USA Ultimate

		2011 Club Championship Day 2 Recaps: Masters Recap (Spillum) Mixed Recap (Ziv) Open Recap (Toner) Women's Recap (Levine)

 

Parity in Ultimate is a difficult thing to gauge from year to year. One lesson from Thursday was that the Masters division was going to be a hard slog for everyone. On any given game, any team might be able to dig deep and overachieve. Similarly, every team had the ability to put themselves in a hole with just a few miscues. As Friday began, this held true, with the final two rounds of pool play proving that there were no sure ways to advance, save for winning the game you’re in. 

[PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Canniff, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]

Friday’s action opened in a light mist, with rain ebbing and flowing over the course of the day. The weather was really not the story, though, as sore legs and aching backs were stretched and pulled and rolled out onto every sideline. The points logged in Thursday’s heat had obviously told on a few rosters. Tejas in particular was warming up gingerly, having few players looking one hundred percent. Still, the Texans started their first game against Chesapeaked strong, taking half 8-5 on a Jason Conrad throw to John "John-Boy" Grzywinski. Chesapeaked was not finished, however, and the continuing wear and tear put increasing numbers of Tejas players out of action. Knotted at sixteen, Patrick Vennebush hit Geyer Jones to complete the comeback for Chesapeaked. Another short roster, Beyondors, bolstered by the late arrival of JD Lobue and Buzz Ellsworth, struggled to contain a deep and solid Surly roster in the first game, and looked sluggish in their second game against No Country. Battling back from 9 to 11, Beyondors came back in a tense, gritty game to pull out the win to seal second place in the pool. Pool A finished out: Surly, Beyondors, Tejas, and a resurgent Wheelchair, who "after going 0-3 yesterday, decided maybe we do care," according to Idris Nolan. The renewed commitment to playing hard paid off, and they rode two victories to the last spot in the quarters.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Canniff, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]

The trials and travails of matchups really manifested in pool B, where three teams would finish the day 2-3. Only Boneyard came out unfazed in the pool, riding big contributions from their deep roster to finish on top. Following a morning win over Chalant, Reckon faced a DoG team that needed a win to finish second in the pool. A loss, on the other hand, would leave DoG on the outside looking in from fifth place. Though Reckon was already assured a quarterfinal berth, Reckon would not look to go easy here, looking at this as, in the words of Dan Konisky, "any other game." They used that concept to go up fast, taking half 8-3, and holding off a desperate DoG push to win and take second. The win, combined with a Chalant loss to Boneyard and Real Huck’s victory over Old Style, left it to point differential to separate the teams from third to fifth. That made the top four teams from B as: Boneyard, Reckon, Real Huck, and Chalant, leaving us with the following quarterfinal matchups: Surly vs. Chalant, Reckon vs. Tejas, Real Huck vs. Beyondors, and Boneyard vs. Wheelchair.

[PHOTO CREDIT: Brandon Wu, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]

• While teams like Tejas and Beyondors looked to be coming into the quarters tired and gimpy, the adrenaline burst of quarters looked like a serious factor in how the games played out, with Tejas managing to tie their game with Reckon at tens on a picture perfect greatest score from Patrick Mackie to Kevin Gaffney. This seemed to set the bar for Reckon, however, and they would pull out the next five points to take the spot in the semis. "Our O line just started making a lot of tired mistakes," said Tejas’ Calvin Lin.

 

• Beyondors, meanwhile, ground out an intense win over a much deeper Real Huck team. After getting down 9-7, Beyondors began to cover the unders tighter, and looked to take away the quick catch and throw strategy Real Huck had employed to success earlier. "Everyone got closer, and we took away the short game after they stopped looking upfield," said JD Lobue.

 

• Chalant’s long game and all-around intensity gave Surly everything they could handle for much of their game. Solid play from Tom Perry and Will Sutton kept Chalant in the mix. At 10-9, Surly’s Dan Rydel noted, "We just need to convert two breaks here." These words would prove prophetic, and Surly would surge ahead late for the win.

 

• Don’t call it a comeback… Wheelchair completed their return from the abyss with a resounding win over an out-of-sync and uncharacteristically sloppy Boneyard. While both teams struggled to control the disc for extended periods, the 2010 finalists looked tense early, and several unforced errors saw them down 13-8 to Wheelchair. While they brought themselves within striking distance at 14-12, it was not to be, and the trendy early tournament favorites went on to win it. Andrew Lugsdin put the difference down to "playing harder after yesterday’s wake up call. Each game, we get a little more familiar, and get a little better."

 

• Players to watch in tomorrow’s semis include: Reckon’s John Riddle and Rex Taylor, Surly’s Sam "Hummer" Rosenthal and Sky Davey, Wheelchair’s Ron Kubalanza and Chris Coco, and Beyondors’ Brandon Steets and Greg Husak.
   

[PHOTO CREDIT: Brandon Wu, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]