USA Ultimate

Chattanooga, TN - As the ladies approached the fields to compete in a rather small HS Southerns Tournament, it would appear as if they were focused to play 9 games in two days. With being distracted by my coaching duties and scouting out on the first day, I apologize for the lack of knowledge of how games actually went. Shout out to the volunteers and organizers with helping me out this weekend.

2012 HS Southerns - Saturday

As far as first day’s go, the start of the Girls Division on Saturday was pretty straight forward. Unlike the Open Division where multiple teams broke their expected seeds, all of the teams for the Girls ended pool play with no shakeups. Since there were only five teams (YHB, YHB-B, Scraps, USN, and Chapel Hill Durga) competing, teams will be in one pool and all teams will have a shot at the Championship Bracket the next day.

• Scraps were a conjoined team with players from Grady High School, International School and Woodward Academy, schools from the Atlanta area. With their sick nasty last minute jersey’s Scraps did really well with a 2-2 record in pool play!
   
• Yorktown/HB Woodlawn, YHB or The Notorious, is the number 1 team overall and were the clear favorite to win because of their experience, depth and talent. They rolled past their friends YHB-JV, Scraps, and USN. With the last game of the day vs. Chapel Hill Durga, 2 seed of tournament, YHB had to fight to complete their perfect 4-0 record on Saturday.
   
• University School of Nashville, or Brutal Grassburn, has had better years according to Coach Tobey Beaver, "We are just really young with 5 freshmen." Last year they had loads of experience and 7 seniors, but because of the drop off and newer players coming in Brutal had a 1-3 record on the first day of Southerns.
   

Again with pool play simply just seeding for the bracket play next day; all of the teams know they can turn things around on Sunday. Keep it up girls and hopefully I will get to watch you in action tomorrow!

2012 HS Southerns - Sunday

With the girls realizing not only does every team have a chance to get to the Championship Game, but also it was last chance to have fun and play with last games with their team. First round was a play in game between USN and YHB-JV and USN moved quick to get momentum for the rest of the day. USN won the game 9-5 but then faced another, better YHB team and got a goose egg score with a tough loss to end their season. Meanwhile on field 4, a semifinal match between Scraps and Chapel Hill was much closer. The day before when the two played each other Chapel Hill won 12-3 but Scraps wanted to make a bigger push. They did manage to score more on offense the second time around but it still was not enough and Durga advanced to set up a rematch from the day before with YHB.

As I was on the sidelines for the final Open Game I would glance at various times at the Girls final see great support from various parents, fans, and the guys from YHB and YHB-JV team supporting their counterparts. As the guy’s final ended I wound up watching a great ending of just pure effort and drive on both ends of YHB and Chapel Hill. YHB had an 8-7 lead after a very long point, in the middle of the point the hard cap horn blew and Durga had to score to keep the hope alive. The point went on and on with shot after shot taken down field. Finally a YHB player threw a great pass to a team mate for the score making YHB the first HS Southerns Girls Champions.   

Both teams shook hands then the YHB guy’s team and YHB-JV made a tunnel for their fellow champions to run through and celebrate. After that YHB players signaled and invited Chapel Hill players to do the same as a sign of appreciation; great spirit and sportsmanship by both schools all around. Like I said, I wish I could have seen more of all the games and I hope to see these teams and more back at Southerns next year. Also I would like to say thank you volunteers, Spin Ultimate, Discraft and USAU members for making this tournament enjoyable and a fun environment for all. Cannot wait till next year!

Photos by Christina Schmidt of Ultiphotos.com