Women's Day 1 Recap - 2011 Club Championships
Anna Levine
Posted: October 28, 2011 04:51 AM
Sixteen women’s teams were greeted by sunny Sarasota skies, palm trees, and dewy fields on this warm Thursday morning. Although the day started off with predictable results, many surprising upsets occurred as the day progressed. Read below for a recap of the action that occurred on the first day of play:
In the first round of play, no upsets occurred, but teams certainly played extremely close games. Traffic, having lost twice to the third seed in their pool at the Canada Ultimate Championships, Capitals, came away with a close win, thus asserting their position as the premiere Canadian women’s team here. Ozone, however, came closest to upsetting the first seed in their pool, Riot: the team traded points took half, and were up 10-8 before Riot woke up and pulled ahead 15-13.
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[PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Canniff, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]
Round two proved to be extremely exciting, with two upsets in the 2 v. 3 seeded games: Brute Squad beat Nemesis 15-11, and Ozone beat Phoenix 17-16. Nemesis and Brute Squad traded points after Nemesis began with an early lead. Brute pulled ahead and seemed amped to continue winning, but Nemesis didn’t meake it easy, taking advantage of Brute’s occasional drops and getting some nice Ds--Megan Brown, #15, got an impressive hand block on the mark, for example. Ozone v. Phoenix game was an incredibly athletic and exciting one, with women diving for the disc and coming down with the disc in the sky on both defense and offense. The two teams traded points, Phoenix looking deep quickly on offense and setting a zone on defense. It became extraordinarily clear that Ozone was itching to win when Maggie Jackson (#64) got a huge layout score in the end zone. Ozone came away with a narrow overtime win, 17-16.
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[PHOTO CREDIT: Brandon Wu, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]
Perhaps the most exciting game of the day to watch was Molly Brown v. Scandal in the third round. Molly Brown was seeded 4th overall, and Scandal 5th, so the game was bound to be extremely contested from the start. The two teams began trading points with Molly Brown leading consistently by two points. Although both teams were putting it deep with success, Molly Brown was burning Scandal over and over with their huge deep looks, and Scandal couldn’t quite shut down Molly Brown with their cup. Molly took half 8-6 with an easy throw to the break side, and came out of half amped. Scandal wasn’t about to let go of the game, however; the team scored three points quickly, Crystal Davis (#18) putting it to Ashley Daly (#6) in the end zone, with Reba Rundle (#22) putting major pressure on her opponents on the mark. In overtime, Scandal won the game with Huldah Gronvall (#2) putting a lofty flick up to Sandy Jorgenson (#37), who fumbled for an agonizing few seconds before finally catching the disc. The final score was 16-14 Scandal.
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[PHOTO CREDIT: Brandon Wu, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]
Memorable Action:
- RevoLOUtion, the last seed, upsetting Ozone, the third seed in their pool
- Ozone’s Chelsea Murphy (#22) scoring a Callahan in their winning game against Phoenix
- Exemplary Spirit of the Game: A Molly Brown player aggressively yelled, "You grabbed my arm!" at a Scandal opponent in a heated moment after calling a foul. She then stepped back, laughed at her own tone of voice, apologized, and play was quickly resumed.
- Scandal’s push pass for a score to Shino Yoshen (#17) in the end zone against Safari
- Phoenix’s Katy Harris’ diving defensive move against Ozone
- Molly Brown’s Lindsey Cross on Scandal’s win: "They were running really hard, and they had great handler movement."
- Scandal’s Molly Roy on Molly Brown: "They rocked us with their deep looks…they are a really athletic team."
- Fury goes undefeated, with only 16 points scored on them out of 61 points played total
- Showdown’s close win against Capitals 15-13
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[PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Canniff, facebook.com/ultiphotos (full coverage)]