USA Ultimate

Women's Division Southwest Regionals Recap

 

After two weeks of sunny, pleasant Colorado weather, teams for the Women’s division awoke Saturday morning of SW Regionals notified of a 2-hour rain delay. Most of the morning, the TDs and RCs worked hard to arrange backup fields for all divisions due to an overnight steady light rain. Kudos to this group as they really made the best of a complicated situation. Due to these constraints, the women’s tournament format was changed up to work with the time lost and to prepare for potential field constraints on Sunday. The seven team round robin format was modified to one pool of 3 and one pool of four with a championship game and backdoor bracket.

POOL B

Pool B played one round on Saturday night in anticipation of field changes the following day. Safari matched up against Arizona’s Whiptail in the cool Colorado weather under lighted turf fields. Despite a lot of first half turnovers, Safari was up 6-2 when Whiptail started to claw their way back starting with a 2 point run. Safari scored and took half at 7-4. Whiptail’s Jodi McCloskey (formerly of Barrio) fired up her team with an amazingly athletic high layout catch and Daphne Russell came out with a great handblock and score in the second half, but Safari possessed better in the red zone and ran away with the win 13-6.

Jackwagon really showed their swagger in their game against LA’s Revolution. Their zone proved troublesome for the younger team and Jackwagon was able to work it in consistently off the turn. The game was never close and Jackwagon closed it out with big hucks for scores, 13-2. 

Safari showed up for their second game of the weekend on Sunday morning against their sectional rival Revolution still a little inconsistent on offense. Revolution was starting to gel and really come together in this game but it wasn’t enough for them to secure a win and lost to Safari 7-13.

Jackwagon’s game against Whiptail was close in the first half at first appeared to be a fun matchup to watch. But the Arizona ladies could not break Jackwagon’s zones and did not possess in the red zone losing 5-13.

The last round in pool B saw Revolution with an upset over Whiptail 9-6 and Safari’s first win over Jackwagon 11-7.

POOL A

Sunday morning, Molly Brown came out a little sleepy against Colorado Wildfire, who scored the first break of the game. Both teams had a lot of turns in the first half but Molly Brown turned up the defense on the pull which generated quite a few turns and quick scores. Wildfire’s Jess Milano was definitely missing teammate Meredith Tosta (the SW Open RC) as she wasn’t able to keep the offense moving (despite some good breaks and hucks) without another strong handler. Molly Brown started airing it out deep as their legs thawed out and ended with a decisive victory, 13-1. 

Knock Out played Wildfire the next round and did not seem challenged on offense at all, breaking at-will, winning 15-2. 

The Knock-Out v Molly Brown game proved an exciting game to watch. Knock-Out came out firing on all cylinders and soon found themselves on top 8-3 at half. These southern California girls had some amazing catches and were moving it all over the field using short break side dumps and immediate continues to their downfield cutters. Even as KO’s Heather Wolnick distributed the disc all over the field, nearly every player was contributing to their success. Molly Brown had drops, miscues, and missed Ds across the board and really struggled to find their flow. At half, Molly Brown brought it into the huddle and urged teammates to focus in. "Don’t be a hero, just do your job," the captains said. Molly Brown tightened up on D in the second half which enabled them to generate some turns and get some scores off fast breaks to get back in the game. Molly tied it up at 10s and continued their run to end the game 14-10. 

BRACKET PLAY

The Championship game featured Safari and Molly Brown meeting for the first time. Safari was a bit of an unknown going into this tournament as they did not attend Labor Day Championships this year and chose to compete in the Boston Invite and ECC – both tournaments that Molly Brown did not participate in. Their results seemed spotty – with some close games against past USAU Championship teams coupled with a few unexpected losses to regional-level teams. One notable addition to Safari’s roster was UNO’s player Rie Yonehara. It seems that picking up international players is now starting to permeate the women’s division. Aleja Torres was picked up on Riot last year and a lot of teams in the Open Division have begun recruiting non-USA talent as well. Rie proved to be a valuable asset to Safari with some amazing catches and keeping the disc moving.

Similar to the Molly Brown v Knockout game, Safari came out hungry for a win and really took it to the hometown team and was up 8-5 at half. Molly Brown was having difficulty containing Safari’s deep game, whose receivers Michelle Andrews and Brenda Stevens, were really reading the disc well. Molly Brown slowly started gaining higher stall counts on the throwers but a lapse in downfield D positioning negated that as Safari would connect with that one open cutter and score. Safari’s zone was also a little troublesome for Molly Brown in the beginning, but slowing down the game allowed Molly Brown to refocus and gain some composure with the disc. Slowly racking up the zone O points allowed Molly to narrow the deficit. Molly Brown came out hard on big pulls with some zone of their own which started to shake up the San Diego team. The defensive pressure translated into miscues by Safari, and Molly Brown capitalized with two in a row, tying the game at 12s. Molly Brown continued to push and scored 3 more to win the SW regional title, 15-12, in a spirited well-fought game on both sides.

GAME TO GO

Bolstered by the hometown fans, Jackwagon received a lot of support from the sidelines in this backdoor game. Jackwagon showed signs of promise early, but key drops and poor offensive choices failed to obtain them a lead. Both teams showed signs of fatigue in the first half due to some extremely long points. With the score 8-5 at half, Jackwagon failed to move the disc around Safari’s zone as they could not swing it crossfield to tire out the cup and find open poppers. Instead they forced throws into the cup and threw desperation looks to Safari’s deep-deep, resulting in turns. It seemed as if their come-from-behind victory (15-13) against Knock-Out in the game previous wore them out a little too much. As Safari’s lead grew, Jackwagon’s execution errors increased. Anchored by Vivi Mai’s big throws, Safari kept it rolling till the end and captured the second bid to the USAU Championships 12-7.

Thanks to Lauren Boyle and Michelle Ng for assistance.

 

 

Championship Game:    Molly Brown 15 - Safari 12 2nd Place Game:    Safari 12 - Jack Wagon 7 Full results

Final Standings:   1 - Molly Brown 2 - Safari 3 - Jack Wagon 4 - Knockout 5T - Colorado Wildfire 5T - Revolution 5T - Whiptail