USA Ultimate

Women's Division South Regionals Recap

Despite a tight double game point Finals against Ozone, Showdown held seed to take the #1 spot out of the Southern Region, heading into Nationals.  

On Saturday, though Texas’s Showdown took care of business for an easy first place finish, several upsets made the rest of Pool A’s games exciting. Seeded fourth going into the tournament, Nashville’s DeSoto started strong by upsetting the third seed, Sol. After a second game lost to Showdown, DeSoto won another upset, this time against the two seed, Inferno in a tightly contested game.  Inferno’s Austine Lin was all over the place, throwing deep as well as receiving long bombs.  However, she and Inferno fell short of beating DeSoto, led by Sara Gibson and Toby Beaver.  DeSoto ended the day 3-1 and second in Pool A.  The young Texas team ended the day 2-2, finishing third in the pool. After tough games against Showdown and DeSoto in the morning, Sol beat the young Black Betty and ended the day in fourth. Though Black Betty couldn’t quite manage an upset, the young team from the Gulf Coast Section showed a lot of heart and improvement in this year’s regional tournament.

Despite competitive play in Pool B, each team held seed. Atlanta’s teams, top seed Ozone and second seed Top Shelf met on Saturday morning. Though Top Shelf suffered the loss, they went on to win out the rest of the day and finish 3-1, second in the pool. Alabama’s Hot Box, seeded third, ended the day 2-2. They fell to the strong Atlanta teams but managed to seal out wins against both Texas’s Happy Hour and fellow Gulf Coast contenders, Hucks and Kisses. Fourth seed Happy Hour came out on Saturday with a lot of energy and grit but struggled to finish against the higher ranked teams. They rallied midday to beat the young Hucks and Kisses, finishing 1-3. Despite their youth and tough matchups, Hucks and Kisses brought a lot of spirit and fun to the South regionals. They ended their day with a loss to Ozone, who finished 4-0 to maintain the first place position in Pool B.

Sunday morning, the semifinals matched Showdown against Top Shelf and Ozone against DeSoto. Both Showdown and Ozone won their games handily to move on to the championship game. Meanwhile, in the first round of backdoor games, Hot Box defeated Sol, and Inferno beat Happy Hour to advance. Later in the day, DeSoto earned a victory over Hot Box as Top Shelf took an exciting game against Inferno.  Despite a first half lead, Inferno’s inexperience couldn’t handle Top Shelf’s zone. The game to go matched up two Sectionals rivals: the eager DeSoto youth against the experienced Top Shelf veterans. Despite earlier season defeats, DeSoto won redemption from last year’s regionals and beat Top Shelf to take third overall and win their first ever bid to Nationals.

Sunday afternoon finals was one of the best finals the Southern region has seen in several years.  Showdown and Ozone have historically been friendly rivals, but both teams obviously came into the game hungry to prove who was the better team.  Each team earned one break in the first half.  Showdown’s came midway through the half while Ozone earned their break in a hotly contested point to take half in which each team had a score called back. The point ended with a layout block from Angela Lin on Katey Forth to gain possession and eventually score to take the half.  Ozone started the second half by breaking Showdown; however the young Showdown team kept their composure and went on a three point run later in the half to take the lead. Cutter Christina Contreras was all over the place for Showdown offensively, both receiving and putting big hucks, and deep threat Frances Tsukano had several great grabs for the Showdown offensive line.  Shelia Ogden also had a great game for Showdown defensively, hurting the Ozone offense with her giant mark.  For Ozone, Maggie Jackson created several turns with her big mark, and Chelsea Murphy came down with several huge grabs in the endzone.