USA Ultimate

2010 USA Club Championships
Day Four Recap, October 31
Mixed Division

By: Matthew Spillum, special to usaultimate.org

Note: Errata from yesterday’s report… at one point, this reporter misidentified Polar Bears as Mischief and also called Polar Bears the sixth overall seed and not the seventh. I deeply apologize for the error, and regret any confusion or annoyance that may have caused.

One thing that can be said for a division as even and tightly matched as the Mixed this year is that any given game could go either way. If anyone had suggested to me after Thursday play that our finalists would be District 5 and Polar Bears, I would have laughed, perhaps out loud. While both teams had some good wins, they never really looked as dominant as you’d expect a finals team to be. Polar Bears exploited D5’s daylong malaise in the last game of the day, but had looked ordinary for long stretches of their other games. District 5, meanwhile, had, by their own standards, been "jogging for some points," in the words of captain John Korver. Friday’s results were also uneven, with each team pulling out a gritty win along with a difficult loss. On Saturday, however, our finalists seemed to put it all together. District 5 looked every bit the team that they wanted to be, finally putting consistent effort on the field for whole games, while Polar Bears rather stealthy game began seeming less inconsistent and more like a team that just found ways to win games.

Polar Bears captain Greg Marliave, when asked how the team was going to get themselves ready to take the title, noted that, "it is heart and determination. We’ve been making plays and have been fortunate to come out on top. We’ve done really well to prepare for games; we were the first team out at the fields, getting ourselves ready to play. We feel that we have people who have been in big games before, and the hard work we put in early in the year, our tough track workouts, really showed in the second half of games. All year, we’ve felt that tired teams make mistakes, so we want to still have energy late in big games." District 5’s John Korver, on his team’s preparations: "this game should not be that different for us as far as getting ready. We have to keep fighting down moments, and keep our energy up every point. The key for us is getting a good warm up in, and then bringing our best game every point."

As the teams prepared to play, clouds began to gather and the wind made occasional appearances. Milder temps and flickering winds made for a more comfortable day of ultimate. Polar Bears prepared to pull from the south end zone, and the game began. An early long shot to Brandon Redding opened the scoring account on a Zac Roy throw for District 5. Both teams looked long early, trying to open up the field with their big throws and athletic receivers. Liz Middleton of D5 with a D deep gave D5 a chance to break, but An-Chi Tsou answered with a D of her own. Wind picking up, both teams had a hard time getting their long looks dialed. Bob Liu dove to get yet another D. After a few more turns, David "Robot" Naruo hit An-Chi Tsou for the tie. Even with the wind, Polar Bears responded with another match up look, and both teams turned on more long throws, struggling to get the disc in the end zone, until Brandon Redding found Justin Segool for District 5. Both sides traded difficult turns in the early going, either throwing away or sending discs into the teeth of the D. Polar Bears took the first upwind break, with Clay Miller hitting Emma Dobyns with a high release break mark to make it 2-1. District 5 certainly was not shy about putting discs high and into the wind, despite the difficulty. Greg Marliave to Ernst Westphal gave Polar Bears the second break of the game, and those D5 risks began to loom larger. Greg Marliave capped yet another break after finding a streaking An-Chi Tsou upwind on a perfectly placed huck, to make it 5-2. Following a time out, District 5’s Brandon Redding involved himself yet again, sending an upwind huck to Justin Segool to bring one back, 5-3. District 5 got themselves their first break after a short Polar Bears turn gave Chris Mazur the opportunity to send a long put to John Korber to bring them back to within one. But Polar Bears would stem the bleeding with a short toss from Bob Liu to Lucas Dallman. District 5 answered, and gave themselves a chance to get the crucial upwind break back, and Alex Marrone layed out to bring in the Chris Mazur throw to knot it up at 6-6. A John Korber D gave D5 yet another chance at a break, and Chris Mazur found Korber for the score to bring it back on serve at 7-6. But Bob Liu sent a three-quarter field huck to Robert Gormley to tie the game for Polar Bears, next point taking half. Polar Bears got the turn, worked into the wind and called a time out on the upwind goal line. On the reset, Greg Marliave found Robert Gormley to take the upwind break, the point and half, 8-7.

After honoring our individual Spirit Award winners and the team Spirit Award winner, Barrio (congratulations, by the way), we were ready to get going. Second half opened with Polar Bears receiving and going downwind. Within a couple throws, Daniel Naruo hauled in a long throw and found Elijah Kerns to extend the lead 9-7. District 5 responded to Polar Bears going zone by turning on the upwind goal line, and Polar Bears scored immediately to make it 10-7. Polar Bears’ zone clearly gave D5 trouble. The teams traded turns, but District 5 was able to score upwind, Zac Roy to Justin Segool. Polar Bears responded using the entire width of the field, working the disc quickly until Bob Liu tracked down a Lucas Dallman pass upwind to keep their lead, 11-8. The zone came again, and D5 turned on the sideline. Polar Bears worked the disc close to the end zone, and Adam Raty found An-Chi Tsou for yet another break. District 5 answered downwind, but the clock seemed to be ticking a bit loud. A Matty Sung D gave the opportunity for Alexa Kirkland to get a nice score from AJ Shankar, and Polar Bears pulled ahead. Working quickly downwind against the zone, D5 got another Brandon Redding to Justin Segool score to pull one back. District 5 goes to a zone look, and Polar Bears work it well, until a low throw hits the ground on a bid. But, getting the disc back quickly, the Polar Bears managed to get a Bob Liu to David Naruo score, and sat one point away from the Club Championship. Polar Bears went match up for the point, staying tight to their cutters, but D5 managed to get a huck from Brandon Redding to Rafe Steinhauer to make the score 14-11. Polar Bears sruck quickly with a long, arcing throw from Lucas Dallman to Daniel Naruo on an eye-popping layout catch that he just managed to get a toe in bounds for, giving the Polar Bears the 2010 Club Championship.

Following the game, I asked District 5 captain John Korber about building a team to get to the final in the first year: "really, any team should start with trying to play better every point, every game, every tournament. Looking at it like that, I think the team we were in March would have to say that this was a good season. We just got outplayed; even when we scored, we had to work really hard. Not that they weren’t working hard, but they made it look easy."

Polar Bears captains An-Chi Tsou and Greg Marliave broke down the key points of the game thus: (Marliave) "we told ourselves the point right before half was a crucial one, really important point to take that break back. We just put a line out there, and they got us the disc and converted." (Tsou, on the use of zone in the second half): "we knew we wanted to go zone, but we had played them in pool play and we knew they would be expecting it. Also, everyone was so amped before the game, so we wanted to use that energy for man. Once we had them expecting that, though, we went to the zone in the second half."

Once again, I’d like to thank all of our Mixed Division teams: you all were so accommodating and fun to work with. You make this job a joy every time. Also, congratulations to this year’s Mixed Club Champions, Polar Bears, of Castro Valley, CA!