USA Ultimate

On the heels of the USA's great success at the 2010 World Ultimate Club Championships in Prague - a clean sweep of gold medals in the open, women's, mixed, and masters divisions, along with two silver medals and two bronzes - it was with high expectations that USA Ultimate announced its team rosters for the 2011 World Championships of Beach Ultimate tournament in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.  Not since the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, has USA Ultimate hand-selected a roster to represent the U.S. in international competition, so it was with a good measure of interest that ultimate players from around the midwest looked on to see how members of the open, women's, and masters teams would fare in their first tournament test of the year: Chicago Sandblast.

This past weekend, over 800 players on 60 teams descended upon Montrose Beach in Chicago, IL to play in the 11th iteration of one of the top five largest beach tournaments in the world.  In addition to Sandblast's usual strong competition - including teams stacked with club talent from regional powerhouses Machine, Madison, and Nemesis - selectees from the open, women's, and masters USA rosters combined to form two co-ed squads to take aim at the tournament championship, with the female attendees rotating between the open-led USA-1 and the masters-laden USA-2 teams.

As expected, both squads rolled through Saturday competition; coming into Sunday play, they appeared poised for a showdown in finals.  However, Drazba, a team anchored by John Kolb, Becky and Jessi Ledonne, Alicia White, and late addition Ron Kubalanza took down Team USA-2 in a back-and-forth semifinal that masters captain Ricky Eikstadt called, "exciting."

"They were athletic and beach-savvy," Eikstadt said.  "They earned three straight points off of deep pulls and short-field turnovers, and even though we righted the ship and worked a smart and conservative offense, they still managed to withstand the charge and emerge with the victory."

With USA-2 and the masters team out of the picture, Drazba set their sights on USA-1.  Capitalizing on some offensive miscues by the USA team and unleashing what open USA captain Jared Inselmann admitted were some "nice hucks," Drazba took half 8-7 and appeared poised to take the tournament crown in stunning upset fashion.

However, it was not to be.  With grit and resolve - and outstanding defensive play by Xtehn Titcomb, coupled with cool offensive leadership by female players Anna Schott and the weekend's lone USA Mixed Team attendee, local star Sally Mimms - Team USA went on a run, pushing the score to 14-11 before winning 15-13 on an Inselmann flick huck easily run down by speedy southerner Brett Matzuka.

"It's a good start," said open team member Adam 'Chicken' Simon.  "But we've got a lot of work to do and a lot of room for improvement if we want to win it in Italy."

This marks the second of three stateside warmup events for Team USA.  The Mixed team entered and won Huck It Long Beach in Long Beach, CA this June, and members of many of the USA squads will be attending the massive  Wildwood, NJ at the end of the month before jetting off to the World Championships to try to capture another string of golds.

Team USA_1 with some of its women at end of day Saturday
PHOTO CREDIT: Ellen Schor

Relevant links:

- 2011 World Championships of Beach Ultimate

- Team USA (Masters, Mixed, Open, Women's)

- Team USA (Grand Masters, Mixed Masters)

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