USA Ultimate

2010 USA Ultimate Club Championships
Mixed Division - Day 1 

By : Matt Spillum, special to usaultimate.org
 
The sun worked hard to break through a heavy mist as the teams rolled onto Sarasota Polo Club’s dew-silvered fields. At least, those that were there: several teams were short of a full roster thanks to inclement weather across both the Midwest and South. Iowa’s Scientific Method was down to perhaps 14-16 players as the day opened. Conditions and travel challenges aside, this season’s Mixed Division was already looking fairly wide open, with several of the top teams looking like real contenders. I would have put the field of legit threats at maybe five or six. By the end of this first day of Club Championships, that range might seem conservative.
 
The first round opened with few real surprises. Number one overall seed, Boston’s Slow White, seemed to roar out to an early lead over Philadelphia’s AMP. Slow White displayed a deliberate, controlled offense and athletic D to take a big first half lead at 8-6, and seemed to open their rotation in the second half as they overcame a solid effort by AMP, notably Kevin McCormick. In pool A’s other game, Central region competitors Overhaul, from Ann Arbor, and Iowa City’s Scientific Method squared off. The two squads kept it fairly close in the early going, with Overhaul getting an early break at 3-1 and trading points to half. Method’s low numbers seemed to wear on them as the game went into the second half, and their high-risk, high-reward long game began to tilt to the risk side. While they were able to make decent use of hucks to their women, they could not outmatch the solid D of Overhaul’s James Highsmith and Jules Cooch, or Kaiser Shen on O.
 
In pool B, New Haven’s District 5 met Los Angeles’ L.A. Metro in a game of runs. Both teams seemed tentative early on, with unforced errors on both sides. District 5 was converting early, running to 3-0, before Metro brought it as close as 6-5. Still, District 5 pulled away after that despite giving the Angelinos many opportunities. As L.A. Metro’s Barrs Lang put it, “we are just not converting on their turns.” That issue kept them from making a comeback, and District 5 notched their first win of the tournament. Castro Valley, CA’s Polar Bears and Texas’ Dirty Birds met in the other pool B first round game, also marked by unforced errors and jittery offense. Polar Bears managed to get a little breathing room by half, going to the break leading 8-5, but the Dirty Birds zone look bought them a new lease on the game as they crept to 13-11. The magic was short lived, however, and the Polar Bears would take the last two points of the game.
 
Pool C’s top seed, Atlanta’s Bucket, started the day against Tucson’s Barrio. Bucket looked more composed than most of the teams in the first round, and they took an early lead with an efficient long game and solid D. Adrienne Tecza of Bucket stood out on the defensive end, and helped Bucket cruise to the first round win. The Bay Area’s Mischief and Raleigh-Durham’s wHagonweel, on the other hand, seemed to want to get the most out of the time the round offered. Both teams started out a little out of sync on O, while the D lines feasted on errant throws and hesitant cuts. As the game went into cap, both teams kept trading, never up by more than one. After wHagonweel took a 13-12 lead on a Beth Gifford hand block and score, Mischief managed to bring it level, setting up double game point. Mischief’s Andi Coleman responded in the clutch, getting the deep D to set herself up for a game-winning assist to Kyle Smith to take the game.
 
Pool D held very little drama in the first round. Twin Cities’ Drag’n Thrust went long early and often against Dallas’ Conspiracy Theory. The first half was a very controlled affair, with Drag’n keeping the disc on lockdown while capitalizing on every Conspiracy Theory error. While the rotation widened a bit in the second half, the outcome was never in doubt, and the Minnesotans opened their Club Championships with a solid win. In the other game, Ames, IA’s Chad Larson Experience faced off against Montreal’s Snowbirds. This game habit of intrigue, as Snowbirds was comprised of the cream of RIP and Onyx, the latter of which lost to CLX in the finals at 2010 WFDF Worlds in Prague. Both teams followed the first round’s rich tradition of many turnovers and sloppy play, but the Snowbirds simply were unable to capitalize on many of their opponent’s mistakes. As the game wore on, the level of play improved overall, but by then Chad Larson Experience had built enough of a cushion to ride out the round.
 
Round Two
Slow White and Scientific Method were a contrast of styles in their second round game. Slow White continued their strong, steady play, wearing out the short-rostered Iowans. “They’re tired, which makes their long game a little spotty,” Slow White’s Steve Sullivan told me, “and we’re just working it.” Scientific Method’s Sara Francis, noting their missing teammates, said “we have thirteen people at Nationals on the first day… but we’re still having fun.” The Overhaul/AMP match looked to be a bit closer, but Overhaul took control early and held on. AMP’s D was often caught over-committing to the under cut, opening up a long game that was hard for them to stop. As the game wore on, Overhaul was able to get a lot of short turns from the frustrated Philadelphia side, and they cruised to a comfortable win.
 
District 5 and Dirty Birds started with the Connecticut team staked to a fair early lead. Still, the Birds made a run near half to keep it interesting. District 5 never seemed to want to establish themselves in this game, and kept giving Dirty Birds opportunities to creep back in, until finally putting the game out of reach. Polar Bears and L.A. Metro played a very tight game, with lots of long throws from both sides. Metro missed the injured Keegan Uhl in this game, especially as the Polar Bears made a late five-point run at 9-8 to put the game away.
 
After giving Mischief one heck of a game in the first round, wHagonweel faced a confident and rested Bucket team. Early on, that confidence and rest seemed destined to pay off big, as the Atlanta side rode the stellar efforts of Sam Gainer and Victor Wu, among others. “They (Bucket) like their deep game, and we haven’t found ours yet,” said wHagonweel’s Katie Irons. The second half brought them some hint of it, though, and wHagonweel fought to bring the game to 11-9 before fading in the stretch. Mischief and Barrio was another nip and tuck affair that went to the wire. Barrio got superior play from Jen Pashley and Simrit Khalsa in this back and forth game, while Adam Levanthal, Jen Schmerling and Justin Safdie all stood out for Mischief. After Barrio knotted the game at 12-12, Mischief was able to answer and get one more break, which, as the round wound down, was to prove decisive.
 
Drag’n Thrust and Snowbirds began with a few traded points, both sides looking relatively smooth on O and still sizing the other out on D. Taking a 2-1 lead after an Audrey St-Arnaud layout catch and assist to Hugo Lefrançois, Snowbirds looked to be emerging from the funk of the first round. The deep and athletic machine that is Drag’n Thrust had other ideas, however, and the Minnesota D began getting the breaks they were hunting for to take half 8-3. The second half offered more of the same, with Drag’n Thrust able to put the game away handily. Chad Larson Experience and Conspiracy Theory started similarly, with both teams cruising on O, until an early break. CLX, like their Central rivals on the next field, was able to ride their D line to a comfortable win.
 
Over the course of the first two rounds, the heat and humidity were paired with a stifling lack of wind that opened up a lot of teams’ long games. This would not last, and the afternoon brought a steady and occasionally stiff breeze that had many tired teams scrambling to adapt. Slow White and Overhaul, however, had consistently been two of the steadiest teams out here. Both used deep rotations, dynamic possession offences and intense, athletic D to cruise through their early games. Matched up against each other, the teams played one of the closest matches I’d seen in quite some time. Time and again, one team would get a D, only to be answered immediately by the other team. These teams shared another similarity with each other: they used their women extremely well. Kim Sabo, Jules Cooch and Becky Malinowski on Overhaul and Lauren Gloede, Christina Kelley and Liz Hand for Slow White were all major factors in this game, though they were not the only women to feature heavily here. The teams fought to 15-15, before Overhaul put away the final two points to emerge as pool A winners. AMP and Scientific Method were both far more troubled by the wind, and Method used their zone to contain and confuse AMP’s offensive flow. The game remained close until AMP finally “worked it up through the middle better and played like we were supposed to,” in the words of AMP sideline stat-keeper Rachel White. Too, Method looked to wear down after a long day of playing short-handed, though they certainly kept the result respectable, and looked to do better once their missing teammates arrive for tomorrow’s games.
 
District 5 faced Polar Bears for the bragging rights to pool B, and this one was a bit one-sided. All day long, District 5 seemed unable, or unwilling, to put their stamp on games. Polar Bears, meanwhile, had a far looser, less tentative feel to their overall game. As the wind became a factor, “we put on our zone and went up a few points… Our zone O looked good too, getting better each point,” said Polar Bears’ AJ Shankar. As District 5 struggled to gain purchase on the game, Polar Bears stayed patient and fluid, taking the game, and the upset, with a Michael Liu to Lisa Pitcaithley score. L.A. Metro and Dirty Birds both had shown flashes of their potential all day, coming up short against the more fancied sides in the pool. Once again, the last round wind was a bit of factor, as Dirty Birds tried to find an offensive groove, and L.A. Metro began establishing a tough D presence. “We are making fewer mistakes this game…we’re handling the wind well,” said Metro coach Frankie Rho.
 
Mischief and Bucket did not go to the wire in the same way that Mischief’s previous games had, but long points with many turnovers did push the result to the cap. Early on, Bucket ran off several breaks and seemed to be comfortably in control at 6-1. At that point, a long huck was D’d by a Bucket player, only to fall into the hands of Mischief’s Adam Brown. Mischief pushed to get some momentum in the game, while Bucket would answer each Mischief run with a couple points of their own. Both teams seemed unable to find a reliable rhythm in the second half, with Bucket content to maintain their lead and take their pool. All day long, wHagonweel had lurked close to the higher seeds in their pool, and, in a weary Barrio team, they seemed to find their moment. The growing wind fed their opportunistic D, and, after a Drew Moore-to-Jordan-Moore connection, the North Carolina team had the break they needed. Though Barrio stayed close, wHagonweel was able to keep adding a break here and there to win the game and take the pool’s third spot.
 
The Central region rivals Drag’n Thrust and Chad Larson Experience met to decide pool D’s winner, and the game did not disappoint. Both of these teams are strong, athletic sides with a taste for intense D and big throws. Coming into the day, the two teams had scarcely seen each other all season, and both were ready to give this game their all. Trading points and getting few breaks all game, both teams went to their big guns often. Drag’n Thrust’s Alex Baker and Mike Petersen and CLX’s Kevin Seiler filled the air with big throws. The defense, notably Melissa Gibbs for CLX and Robyn Fennig for Drag’n Thrust, made every cut and throw an adventure. All the way to the wire, these teams battled it out, with the game coming down to a few late errors that gave CLX the victory and the pool. Conspiracy Theory and Snowbirds each came to the last game of the day looking for a little validation. Both had difficulty establishing any kind of consistent game against their opponents, and, with fatigue and wind picking up, both had figure they had a shot. The game remained close to 4-4, when a Mathieu Bordeleou D gave Snowbirds the first break. Conspiracy Theory went to a zone D to stem the flow, but the Montreal team looked more comfortable in the wind regardless, taking half 8-5. The second half would be more of the same, as the Texans could never take advantage of Snowbirds’ errors, giving the Canadian team their first win in Sarasota.
 
With the shakeup of three one seeds falling to two seeds, Friday’s power pools look to be a wild ride. Any of the top eight teams could realistically be said to have a shot at the title, and it remains to be seen whether either play-in pool will broaden that further. Friday’s action is wide open enough that there are unlikely to be any easy games in the power pools at all. Check in tomorrow as we see how 2010 Mixed Club Championships shapes up.