USA Ultimate

Open Division Southwest Regionals Preview

The Wild West

You might as well call the Southwest Region the Wild West. Since 2009, the Bay Area and SoCal Conference have provided three Championships teams, with last year’s California squad going to the quarterfinals. With seven teams ranked in USA Ultimate’s top 30, Regionals in Morgan Hill, CA is going to be nothing short of a shootout for the two bids to the College Championships.

The separation between the region’s top eight teams is small, and it will come down to who makes the plays, who peaks at the right time, who can handle the wind, and at the end of the day, who wants it more. 

The format is the standard four pools with each winner going straight to semifinals on Saturday morning. Not winning your pool will make your road a tough one, and even losing a semifinal game will require three wins on Sunday if you’re going to play in Boulder. The Bay Area teams have an advantage of having already played at the Morgan Hill fields, where the wind can get blustery, at their Conference Championships.
 
The field itself has traditional national contenders in California, Stanford, California-Santa Barbara, and California-San Diego, all of whom, except for Stanford, were at the College Championships last year.

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Davis

Cal has had an up and down regular season compared to the past few years, but they have been playing most of their season without Andrew Hagen and Sam Kanner, their two best players. With those guys back we can expect to see a different team than what has played thus far. Stanford doesn't have the Callahan-type player that their national semifinals teams had, but expect their faceless army to win some games. Santa Barbara is solid and were missing two of their studs at Conferences, but I'm unsure how those guys will help in the wind as they typically struggle when teams play zone against them. San Diego is young, inexperienced, and emotional; typically not a great combo going into regionals. 
 
California-Santa Cruz is sitting as the top dog in the region after posting a solid regular season winning the NorCal Conference. They are coached well and should have a good game plan for each of their weekend opponents. Expect to see Russell Wynne to be an athletic beast all over the field, Cassidy Rasmussen getting unders then hucking to Russell, and for Travis Ladd to get open on squirly handler cuts. Devon Anderson and Jordan Sheffield will also be huge for them. These guys know what they want to do, and they execute well. With the easiest road to the finals, they are the favorite.
 
San Diego State is the new kid on the block. They have always had an athletic team who can make plays, but have never been disciplined enough to truly challenge for a bid to the College Championships. This year, their play at the Santa Barbara Invite and President’s Day showed that they can play with the big boys. Tim Gilligan and Dominic Leggio have captained this team well and will have them prepared to fight for their first Championships bid in school history. Also Jackson Sterns, Richard Prodan, and Brandon Murray are fifth-years, so expect them to leave everything on the field.
 
The rest of the field is full of athletic teams in Chico State, Arizona, Cal Poly-SLO, and Cal State-Long Beach. Each of these teams has their own style of play, and top teams will need to minimize mistakes if they are going to advance against them. Even the lower seeds in UCLA, Sonoma State, California-Davis, California-Irvine, and Arizona State are not going to be easy outs.
 
In the end, the Southwest will produce two highly confident and polished that should be playing meaningful games late Memorial Day Weekend. It's going to be an exciting dogfight here in the wild wild west!

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