

All weekend long, Carleton won their games because they had the best upwind throws across a multitude of players, and thus were able to more readily break their opponents than other teams were. But Puget Sound shutdown the Carleton handler movement, and forced them into some uncomfortable hucks that caused problems at first. After adjustments were made, GOP – and especially the core of Lindmark, Issac, Will Gagne-Maynard and Cory Fauver – came back and won the DIII Open Championship.

Other observations:

• A lot of the teams stayed and filled the stands and the sidelines to watch the finals. That was great to see, especially at the end of the game when they all really got into what was going on regardless of how their weekend ended.
   
• Puget Sound played two thrilling games back to back, first in semifinals and then in finals. Ky Lewis, a d-line handler for the Postmen, was a big reason why they were able to recover from the 2 GOP breaks against them early in the game.

PHOTO CREDIT: Brandon Wu, Ultiphotos.com 

Day 2 Photos by Brandon Wu of UltiPhotos.com.

This preview was developed in conjunction with Skyd Magazine's coverage of the 2012 Division III College Championships.