USA Ultimate

		2012 Club Championship Previews: Masters Preview (Spillum)   Mixed Preview (Ziv) Pool A Pool B Pool C Pool D Seven to Watch Dark Horse Upset Watch Games to Watch Inside Look Open Preview (Buonaccorsi) Women's Preview (Ericksen)

Mixed Scoreboard
 

Pool A

	Polar Bears	Overhaul	Bucket	Cosa Nostra
The pool with last year’s silver medalists is guaranteed to have some exciting games, with the one seed fighting off the target on their backs. Still, it’s unlikely that the other teams will unseat the Bears, but between the three, anything can happen. The fight will be for the second spot in the pool.

 

Pool B

	The Ghosts	Odyssée	7 Figures	AMP
The Ghosts are looking forward to a few exciting games in this pool. First, they’ll have to face 7 Figures at 9:30 AM on Thursday. Last year, The Ghosts faced the same exact situation (first round vs. LA) at the Club Championships in 2011, but lost. This year, they’re looking to start off hot, avenging that loss and moving on to win the pool. The team with the best chance of unseating them is regional rival Odyssée, so make sure to keep an eye on Thursday’s third round.

 

Pool C

	Chad Larson Experience	Mischief	Blackbird	Wild Card
Pool C features the best second vs. third spot matchup of the pools in Mischief vs. Blackbird. Not only are these two regional rivals but Blackbird will have to win this game to secure the easiest route to a repeat gold. Chad Larson Experience will be doing all they can to fend these two off, and unfortunately for Wild Card it’s unlikely they will finish over fourth in this pool.

 

Pool D

	Drag'n Thrust	Slow White	American BBQ	Mental Toss Flycoons
Pool D is likely to see some upsets. Mental Toss Flycoons come in as the fourth seed but are relatively unknown compared to many of these teams. They didn’t perform exceptionally well yet took the first spot out of the competitive Northwest. On the other hand, both Drag’n Thrust and Slow White have been dominating the regular season with similarly impressive results. American BBQ is stuck in the middle – on a good day, they could beat either of the two above. It would be futile to try and predict this pool.

Seven To Watch

Simon Higgins Polar Bears		Higgins is a new pickup for the Polar Bears this year, and has been a significant asset on both offense and defense making huge plays in the air.
Paige Kercher Polar Bears		Kercher is a solid handler for the Bears. Look for her to put up some huge throws and get open at will as a dump option.
Veronique Ellyson Odyssée		Ellyson is athletic and aggressive, frequently coming up with discs that seem uncatchable.
Kurt Brorsen CLX		As the top goal scorer and one of the top with assists at the US Open, Brorsen serves as a powerful force for the Chad Larson Experience offense.
Michael Miller Slow White		Miller is a consistent player for Slow White, with excellent break mark throws and hucks, he makes watching Slow White exciting.
Megan Insco The Ghosts		Insco makes it incredibly hard to keep up as she runs opponents into the all over the field, seeming to get open at a whim.
Jenny Wang Mischief		Wang is one of the fastest women in the division. Look for her to bring down a lot of deep shots for Mischief.

Dark Horse

As the six seed, Mischief is going to have to do some hard work to move into the Semis. They’ll likely have to face off against last year’s silver medalist, and definitely prove they can take down last year’s Champion, Blackbird. Their chances improve significantly if they can take down Chad Larson Experience in pool play, and if they can prevent any extra games by staying out of prequarters. Their strategy relies heavily on deep shots that are usually less likely to connect than working multiple under throws. Yet if they can make the completion rates on the hucks high percentage enough they’ll secure a solid shot at making it out of Semis.

Upset Watch

 

The Ghosts will have to stay focused in the first round of the tournament to prevent a repeat of last year’s upset by 7 Figures.

Chad Larson Experience is going to face a tough opponent in last year’s Champion, Blackbird. CLX is going to have to stay mentally strong versus an experienced Blackbird roster.

 

Game To Watch

Drag'n Thrust v Slow White: Drag’n Thrust and Slow White have traded wins over the season. Slow’s biggest struggle has been to keep up athletically with opponents, but at this point in the season they’re in peak shape and could take a strong lead in Thursday’s third round game that Drag’n won’t recover from.

Watch the Polar Bears vs Bucket FREE live stream (1st half stream, 2nd half stream)
 

Inside Look

• Last year many teams came together as a collection of Open and Women’s players in light of a chance to go to Worlds. Though there isn’t a Worlds competition to fight for this year, many of these teams stuck together. If you’re used to following the Open and Women’s divisions, keep an eye on Blackbird and The Ghosts in particular for some familiar faces.
   
• The restructuring of the bid allocation system allowed the Southwest to secure 5 bids to Nationals. The Southwest College Women’s region also secured 5 bids, though none of those teams made it out of quarter finals in Boulder. The Club Mixed Southwest is sure to end up different.
   
• Though this is in their bio, this statistic is simply amazing and worth sharing twice: Slow White has qualified for nationals eight consecutive times, and only finished outside of the top eight once. 
   
• Social Media + Sarasota = Almost every team in this division is on Twitter! American BBQ is the odd man out – but you can likely follow their games by paying attention to their opponents. (By seed: @PBRawr, @TheGhosts_, @dkarsten5, @dragNthrust, @SlowWhite_ , @Mischief_Nation, @OdysseeUltimate, @Overhaultimate, @ATLBucket, @LA7Figures, @BlackbirdUlti, @Flycoons, @WildCardUlt, @PhillyAMP, @CosaNostraFris)  
   
• Thanks to ulti-blogger Sludge, we have a breakdown by age of each team. Can you guess who is the oldest? The youngest? Check out this post for more info.