USA Ultimate

Open Division Metro East Regionals Preview

New Digs

The Metro East has retained its name, but other than that has a whole new look. Gone are Pittsburgh, Georgetown, Delaware, Maryland, George Washington, and Pennsylvania, and in are Yale, Connecticut, Wesleyan and others. The only top team from 2010 that remains is Cornell.

The Cornell East Region?

A lot of people pencilled Cornell into their Nationals bracket as soon as USA Ultimate redrew the regional boundaries. After all, the closest that any of the remaining competition finished at 2010’s Metro East Regionals was NYU, who came in tied for 7th. Despite Cornell’s loss of 10 of 14 starters, the feeling around the country was that the experience left from last year’s run to the National Semifinal was too much for anyone to handle. Cornell has continued to seek out the best competition, attending Warm-Up and Easterns. Buds captain Alex Kadesch said,“We played against more competitive competition this year than we have in any previous season with the goal of improving throughout the season and peaking at Nationals.” Outside of the Buds, who else is there?

New Faces

With the exodus of teams from the old Metro East, there are quite a few new teams and new faces.  Connecticut, who has returned the bulk of their senior class, is looking to make noise in their first year.  NYU has built off of their past year’s success, and is now ranked in the region’s top four. SUNY-Buffalo and Rutgers have both forced their way into top eight contention after being unable to qualify in
previous years. Yale and Wesleyan have left the bottom dwellers of the old New England region and have arrived in the middle of the brawl. Teams like Syracuse, The College of New Jersey, and Princeton have their first opportunity in recent memories to compete at a regional level. The lone Canadian representation Queens-Kingston is back yet again, an old power house who qualified for the College Championships in 2005. Finally SUNY-Brockport, a team that started only a few years ago, was the last of the original qualifiers. With so many new teams, this weekend’s tournament is anything but predictable.

The D-III Impact

The Metro East has a large amount of D-III eligible schools. Half of the teams in this region are small schools, and the Hudson Valley Conference had more D-III teams than D-I. As a result, we’ve seen schools like Stevens Tech, Connecticut College, and Hamilton turn down D-I qualifying offers and choose to go the route towards Buffalo for D-III Nationals. Cornell-B, RIT, and SUNY-Albany were like the bubble teams during March-Madness, waiting for their respective spots to open up.

Hope, Optimism and an Opportunity

The most important thing coming out of teams’ mouths when I talk to them is that they are all hopeful. While Cornell is the battle tested favorite to book the trip to Boulder, every single team that finished at the top of their conference feels like they have a shot. At Queen City Tune-Up, the NYU sideline was filled with incredible optimism, saying “We want to go to Nationals”. Matt Turino of Connecticut said, “It is exciting that we actually have a shot at making it to Nationals this year.” It’s no different for the remaining top teams in the region: Buffalo played two hotly contested games against Connecticut in the fall and have blazed their way through the rest of the Western NY conference; Rutgers, Columbia, and NYU have battled through the regular season and at Conference Championships;
and Wesleyan has taken down some highly ranked New England teams on their road to Regionals while Yale has a win against Connecticut and a close loss to NYU. Also don’t discount The College of New Jersey, as they may just be waiting for the right opportunity to peak.

Players to Watch

If you haven’t gotten the chance to see the isolation moves by Alex Kadesh or the steady inside out break throws in the wind from Neil Butler and Brian Grundy, all of Cornell, you’re missing out. If you haven’t seen TCNJ’s Greg Owens leap horizontally through the air, you need to pay attention to the Metro East. Buffalo’s David Ferraro, who is described by others looks like a man who could be knocked over by a strong wind, uses his speed to get open deep while dynamic defensive handlers Zack Smith and Jon Bain do the dirty work to grind out wins. Connecticut brings its share of senior play makers in the towering Ben Weyers, central handler Kamil Skwarek, and Brian Varis, who provides the athletic spark. Should NYU end up deep in the tournament, you can bet that Husayn Carnegie will be making plays deep down the field. Yale’s Yuri Shandusky has been described by opponents as the man who can break the mark at will. And don’t forget about Columbia’s Milo Snyder, a 2008 Junior Words team member who leads a well disciplined crew as the 5th seed. Also, Rutgers may be the home of the Freshman of the Year in Scottie Xu, who already has four years of Ultimate experience coming into his rookie season.

One Game

Last year, Cornell finished 3rd in the nation. They are the two time regional champions. The Buds went to Easterns, while other teams have barely gotten in enough games to be sanctioned. By any statistic or ranking, Cornell is the favorite to be crowned first annual “New” Metro East champion. But none of that matters to the teams ranked below them, and Kadesch knows that. “This year we know we have a target on our back. We feel like we have something to prove to any team that thinks they can beat us.”

That target means that Cornell is going to get every other team’s best game. A question was raised earlier in the season: is the rest of the Metro East just vying for the game to go? No. Each of these teams believes that they can be the one to go the distance.

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