Very busy getting ready for this show I am doing. I am pretty bummed I will not be making the trip down south this week........
So, let's discuss brackets.
Please feel free to post your predictions for qtrs/semis/finals of any/all divs.
Showing posts with label Tournaments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournaments. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2007
Qtrs Predictions?
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Boston Invite Write-Up
It has already been posted on RSD that the results of this year's Boston Invite are surprising. The primary reason is, of course, Boston not winning the thing in the Open Div. The question on RSD is: when was the last time this happened? Well, I will tell you. Ring won in 04, Sub Zero in 03, Ring beat a split squad in 02, and Florida won in 01. So, it is way too premature to be confidently predictive based on what happened this past weekend. In fact, my take on the weekend is that the story was, as usual, teams having different agendas coming into the weekend, be it finishing tryouts(Boston, Slow White), learning how the new roster is working (Shazam, Slow White, Boston), refining and early building(Brute Squad, Mischief), or in the final stages of ramping up for Canadian Nats (Capitals, GOAT). It is seductive to try to write off the top dogs as faltering or on a downward spiral, but it is a long season. What follows is my observations, sometimes very detailed and written in real time on the fields, others in retrospect. As usual, a big thanks goes out to Barbara, Tracy, Geoff, and Josh for running a great tournament. The weather was great and things seemed to go without a hitch.
Mixed Division:
Largely due to the work of Slow White, specifically Kris Kelley and Mike Miller, but also with the top Mixed teams buying in to a general sense of season, this was an awesome field here in Boston. The first person from the Mixed Div I saw on Sat morning was none other than Steve Finn(see my traveling well post), who is getting the band back together in the form of Shazam Returns. This incarnation looks familiar if you think back to 04, and the intentions of this team are clear to the observer, especially when one considers what their leader has accomplished in the past three years. Steve told me that he had 80 tryouts this spring.....and 50 very good players got cut. Shazam came to play here in Boston and stated that fact early in their first round 15-4 dis-assembly of Slow White. Shazam ran an effective zone in the windy conditions and Slow White is a consistent team, even to the extent that they prefer calm conditions. One observer, who knows Slow, said to me “They are not a morning team”. I heard that Slow felt that they were jet lagged, not their West Cost opponents. Clearly, that is a mental area of the game that will need to be addressed come October....especially considering that their first game was at 11am.
Brass Monkey showed up with a smaller squad than usual, but the folks they brought are very talented. Nate Miller consistently impresses me with his calm leadership and talent. He is probably the only non-College 07 player I saw all weekend, in any division, who actually marks with legal 11th edition marks(the wrap around marks in Open are ridiculous...not even close to being legal 11th marks). I felt that Brass Monkey, with the jet lag and small squad, might run out of gas by the end of the day, but they handled Tandem in the early game before squeaking out a 13-12 victory over Slow White in the second ground. Brass showed resolve and toughness in this game going down 11-9 before gutting out the win.
Mischief showed up with a full squad this weekend and they began their game against Flaming Moe with energy and intensity. They are obviously athletic and have several of the most athletic men in the division in the Smith Brothers and Tyler Grant. Mischief’s O runs through several of these guys and while they like the long game, they seemed pretty comfortable in the strong winds that began the day. Shazam’s win over Slow in round up set up a big match at the end of the day with the South Bay crew, and, due to the round robin format, could very well be the final. Shazam went up several breaks in the first half to take the half 8-5. I never like three point leads. Shazam is focused and both teams are athletic, so it is a fast paced, intense game. Not many turns so the quality is about as good as one can expect, especially this early in the season. The teams trade through the second half and at 13-11, Mischief pulls out a zone look of their own. Mischief gets two breaks to tie it up at 13-13. Shazam converts on O then gets a handblock and converts, game over…Shazam wins 15-13.
Sunday morning: Brass Monkey vs Mischief in a big west coast battle. They trade although both teams have some miscues. A big Brass hammer floats but it scooped up by Josh Greenough to maintain a 5-4 lead. Mischief then turns and Nate Miller puts it to Coco who makes the big lay out for the score and the break. Mischief turns it twice, once on a very bad hammer by a Smith brother, but they get a turn and out it to Tyler for the score.. Mischief takes half with three breaks, culminated by a Callahan from youngster Adam Fagan.
It was around this time that I got my first ride on a Segue. Very cool. I think the tournament should rent me one for the weekend.
Flaming Moe takes half against Slow White 8-4. Slow brings it to 9-6, but the O seems a bit out of sync. Slow has a large roster. Perhaps managing this is the real task of the weekend? Moe is ramping up having played Mischief, Shazam, and Brass Monkey on Saturday. Paul Norgaard is back on Moe and adds some real firepower to that team. Moe is buying into the season and are traveling to ECC in Aug.
Mischief starts to pull away from Brass and it is 12-7, but Nate Miller is starting to do more work downfield and busts long to make it 12-8.
Slow is trying to build the energy and make a run. Slow gets the turn and puts it to Hunt Allcott, who toes the line, 11-9. This point is pretty sloppy with a bunch of turns, but Slow breaks again 11-10.
Mischief closes the game out 15-9.
Moe regroups and is able to get some breaks back. They put it to Guy Pugh for the win 15-10.
Brass and Shazam are battling. Shazam is mixing up zone and man. Brass gets a break to tie at 6’s. Shazam takes half on a big run by Mickey Thompson.
Amp is finding their game against Slow. I think SW is not sure if they are sorting out their roster or they are trying to win the thing. Amp goes up 9-5. Slow goes on a 3-0 to pull to 8-9. Slow battles back to 11's and then closes out the big comeback win.
Shazam continues to press in the second half. Steve Finn makes a very nice deep cut off a give and just beats his Brass defender for the goal. Shazam is able to close the game out and essentially lock up their possession of the Boston Invite tournament. Congrats to them on a great showing.
In general, Shazam looks very strong as does Mischief. The division will benefit from almost this same exact field of teams competing at ECC in August. I would like to thank all the teams for making the trip and creating a great event.
Women’s:
Like Mixed, the Women’s div has a high quality field. Brute Squad is camped out on field 8 for the duration. Brute Squad looks solid all Saturday, although Layuma’s zone causes them to work hard. Lady Godiva was up and down over Saturday, but scored a big win over Backhoe to take third place in the pool.
Small Rackages is a new Women’s team made up of Bait plus Chad Larson's better half. They looked good as did Capitals who won the B pool. As I mentioned earlier, Capitals is on a bit of a different pace than the rest of the teams as their championship is rapidly approaching
Small Rackages plays very well against Godiva. Godiva has some young players, but SR is athletic and dominates with a 15-4 win. Godiva had some of the old guard like Johanna, Sarah C, Jess B around, but the team is obviously just getting going.
Semis: Brute vs Small Rackages. SR is hanging with Brute in Semis. They have opportunities to tie and they do at 7-7. Brute is playing well, but SR likes to work hard. They trade to 10's before Brute goes on a run and wins out. Capitals is handles Backhoe in a pool play rematch. I actually had leave during the final to head down to the Cape for vacation, but I just read in the SRT that Capitals won 15-6. Congrats on a great showing.
Open:
I spent much of the first round Saturday checking out the Open div games, and the Pony-Boston game was quite the way to start the tournament. Very fast and athletic, but a high number of turnovers that probably indicates early season rustiness. PoNY has added some players notably BVH and Bailey Russell, but Boston is, of course, completely new with added talent in the form of Kurt Gibson and Ben Faust. The game is close throughout. They play right on through the Soft Time Cap and PoNY is up 14-12 as the hard cap is coming on, but Boston has the disc and is moving up the field. Boston completes a pass to near the goal line and calls a timeout??!! This was the first of many examples of, in my opinion, not great time management by a bunch of teams. In this case, though, not only was the timeout questionable, but it was handled casually...like 3 minutes in length...not 90 seconds. By the time Boston got the disc in play, the hard cap came on with the disc in Forch's hands. He throws a hammer for the goal, but it is game over.
I spent most of my time over between the Mixed and Women's fields, but there are probably many blogs which will give good info on the Open field.
I did watch some of the Boston-Van Buren Boys qtrs, which Boston rolled. Van Buren Boys(basically Chad Larson men) made their debut with a small squad and, in the words of Shawn W, "it was very clear that this was our first tournament together". The Boston game was over pretty quickly as VBB had trouble converting their long looks and Boston was able to convert the breaks.
Boston took half against Truck Stop 8-5, but I heard from Ted Munter that they gave up a 5-0 run in the second half before succumbing 11-15. So, there is some work to do there for the hometown boys. Congrats to GOAT on winning the Open div.
I did follow how Big Ego was faring in the fast lane. They won their pool on Sat, but lost to Zebra Muscles in the play-in game. Maybe that 1st round bye was pretty enticing. Of course, this resurrected hopes of the Colt 45-Big Ego death match (with Boston having a bye, no less), but, unfortunately Colt 45 crapped the bed and descended into the bowels of the Eastern Div. Big Ego pulled out a 1 point win against Gunslingers and found themselves in the Semis against a good New Noise squad(who played Pike 14-15 in the elite play-in game). NN takes the half 8-7. I hear one of the NN players say "Don't give Parinella so much cushion. Make him go through you if he wants to go deep". Clearly things got pretty physical as Jim suffered nasty gash on his eye going for a goal at 12-12. Simon V, as usual, worked very hard, and it was fun to watch Marshall and Al work the disc in small spaces. Al has a very quick backhand release and the two of them work well together. NN kept pressing and pulled out the 15-14 win.
Two quick things to wrap up:
1) I received a complaint about having the hard time cap coincide with the start of the next round. To me, this kept things simple as the players never know what the horns mean, plus it meant that the hard cap was used as a stop gap to keep the tournament basically on schedule....which, in my opinion, is the purpose of this cap. I am curious about feedback on this idea.
2) People need to learn how the caps work. In both this tournament and Mixed/Masters Easterns, there was confusion about whether teams needed to win by two in the Soft Time Cap. We need to, as a whole, get much more up to speed on these rules.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Boston Invite Preview
Summer is here and so is the Boston Invitational. We have something like 70 teams competing this year. The fields should be in great shape, so it should be a great tournament. Here is my take on a divisional preview...in alphabetical order:
Mixed:
8 of the top 10 teams in the country(including 3 West Coast powerhouses and top teams from 4 of the 6 Regions). Awesome. This came together largely due to the efforts of Slow White in reaching out to the Mixed Nats teams and getting them organized. SW felt that more inter-regional play would help develop a sense of season, increase the quality of Mixed play, help prepare the teams for Nats, and, my favorite, help with seeding Nationals. SW also organized and pushed for quality Mixed teams to attend ECC and CHC, so they should be commended for their efforts. I think it will be interesting to see how the traveling teams do.
Open:
There have been some comments that the Open div is a bit "weak" this year. Only 2 Nats qualifiers this year. While I think the top 5-6 teams pretty much have the only shot at winning the thing, perhaps the wide open nature of the teams will create some interest? Who will play up or down? Hey, maybe some lack of predictability will be good for this entrenched div.
I am looking forward to getting a look at the Boston Ultimate team. With Graham's injury is this really a merger? Will the approach be different from DOG? Speaking of which, I am also interested in how Big Ego will fare when playing against the kids. Which brings up, of course, due to this, the potentially delicious BEU-Colt 45 rematch in Div B semis.....if things go to seed (and that is a big if). Will Colt 45 prevail again despite MD's adolescent definition of intensity? Or will Jimmy P make MD eat his words? Pull up a chair, folks. Plenty of heckling fodder there.........
Women:
Maybe I have saved the best for last? Mixed gives them a run for the money in terms of quality, but this the largest Women's tournament at BI in a number of years and it stock full of quality teams (8-10 Nats level teams plus many high placing Regional teams). I think it is likely that we will see a Brute-Backhoe final, but with a new 12 team elite div...there will plenty of good games.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Mixed-Masters Easterns/Other stuff
I drove up to Devens on Friday afternoon to see how preparations were going for Mixed/Masters Easterns. Last year, we had the main grid(fields 1-12) done by about 3pm. This year, I drove up and Barbara and her crew had the whole thing finished. Lined, coned, water stands, portopotties, field signs....all ready to go. She did a remarkable job is handling the basic logistics of the tournament, including the bulk of the registration. Geoff, Tracey, and Shiellah also did a tremendous amount of work, and the teams seemed to appreciate all the effort that the staff put in. Really, those guys did a lot of work.
I was unable to stay around that much this year as I was performing in a music group in nearby Arlington. I did get to see a few games and it was good to socialize a bit.
Saturday seemed, in general, to be a day to get things ramped up as there were lots of drops and throwaways. The focus seemed to be turned on for Sunday as the intensity and level of play really jumped.
I stopped by to check out the Masters a bit. Good to see the old Dog guys out there. I am sure Al will write about how he did and Jim will write about how the team did, so I won't go into much detail.
Other news:
What is it with the assumption that caps affect timeouts? When did that get started? Why is that treated like the default now?
I have been moderating the Credibility topic over at the UPA stratgeic planning blog. I came upon this article here. I am not sure I really agree with all of it. In the end, what we think matters little. The almighty dollar is really what defines whether an activity is "legit" or not....in my opinion.
All-region awards came and went again. Another year in which my girls got shut out. Part of me thinks there is not a better sign of our depth and team-orientation than this(only one other school in the country finished third or higher at Regionals without an All-Region Player). That, of course, is positive George. Dark Side George wonders if this popularity contest really serves any useful purpose.
Monday, May 07, 2007
NE Women's Regionals Write-Up
Regionals is the best time of year. There are time where I think this sport is going to kill me, and perhaps the excitement of Regionals is due to dancing close to the line in terms of stress. We were lucky to have a gorgeous weekend up in Hanover, NH, and the first thing I must say is a big thank you to Kendra who served ably as our RC this year. Kendra was highly organized and communicative. I hope all the teams are able to drop her a line and thank her for her time. Congratulations to Dartmouth and Tufts who deservedly earned bids to Nationals by playing playing very good Ultimate and carrying themselves with class and positive spirit. I am sure that the region is wishing them the best and hoping that they represent well in Columbus.
There seems to a rumor floating around (it even came up on RSD this morning)that using brackets as our format was somehow different and/or new. We have actually used the pool play format only once, and it was when we had 14 teams. My perspective is that pool play has always been a West Coast thing (my sense is that the extra game makes the sense of traveling in a large region easier), and that the story this year was actually Regions like the AC, and ME going with pool play instead of the usual brackets.
Pete and I met in Waltham at 6am and headed up to Hanover on a beautiful day. We arrived promptly at Sachem fields at 8am and pulled in behind the girls, who had stayed at Dartmouth overnight. Our first game was against Vermont, who had, in talking to their coach Darren Byerly, lost a bunch of seniors from their successful 06 campaign. In watching them warm-up, it was clear that they had some quality players, so we certainly were not looking past them. There wasn't a breeze in the air when the game started, so we decided to test the work that we had done on our person D over the past few months. With the proper focus on defensive positioning we were able to get some turns, and although nothing was easy, we were able to get some short goals with a minimum of possessions. My concern was offensive efficiency. I wanted to minimize our possessions and save energy for the later rounds. We were pretty successful at this and were able to secure a 15-7 win.
The news in that round was BU beating a very good Yale team(please give me some credit on saying that BU was a VERY TOUGH first round match up and an very dangerous 11 seed) and MIT beating Williams. Go Metro Boston. It doesn't escape my notice that Metro Boston teams were only eliminated by other Metro Boston teams over the course of the weekend, and we placed 3 teams in the semis. Our sections final placements were: 2,3,4, tied for 5th, tied for 7th, and 9th. Nice work.
Our second round match-up was Wesleyan, who beat a Leila Tunnell lead Conn College teams. I knew very little about Wesleyan other than they were "scrappy" and "gritty", in the words of Mo McCamely, from Brown. It was getting windier so we had success early with our zone. Langdon scored 4 of our first 5 goals, or something like that. We had a hell point at around 4-1 that concerned me greatly as we just seemed unable to throw and catch. This lead to bit of lack of focus on our part as we went deep into our roster for a few points to rest the folks that had been on the field for a long time. It was wonderful to have a pretty deep team this year, and, when called upon, folks like Ronnie and Ace stepped up, and we had great contributions from our first year class of Moody, Gabrielle, Caroline, Min, and Bizno. Wesleyan made a run at us at this point, though, and tied it at 6-6. I was a bit pissed that we let them back in, but I felt confident that we could win if we got our offense back on track. We managed to to get a zone back in gear and, again, get some short goals. We emerged with a 15-10 win, and, indeed, Wesleyan never goes away. Their coach, Jayadev, wrote me back in the fall about beginning work with that team, and I got the sense that they were very much in a rebuilding phase. They made remarkable strides this year. Hopefully they will continue to build on their success.
The win in qtrs got to semis vs Tufts, and, importantly, a slot on Sunday (remember back to last year? This is still not "expected" territory for us). we moved over to field 3 which was upwind-downwind instead of crosswind. It was very windy. 25 mph gusts. I was actually happy as we had played Tufts closely at Sectionals in similar conditions and it certainly helps to minimize the damage created by their very talented throwers. I was quite interested in the flip, and I was surprised when Tufts won that they elected to pull. It seemed to me not unreasonable that they would want to set themselves up to break us upwind early, though, so I guess I wasn't that surprised. We took side and so received downwind. We scored going downwind and some success with person D, although the wind made it hard to take much comfort in our success. Tufts was able to get reasonable even despite a very strong headwind. Most likely those passes are complete without the wind. One of my big goals for the game was to establish our offense going upwind, even if it meant giving them some short goals. I felt that we were too quick to pull the trigger at Sectionals and that are upwind looks were basically punts. We got a turn from Tufts, and found our offense. We were able to throw and catch, break the mark, etc. Angie played big with good break mark throws and she scored the goal to secure the break 2-0. We pulled and played zone. Most teams do struggle against our zone, but Tufts plays a 2-handler set and they are are not most teams. They have very good throwers and poppers and they will exploit whatever crossfield opportunity we give them. They score upwind and then downwind 2-2. We score downwind and it is 3-2. Looking back, I probably should have taken a timeout to just reset our focus, but I was afraid that Sangwha would get mad at me. All kidding aside, in hindsight, Tufts puts so much pressure on our offensive efficiency that I think a stoppage of play here would have been prudent. Tufts went on a 4-0 run here. We were able to get turns on every possession in this stretch, and play good offense, especially upwind. Jersey and LB had some very good deep throws that we were able to complete, but we had a few instances of pressing for the score and not continuing possession, even if it meant taking a 1 yard pass while we reset. We are able to go through their 1-3-3 and score a couple in a row to take it to 6-5. Tufts breaks us again and takes it to half, 8-5. As I have said before, if you give a good team like Tufts 40 looks at your zone, they better break it. The second half was remarkably familiar to our sectional game against Northeastern. We seemed to have the ability to hang with Tufts through almost the entire first half, but then our energy collapsed, we started dropping the disc (I think back to what might have happened if we were able to cut our possessions against Wesleyan in half), and Tufts O really got in a great groove. They bageled us in the second half and took an impressive 15-5 win. I told Sangwha that I was very impressed by the mental focus of their team. Good work there.
We had a team dinner after the game, got some ice cream, and then Pete and I crashed in a local hotel. We talked about some adjustments and things we wanted to do on Sunday. I learned later that BU and Williams had won out in the back door, so the matchups for Sunday were: Wellesley vs BU, Northeastern vs Williams, and Tufts vs Dartmouth(who had beaten NU 15-9) in the final.
I knew going in that BU would put a lot of pressure on us. They play very good defense, have very good athletes, and a legitimate force in Mackenzie. What we do depends on whether she is on the field or not. They are also very well coached by Kathy Dobson, who perhaps, along with Mike from Dartmouth and Jeff from Harvard, defines a calm approach that I respect very much. This game to me came down to our ability to convert turns created by our zone D. We could throw and catch well enough to get away with a 15-9 win. BU is a very passionate team. They have done a lot of work and it was no surprise to me that hey went deep into this tournament.
Very much on a side note, I spent the entire game on the home side, which is unusual for me, but I really couldn't deal with the BU boys on the other sideline(in my experience, the Williams boys are equally as obnoxious). I think if I had been over there I would have gotten very pissed at folks I consider friends. Pete made sure that I stayed on the home side as he said "You don't want to hear what they are saying about the girls". It wasn't totally bad. I was grateful, for example, when one of the BU boys helped us out by pointing out where the disc should be put into play. That kind of input is valuable when the game isn't observed. Oops, my bad, the game did have observers who seemed quite capable of managing the game. Pete did convey to me that the boys were heckling us us based on some disc space calls that we made. My opinion is that there were a lot of marks over the weekend, but also in the BU game that were legal 10th edition, but not 11th edition marks. I felt that the conversations that took place between the players to be reasonable in terms of defining the "appropriate" terms by which we were going to play.
I very much enjoy the opportunity to play BU as they fully challenge us to play our best. That is program building upon its history of success and we are lucky to have them in our section. Our win meant that we played Northeastern in the backdoor final. I felt we were in a good place for this game as compared to last year as we seemed to have more gas in the tank. We had been thumped by Northeastern two weeks before, but again, I felt with better execution that we would have a shot at playing with them. What I didn't know (Jason said the same thing to me later) was that Jersey was going to have a monstrous game and launch us into new territory. NU went up a couple early. We kept the focus on throwing and catching though and managed to get a couple of breaks back and go up 4-3. NU runs a good zone, which we were having better success with, but we were really struggling to contain them with our D. I decided to call a time out after we scored at 4-3 to reset and refocus. Maybe try to learn something from the Tufts game. NU was running very good give and gos from the front of the stack and we were getting beat to the open side, so we had to do a few tweaks and revisit the offense. The time out didn't really work, though, as NU took half 8-6. We were having good moments, though. At one point Gabrielle caught a pass near the end zone, but turned it over. NU scored and she apologized on the line. I said that we just needed to play without fear. She went out and caught and threw passes on the next point, and just moved on past the error.
Something had to change after the half, and it did. I had little to do with. One of the big things is that NU lost two players to a concussion(one due to dive during our game, the other happened in the Williams game). I didn't realize that Courtney had to go to the hospital until about the end of the second half, but this was a huge loss for their team. The fact that they played so well speaks to their depth and talent. The other was that I started to play Tyke while Northeastern was playing zone. Tyke and Ralph started to play deep and on opposite sidelines, essentially creating a choice for their deep-deep. Somewhat counter intuitively, this left our first years like Min, Caroline, and Gabrielle as our poppers. They did a huge job of making big catches and throws to keep the disc in play and not let the NU wings to overplay on Tyke and Ralph. Meanwhile, LB was able to get some effective long throws which allowed big swings to Jersey who threw HUGE bombs for goals to Ralph and Tyke. I think she threw like 6 goals in the second half. Basically put the team on her back and carried it. In big games against very talented teams like BU, NU, etc, someone has to step up and it was Jersey. The effectiveness of this basically gave us a big run and we pulled out a 15-11 win.
I went to check out the Dartmouth-Tufts game, which Dartmouth won. Lots of zone D and many, many passes on both sides.
So, we found ourselves in the first game to go since Wellesley played Smith in 2000. Exciting stuff. Tufts was a bit down after their loss, but I was not going to even mention that to my girls. They are experienced and talented enough that they will get up and move on. Which they did. Tufts played great against us, and we did not throw and catch well in the first half, which they took 8-1. In the second half, we played a lot of Senior lines, and got big plays from Ace, Ronnie, and Ema. We went on a little run to 12-6, before Tufts closed it out to earn their spot in Columbus. I think my girls truly enjoyed the experience. I heard Bizno say that it was the most fun tournament she had been to. That is awesome.
I would just like to finish by offering my NE Coach of the Year. I think Mike from Dartmouth is the obvious choice. Most folks had written Dartmouth off this year with the losses of Shmi, Rory, and Liz M. They had a rough spring and lost in qtrs at Yale Cup. It seems to me that they timed their season perfectly, and peaked right at the most important time. I knew that they were a young team last year once you got past the stars and I felt that they would be a force in the region for a while. They are a talented team that has a positive system. I am sure they will do great at Nationals.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Bids to Boston Invitational are going fast
Bids to the Boston Invitational are going fast. We are very excited
about the demand for spots and we think it is going to be a very full
and competitive tournament. While the deadline for bids (May 26th) is
a month away, teams cannot wait much longer if they hope to get a
spot. We anticipate that all bids could be allocated by the end of
the week. If you want to participate in one of the premier east coast
tournaments of the summer, you need to get your bid in ASAP.
The website:
http://www.buda.org/joomla/content/view/91/356/
Registration:
http://www.buda.org/joomla/component/option,com_fabrik/Itemid,366/
Teams list:
http://www.buda.org/joomla/content/view/94/360/
Monday, April 16, 2007
Initial Bids to Boston Invitational Announced
The initial bids to the Boston Invitational have been announced here.
The pool of teams looks to be excellent and we continue to receive
bids from quality teams. Bids will continue to be accepted on a
rolling basis, so check back to see if your bid has been accepted.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Boston Invitational Registration is now open
Registration is now open for the Boston Invitational. Get your season into high gear at one of the premier tournaments of the season.
Great fields and competition.
16 Elite Open Teams
16 Easterns Open Teams
10 Elite Women's Teams
10 Easterns Women's Teams
10 Mixed Elite Teams
8 Grand Masters Teams(40+, Sunday Only)
General Info and registration information can be found at:
http://www.buda.org/joomla/content/view/91/356/
We look forward to seeing you in June!
E-mail: bosinv at buda dot org
Monday, March 19, 2007
Mixed/Masters Easterns Registration is now live
Mixed/Masters Easterns registration is now live. The web page is here. 32 Mixed Teams. 6 Masters Teams. We run the MA and NE High School Championships on Sunday, plus we are introducing a Dames Div on Sat.
Great event. Great fields....lots of fun.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Same As It Ever Was.......
I feel like this really should be on my "Joke of the Day" calendar. Its like deja vu all over again
Monday, October 30, 2006
Nats
If anyone is looking for a complete immersion experience into our little world of Ultimate, just come on down to the UPA Club Championships in Sarasota. It feels both luxurious and decadent and as we made our way through the finals yesterday there was a palpable sense of our attentions turning back to the concerns of real life. The emotional ebbs and flows on these vast green fields are unlike any other that I have experienced in Ultimate as there is both the sense of gratitude for the opportunity and tension due to so much at stake.
My wife and I roomed with Tiina B (making her first trip to Club Nationals) and Michael B, so needless to say all our post-mortem discussions on the day's proceedings were heady and invariably correct. Ruth seemed to have a pretty good time volunteering at the info table, and we did manage to go out every night for dinner. This was a welcome respite from Ultimate as she has no interest at all in the game, and I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about something else other than Ultimate (actually, the discussions at the hotel with Tiina and Michael frequently went to other subjects as well). There is no better example than the fact the fact that Ruth took about a hundred pictures, not one of which involved a single point of play.
The job of Head Scorekeeper is a busy one, and I had the pleasure of working with two Rock Stars in the husband and wife team of Laura and Aaron, from Ottawa. Laura was in charge of entering in the scores to the SRT, and Aaron, in his third year as a Field Marshal, was invaluable in terms of his experience and his ability to do RUFUS statkeeping. I also had a great Field Marshal team who showed up on time and worked tirelessly. All these folks (Darren, Joe, Melle, Martin, Ephi, Suzanne, Seth, Kathleen, Amanda, Julia, Dug (explained as an "acronym" for Doug), Erik, Haley, Eric) contributed to the overall great quality of the event. My goal, which was shared by Laura, was that if we were going to be charged with a task, we might as well do it as best as possible. My sense that is that the folks looking in on the SRT appreciated that we were doing pretty much real-time reporting of scores on 30 fields, so again this speaks to the dedication of the Field Marshals. I did have a few moments to check in on RSD during the weekend, and it was remarkable to contrast the pro-active volunteers cleaning trash, filling water, checking scores, and the obvious commitment and work ethic of the players in all Divisions with the dogmatic bitch and whine of folks like Corey and ultimate7. If you want to make things better, then either play well enough to earn a precious spot on those beautiful fields or take some time out of your day and help clean them up. Otherwise...shut the fuck up. I was thanked on many occasions by the players for all the work of the volunteers. Your offerings of gratitude were appreciated by all of us, and it is nice to know that the efforts of the support staff are not met with a sense of entitlement of the part of the players.
I think the experience of a spectator at Nationals when the horn sounds at 9:30am on Thursday is quite similar to a 6-year walking through the gate of Disney World for the first time. It is completely overstimulating and overwhelming. I watched Ultimate 9 hours a day for 4 days and I didn't see 5% of what occurred. Here is what I did see:
-The is a discernible difference in intensity as one walks down the rows of fields. If we consider Open as a 10 (the most intense), then the other divisions are several notches below. To be clear, this is not a comment on quality, just how loud things are. To walk down the line of the 8 Open fields is like walking the gauntlet. 250 large men on the sideline screaming at the top of their lungs is intense. Things got much quieter as I would transition to the other divisions.
-Al Nichols should be a hero for us all. 42 years old and in the mosh pit with the best of them. I had a brief moment to say hello to him and remark on his longevity while giving him his second place medal, and he responded with grace and consideration even in the face of a disappointing defeat. Age can sometimes inform humility. I have been in a number Ultimate situations in which the hierarchy is in your face. Things like talking to someone as then have them walk away mid-sentence to go lick the ass of someone higher up on the food chain who just walked in the door. While it is easy to get seduced by being deferred to (even in this tiny little Ultimate world), remember that "this to shall pass" and that somewhere down the line you will need to make decisions about continuing your career or not. Ultimate as a documented entity is in diapers and while the Moons vs KD might be our best story so far, most of us, like the 99% of the players that played before us, will be forgotten....regardless of the creativity of the spike.
-Speaking of which, it was not a great weekend for the blog folks. We have Luke publishing highlights from a hat tournament shamelessly under a "Nats" moniker, Jim and Al getting dismantled, Idris spectating, Hector wiping his ass with the disc before spiking it, and my main contribution was Cone Bitch.
-There was a lot of straight up mark this weekend. Like most of the time off a turn or pull. It seemed clear to me that the defenses were challenging the O to demonstrate confidence in possessing the disc. I thought it was clear that the teams most comfortable with possessing the disc were Fury and Furious George. For all the talk about Huck and Hope, I did not see it in the 2-3 Furious George games I watched. In fact, I thought FG, as they have players that can throw and go deep, was clearly the best O I saw all weekend. Now, if that is "true" then that speaks very highly of Sockeye's D, which, to me, was the difference maker in the final. While FG was clearly able to possess the disc for high pass counts, it just seemed impossible for FG to able to sustain a high degree of efficiency. For the most part, however, they were able to and it was only couple of long pass (not hucks) that did result in the few turns that they made. I think if FG had been able to establish a deep game then it might have been a different story. Sockeye's O does love the long game, and their points went much faster than FG's. Sockeye attacks aggressive marks by calling the fouls, and, as many of the foul calls come on hucks, it seemed that fouling Wiggins resulted in another shot rather than a disruption of the "flow" (I am not saying that I thought FG trying to disrupt the flow, I just think that Sockeye, with their long looks, is able to absrob the fouls better).
-I was very impressed with Fury in the final. They are very deep when it comes to throwers, and, like FG, their throwers will also go deep. Fury was able to convert their break opportunities early on, so the first half was a surprising blow out.
-I was really happy to see Slow White as the only non-NW team in the finals. I did feel that the Mixed final was evenly matched, but that Slow made more unforced errors early on and had to play catch-up. I thought SW looked very good all weekend and they should be very proud of what they accomplished.
-I was able to watch DOG twice on field 13 and they really looked overmatched against both FG and Sockeye. FG beat DOG on both sides of the disc and demonstrated higher competence with a very DOG-like O (great end zone O....lots of changing the field).
-I was able to read the Mixed Div write ups on the UPA website, and I think Bil did a great job in his write-ups. He also managed to film the whole thing as well, which is awesome as he takes great photos (including a great shot of the winning Masters Final goal). I was a bit perturbed, however, to see that the very first sentence of the very first day is "Poor George Cooke". It then goes on, in faux sympathy, to describe how hard it is for me to seed the Mixed Div. First of all, I don't understand why I am even mentioned. Really, it is clear to me, based on the language of this paragraph and in his RSD posts, that Bil doesn't really respect my approach, thinks that I am "wrong", and thinks that I must be upset that I get the seedings "wrong". Hey, there was also a running joke among the ND's about who was going to get things more "wrong" (as if it was ever in doubt). I said many times during the weekend "Who is seeding the Mixed Div? They should fire the guy". I also think that a live broadcast of me doing "dartboard seedings" (throwing team darts at a dartboard numbered 1-16), would probably be exciting, boost ratings, and be more "correct". So, for the record...one more time....seeding is reactive not predictive. Any language in the articles that indicates that I am upset by how things played out, or that the final results should be close to the original seedings("Fickle fortune's wind blew but lightly on some pools today, while in others, the seedings failed to conform" and "many prognosticators had penciled Slow White into the finals (although they came in seeded No.5")) is Bil's subjective take on the matter.
-As Jim posted a year ago, I cannot imagine trying to get on a plane later this week and flying down for worlds. I wish all teams the best of luck. In the Mixed Div, I would seed that 1) Mischief, 2) SW, 3) Brass Monkey, but I am sure that Bil would disagree.
Overall, I did not have much chance to socialize. I got a chance to say hello to Tully and Amy and their new baby, but that was one of many examples where I had to keep moving on to the next task. Each division has a different story. Many folks were talking about the blow-outs in the Women's Div. Masters and Mixed were all over the place. Open displays some parity, close games, and great intensity. I was happy to see both Johnny Bravo and Chain break through and shake things up a bit.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Off to Nats
My wife and I are catching an early flight tomorrow morning as we are making our way down to Sarasota for Nationals. My wife is going to volunteer this year by helping out with orgainzing the player packs and various other on-field duties. I need to get my scorekeeping stuff together and meet with the Field Marshals tomorrow. One of our goals is updating the SRT with every half time score, so keep checking that out. If you don't get the info fast enough, just comment here and I will be sure to get back to you.
Advice to the teams: LEAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO GET TO THE FIELDS ON THURSDAY MORNING. The traffic is traditionally horrible on Thurs. Last year, 6TM got stuck in traffic and some folks didn't get to the fields until 9:10am. I suggest hitting the road at 7:30am from Siesta Key. Worst case scenario is that you find your field early and have plenty of time to warm-up.
My concerns this year will be quite different: What games to watch?????
I think I have got my first round narrowed down to:
Dog/VC
Gendors/Rival
Fury/Godiva
Brass/Moe
Slow/Flycoons
Sockeye/Chain
Mischief/PR
Ring/Metal
Riot/Nemesis
BL/Hooray
Brute/Mojo
Seems doable, right? If I stay a whole 5 minutes at each one...I should catch them all. Maybe if my customized golf cart (all black, big rims, built in ipod and latte machine) arrives in time I can get it to 6 minutes per game.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Quick thoughts about NE Regionals
For some reason, the weather this past weekend reminded me very much of playing Ultimate in my early years in Ithaca and Amherst. It was pretty much a perfect NE fall weekend with the changing leaves, picture book blue sky, and just a hint of coolness in the air. Almost made we want to play again..........
Well, not really, but I did have plenty of time to reminisce about what it felt like to play in the fall in the old days. I do love Regionals, and I could just enjoy the experience without the stress of worrying about whether my season was going to end prematurely. I was never on a team that would have caused me to consider that qualifying for Nationals was an afterthought, so I was always much more nervous at this tournament than any other.
I am quite touched by Jim's little compliment that the Mixed Div is exciting due to the upsets. In general, I thought Jim's post on Regionals was excellent. Funny and a bit of the old TM thrown in on the side. I do think that Jim's compliment was probably just a momentary lapse due to bathing in the afterglow of Dog's domination of the event. Dog did look great this weekend, and I think his summary of the improvement of the D's O is very insightful.
On the women's side, I got to hang out for moments with the Lady Godiva folks and it was great to see Lori Parham, Shana and Sarah Cook, Molly Brown, Amy D, Chris C all back on the field together. I think they will have a great time at Nationals.
The Mixed Div was topsy-turvey on Sat, and it played out much like the MA Regional in that the 3 and 4 seeds ended up playing in an elimination game in the 3rd round. It was sad for me to see 6TM not make it to Sunday and not give themselves a chance to play for Sarasota. I thought the 6TM-Tandem game was quite intense. Exciting, but difficult to watch. Of course, a few folks came up to me and joked that my stock really went up this weekend. I was able to get a laugh in as the humor is based on the ridiculous nature of the premise (any serious assertion that I could be the difference maker on a team like 6TM would frankly be an admission that the team was in deep shit). 6TM had massive turnover on the women's side this year, but as far as the men go....the real loss there is Olen. He was a sparkplug for that team and any real self-analysis will say that there is a hole needs to be filled.
I thought that Slow White looked very good this weekend as they got all their new Patagonia stuff. They also played very well. They ran a patient offense and their long looks were high percentage. I think they are approaching the season with a correct build and they look to be peaking in a few weeks. It is fun to watch them as it is clear that they are enjoying themselves without being cocky.
So, our attention turns south now. I look forward to seeing the NE teams down in Sarasota.
Monday, September 11, 2006
My CHC Trip
I arrived at the fields on Sat am and I was greeted by two surprises: 1) the fields, while still a bit hard, were as nice have they have been in several years, and 2) one of the first players I saw warming up was Ken Dobyns. Ken was there to play with the new NC Mixed team, Black Molly. Nice to see him out of the fields again. This post is not a blow by blow account of the tournament, but will be random observations that I wrote down from my golf cart.
-It was fun to check in folks I haven't seen in a while. I greatly appreciated that folks would come up to me and ask, "So, how is the...uh....spectating going?" or "Thanks for organizing and..(pause).....watching". While I am touched that folks would appear interested and I thought it was cute that some seemed to not quite fathom how I could possibly be enjoying myself, I did enjoy checking out a lot of Ultimate, helping out in a small way, and I think it was a productive trip.
-The visor is out. Way out in terms of fashion. Pretty much dead. The few that make the choice that a visor is cooler than a baseball cap thankfully do not wear them brim up anymore. While there are many creative ways to deal with hair and the sun, a baseball cap is the way to go. However, I think throwing one's baseball cap dramatically in order to make a play is unnecessary. I saw the following exchange:
Floaty pass into the end zone
O guy takes off his hat and tries to throw it on the ground, but the disc drops too quickly. O guy jumps up in the air and catches the disc with one hand while holding his cap in the other hand...still above his head.
D guy makes the a play on the disc, can't catch it and calls "Foul" saying that the O guy with the hat had violated his vertical space by pushing down on him with his elbow.
O guy then does a full reinactment of why it was impossible for him to have pushed down on the D guy while holding his hat above his head.
D guy is unconvinced and the disc goes back.
O team scores after a pass or two. O team captain (not the O guy with hat) says to his team "Ok, we need to work harder on preventing D guys from jumping into us and calling fouls."
-"Fire!". When did we all decide that "Fire!" is the "code word" for man in transition D? I saw 10 teams from different Regions and Divisions use "Fire!" for this purpose. I spent most of last Feb vacation reading about Baseball signs and codes in other sports. Compared to many other sports that use real codes and signs, we are still banging on rocks and waiting for lighting to strike a rock to create...."Fire!" My feeling is: why not just say "Man!"? We can't really think we are fooling anyone. While we are on the subject, why does the transition always occur at 3 or 5 passes? I think if I had heard a line call like "Zone for 4 passes to backhand, silent count", I would have fallen out of my cart.
-It was pretty windy all weekend which I thought was good for teams with an eye on Sarasota. While this made it tough for good Ultimate, especially on Sat afternoon, I saw lots of "casual" passes become turnovers across all divisions. There were many, many examples of players rushing their throws or not setting up their bodies correctly, and this resulted in turns that could have been avoided. When folks did set up and respect the wind, there were some amazing throws..which was great to see.
-Maybe this is an obvious statement, but intense D makes things exciting. I found myself walking around during rounds looking for the best D...in any division.
-Having said that, I was pretty impressed with DoG this weekend. They are a fun team to watch and the overall feeling from the team is quite positive. When I talked with the guys that I know, they would all say that there is a lot of work to do, but the games I saw were well played, very physically intense, and enjoyable. I thought the O was well-focused on their system and at times looked automatic. They are playing very good D, though, and have the depth to put out some varied looks with confidence. In the final, SubZero had to work very hard against Dog's man D and, at times, threw many passes. Dog did have the depth and conditioning, for the most part, to hold the line without concern about roster depth. While there can be arguments about the effectiveness of the Dog O vs the West Coast run and gun, the answer, it seems to me, will come more from Dog's D providing answers for Nord, Grant, etc, rather than the O proving itself.
-Nemesis looked goos this weekend. Amy D and Lryica seemed very confident and unruffled by the wind. There was nice trophy presentation after Nemesis won the tournament. The trophy was in honor of Dean Smith, a Windy City player who passed away in 2005. There was some discussion about whether or not the trophy should be spiked in rememberence of the Windy City championship. After a brief talk, the trophy was indeed spiked. I overheard a rather interesting debate afterwards about whether spiking the trophy is actually a sign of respect.
-The Mixed Division was able to put out a very strong field for this tournament. Four regions were there and the teams got in a lot of good games. While the wind made for Uglitmate at times, the quality of play was good. I found the most compelling game was the CLX-Mr Briefcase qtr match-up. Very good defense. Hard fought, physical, and aggressive. Mr Briefcase is a deep squad to this tournament, and they are able to put out varied lines. I think this makes it a little bit harder for their opponents to settle into matchups. Briefcase is a a physical team, but CLX does not seem ruffled by that. One quip of the day was by Briefcase, "Stop making shitty foul calles because your team can' read (the disc)." One point I saw had about four foot blocks. The game ended up with Mr Briefcase winning 8-7 on a Callahan by Tony Blanchet-Ruth.
-While the results of this tournament don't back me up, I thought Annapolis All-Stars had a good tournament, and they seemed as organized and focused on O as any team out there. They are a heady team and do lots of different things on O and D. They are fundamentally solid and experienced. I don't know who they were missing this weekend, but they did seem to have some trouble ramping up to play hard D. They did do this in the first half of their pool play game with Flaming Moe (and it was the other most enjoyable bit of Mixed Div Ultimate I saw), but I guess the second half was a different story. One bit of minutia is that during their qtrs game, one of their pullers kept pulling inside out...out of bounds on the same sideline..and then dropping it in, barely, on the same sideline. To me, this is highly risky as I have seen pulls that never come back in (think Condors in the 99 Finals) as serious momentum shifters.
-Anything can happen in brackets with a lot of parity, and in the Championship bracket of the Mixed Div (7 games) there were three double game points and four win by two games. At that point in the tournament, it is obviously about which team can focus, be mentally tough, and play with confidence. I am sure some teams walked away with questions, but, hopefully, the tournament provided a forum by which teams can get a sense of how they will be challenged, and how they will need to respond, come Regionals time.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Boston Invitational 2006-Write-Up
Saturday:
The day started off rainy, so I hung out underneath the shelter at Frisbee Central. This meant getting to watch Dog play Potomac on field 8, which also meant, of course, getting to see all of Al's turnover's. Dog definitely took some time to find their groove, and I noticed, in most of the first round games, that the pace was a bit off from what I was expecting. I moved quickly to check out Clapham on field 7, and they're a fun team to watch. Nothing earth shattering, but good skills and they run hard. I moved on to check out the new-look Brute squad, and I must say that it is a bit jarring to see the Godiva players wearing Brute shirts. They look very solid throughout the day. In the end, a New Boston Team was put together and Godiva vets like Mo, VY, and Sarah Cook showed up. They pulled off an upset of Lotus 13-12 in the first round, but ended up 4th in the pool. While there seems to be a desire to continue the Godiva pedigree, I think the general sense was that this "NBT" team was a pick-up team.
I moved on to check out Metal playing Sub. Close game. Metal seemed more comfortable with longer possessions than in the past. They ended up beating Sub by 1, I believe, and ended up winning their pool, which was great.
I checked in on the Mixed Div and things seemed to be running fine. The first real news of the day was Camelot beating 6TM 14-12. 6TM was inconsistent on offense, but looked pretty good when I was looking on. Camelot is very defined about their approach, and they seem more active and aggressive on D than in years past. Lorne displayed high sportsmanship, as usual. I saw him quietly intervene two times when his players had made calls, and both times his teammates changed their calls. I am not much for the whole "the disc never lies" karma thing, but I did think at the time that if Camelot overturned those calls that they would win the game.
I went for a run during round three.
I got back from run in time to eat some lunch and pick out a seat for the Dog-Clapham game. It was around this time, during a conversation, that I got my first (of 2-3) "Is that going to go into your blog?" comment. That was a bit weird. It will probably get to the point where I will need to define if my conversations are on or off the record.
The Dog-Clapham game began with a lot of pace. Good offense and defense on both sides. The gentleman that Al mentioned talking to beat Zip deep for a goal early on. You don't see that very often. Dog got a Callahan goal late in the first half. Both teams tried some standard cup zone. Someone commented that the zone looks seemed as much or more about slowing the pace down than trying to get a block. Al threw a lot of hammers. Zip seemed to have a good day and I was impressed by Paul V's work on O.
After gathering scores in the Mixed Division, I came back to check out the Dog-Metal crossover. I was a bit disappointed that the game was meaningless from a formats point of view, but I was pleasantly surprised by the overall level of intensity. Unfortunately, early on, Dog made The Worst Call of the Day when a strip was called that took away a Callahan goal for Metal. I was about 15 yards away and had a good angle. Metal clearly gained possession first. The thing that bothered me as a spectator was that the call came across as "We're Dog. Callahan's don't happen to us". I am not saying that this was the intention of the player that made the call and I do trust that he acted fairly, but it did feel like one of a few examples over the weekend of "when the going gets tough...out come the calls". To digress for a moment, the refereeing debacles at the World Cup have reinforced my feeling that those who think that adding refs alone will take our sport to the next level are at best misguided, but if I am going to be candid, it's calls like that strip call that are frustrating for the spectators and make me wonder if self-officiating will go down as a failed social experiment. Honestly, I lost interest in the game at that point and slowly made my way around to check out Brute Squad again. As I was leaving field 8, though, Dog turned the disc over in the end zone they were attacking, and after some good defense, Jim P called a stall on the person he was guarding. After a brief discussion, Jim overturned his call and Metal promptly converted the break. While it might seem hokey, I left with my confidence in self-officiating intact. I was glad to hear that these calls were not the difference makers in the game as Metal went up by 3 or 4 after half, but was unable to close out. Dog ended up winning 15-13.
I stopped in on the Brute-Stella game, and Brute was very much in control. I talked with Beth N a bit after the game, and I agreed with her that seemed slightly tired on D. I was not impressed with Stella's throws and Brute seemed to be a much deeper team.
I finished the day checking out the 1v2 pool play games in the Mixed Division. When I got to the 6TM-Puppet Regime game, Puppet was up 6-1. One of my Wellesley girls, Ralph, is trying out for 6TM, and she made a very nice block which began a run for 6TM. Puppet played inconsistently all day and ended up losing 13-11. As this is Puppet's first tournament of the year, one gets the feeling like the wheels are just getting going for them. They will be fine in a few months. 6TM also had an inconsistent day, and they are very much just beginning to get a feel for what their roster will look like for 06. It will be very different from previous years, and as Marshall said "We got some work to do". I moved over to the Slow White-Amp game as SW scored to make it 10-9. This game probably had the highest pace of any mixed game I watched. Both teams were playing well on both sides of the disc. Jasper had some very nice long throws for Slow White, and Doc did a good job of running the show for Amp. I would not be surprised if the finals was a rematch of this game.
Sunday:
There was only one team with anything truly at stake in Open quarters and it was Clapham. A win against Goat would put them in semis and give them the chance, due to a bye, to watch England in the round of 16. As consolation semis occurred in the next round, there was clearly much to play for and Clapham seemed very fired up and won pretty easily. They played good defense and were able to convert their breaks. In general, Clapham does nothing very different. They like to break the mark on O, and they can play good D when they have energy. I did find that their overall pace fluctuated quite a bit from game to game.
After Clapham secured their victory, about 40 folks descended upon Frisbee Central when the word got out that Tommy had brought his satellite dish to the fields plus 3!! TV's. His efforts were met with great cheers by the Clapham guys, and it was fun to watch the game with them and get a glimpse of real appreciation for the game.
I went to check in on Brute Squad in their quarters game. They were very on all weekend and seemed to be more athletic and have better skills than everyone else. I was quite impressed, and they cruised to the championship without being really challenged. Congrats to them on a great start to the season!
I found the Open semis to be a bit low key. I was very impressed with Dog's man defense over the weekend and they handled Sub Zero 15-11. In the other semi, Clapham was a bit slow to get going and Metal jumped out to an early lead that they held to a 15-11 win. Clapham plays a very clean game and makes very few calls as does Metal, so their semi was a good show of athleticism. Clapham looked long at the end of the game, and in one exciting sequence, Rob A was able to go deep for a huge gainer to the end zone line, but his push pass attempt to a teammate running by him fluttered in the wind...big groans from the crowd.
The Open final was played with a lot of intensity and it was very fun to watch. I would say that a key part of the game is that Dog's O just seemed easier. They had a few 2 or 3 pass points, while Metal had to work very hard and throw a lot of passes against both Dog's person and zone D looks. I think Metal's willingness to possess the disc bodes well for them, but they had to work a lot harder than Dog. Zip made some huge cuts for Dog and was a factor on both sides of the disc. Ryan (newly in from Pike) made a great layout grab for a goal, but Dog took half by a couple. Jeff G had a lot of energy for this game and had great ups, but several times was working against double coverage (twice it was both Mahoney brothers). Brian Stout, whose body type might be the prototype for the future of Ultimate, had two huge D's followed once by a goal and the second by a big layout grab. This second grab, though, was brought back due a travel call, so instead of it being 12-10 it ended up 13-9....that is a big momentum shift. Dog was able to close the game out at 15-11. I was very impressed with Dog's intensity over the weekend. They ran very well and played good defense. They deserve congratulations for their second Boston Invite championship in a row. If I have any negative comments at all, it was that I felt that the other semis teams called cleaner games over the course of the weekend, but that is just my opinion.
Mixed quarters went to seed, and I spent some time watching semis. Slow White jumped out on Camelot 8-3, but Camelot made a game out of it before losing 14-12. Slow White had tightened their rotation for this game and Camelot did have a bit of trouble matching up. Overall, though, I thought Camelot made a great showing. They have strong women and men players, and Lorne really runs their O very well. In the other quarters, Amp continued their strong weekend by beating 6TM 15-6. It looked like 6TM struggled on O.
The finals, as I predicted, was a rematch of pool play. I got there at the beginning of the second half as Slow White went up 9-8 over Amp. They trade to 11-11. Both teams are running tight rotations. Slow White is getting good long throws from Teddy, but Amp is very good at possessing the disc. Doc runs the O with confidence, and Jeff is a strong D handler and his ability to run the D's offense should be a source of confidence for them this year. The teams trade until 11-11, then Rosie put up a throw for Teddy at the back of the end zone, but he can't grab it as it goes out the back. Amp works it all the way down field for the big break, 12-11. Amp secures another break to go up 13-11, and then, Teddy gets footblocked about 15 yards out of Slow White's end zone. Teddy gets the disc back with a huge block, but the teams trade turnovers. Then Sloppy gets a big catch in the end zone to bring it to 13-12. Amp displays confidence in their ability to possess the disc, and the teams trade to a 15-13 win for Amp. Amp looks very good this year, and I can see why the loss of Doc last year was a big deal. They have fast and athletic women and their overall rotation is tight and organized. I am going to be very interested to see how their Philly Invite tournament plays out as most of the top Mid-Atlantic and NE teams will be there. So congrats to Amp on their win in Boston!
As usual, Tommy and Barbara ran a great show and the teams seemed appreciative. We were lucky to avoid the rain that swamped other parts of our area.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Boston Invitational 2006: Top 3 Stories
Boston in late June. The Boston Invitational kicks us off into summer with 60+ teams sharing the fields at Devens, MA. Many of the teams are getting final looks at their tryouts and are preparing to make decisions about what their roster will look like for the UPA Champ Series. While there will be lots of shuffling around after this weekend as recently cut players will seek other avenues, for this weekend, at least, there is still the promise and hope of carving out a spot on the number one option.
The new season comes to us with the promise of goals to achieve, but with that also comes uncertainty in the face of changing rosters and leadership. This uncertainty is of interest to us observers as it signals a change in the landscape. A change to the understood order. This weekend will be the first time we get to see the results of what occurred over the winter and spring, and we will try, probably unrealistically, to get a sense of how these changes will play out come the fall.
So, going into this tournament, my top three points of interest are:
1) The New Boston Team-Brute Squad fallout
We all saw it on RSD. I put it on this blog. Leaders of Brute Squad were going to merge with the ashes of Lady Godiva and form a New Boston Team. Well, it didn't happen. The core group leading the change ended up going back to Brute. I have heard rumors that the New Boston Team is very young, with many recent college graduate tryouts, and that many of the Godiva vets have jumped ship to play on other teams including Brute and West Coast options. Sounds like there will be no clear and direct heir to the Godiva pedigree this season. Sitting here, it seems that Brute has the momentum right now, but I am going to be very curious about what this New Boston Team looks like.
2) Mixed: Phase 2
The Mixed Division benefits from getting an additional tournament in Mixed Easterns, so it will be interesting to see the teams after their initial cuts and recruiting efforts. Slow White and 6TM have had very different springs. Slow White had a robust recruiting year, and it seems like their big guns like Teddy and Jaspar have declined other options in an effort to build upon the 05 love. They brought two squads to Mixed Easterns, and I must say that the 20 or so players that may have been cut between then and now would make for a pretty good team. 6TM is facing a rebuilding year. There will be lots of turnover this year: Keri Dorko, Joggles, and Lauren Casey have all graduated from college and have moved on. LJ and Mary Hunt Martin have also moved on. Jay Clyne and Hunt won't be around this weekend. Holly and Olen have moved to the mid-west. Adam Goff is healing from surgery. Both these teams face pressure and expectations, so it will be interesting to see how they handle it.
3) Clapham
I am very interested in seeing the Brits play and they do bring some interest to the somewhat same old-same old Open Elite div. This is not to say that I won't be hanging out watching this div, it is just that other than Clapham it is the usual suspects: Pike, Dog, Metal, Goat, Sub, etc. One of my big goals for the weekend is to actually introduce myself to Timmy.
So does Clapham have a shot at semis? I have no clue. I just know that I would want to be playing them around 11am on Sunday morning...assuming that England wins Pool B. My prediction? Fire is thrown in the "Go ahead, mate, take the PT, I will back at the hotel watching the round of 16" rosham.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Mixed Easterns: Brief Recap
The first (and only) "What the Hell am I doing?"(see my Golf Cart Boy post) of the weekend came as I opened my front door at 6:45am on Saturday morning to get in my car and drive to the fields. I was greeted by pouring rain. I turned around to see my daughter, still in pj's, curled up with a nice blanket in front of the TV. I almost bailed....but duty called.
By the time I got to the fields, the rain was more of a drizzle. The fields, which were quite dry when we lined them on Thursday, were draining very well, and were actually in very nice condition. The Devens staff has done a remarkable job with the fields, and the conditions never got sloppy, even when it poured rain during the last round on Sat. We are very lucky to have access to that facility and I am appreciative that the teams seem to have got the message that we need to respect the fields and the facility.
I was also quite pleased that all 32 teams showed up. I had alternate versions of the format ready...all the way down to 28 teams, but, thankfully, none of that was needed. Tommy, Barbara, and Eric ran a great show as usual. They really have the details down. For example, on the trainers golf cart, they have a field map taped to the steering wheel, so that it is easy to find where injured players are. They have a stop watch for the caps. The fields are lined, and the registration process, thanks to on-line rostering, went smoothly.
You can see all the results here:
http://www2.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=68&id=2650
All the pools, except for C, F, and G went to seed. Pool G ended up with Harpoon taking the pool and RIP (who upset WMD in the first round), WMD, and Gratuitous tied at 1-2. RIP, who started off with the big win, ended up in 4th place, and WMD, who finished 6th overall, came precariously close to not qualifying for the championship bracket. In pool C, SPAWN began their run to a great weekend by upsetting GCAS, which was basically 6 Trained Monkeys running their tryouts. In pool F, Tandem, basically Brown Alumni, began their run to the championship in strong form with two 15-1 wins. Tandem, not surprisingly, has very good skills and is fundamentally rock solid. They did not seem bothered by the rain at all. Many of the players have College rings, and they ran a crisp and efficient offense that demonstrated the pedigree of the Brown program. (Kyle, was that OK? Balanced??)
The last round on Saturday was crossover games, and featured only one 3 seed over a 2 seed as MHUC beat Enough Monkeys. The top 3 of pool A ended up finishing 2nd and tied for 11th. Blackfly, on their way to the 11th place finish, beat 7Express in this round, furthering the NY teams slide from the 11 seed to a 24th place finish.
It rained very hard in the 4th round and pretty much most of the evening. By Sunday morning, the rain had subsided, and the fields were in fine shape, considering the conditions.
The Championship Bracket began with a round of 16 that had two upsets: WMD, the 9 seed, beat SPAWN 15-7, and GCAS, the 10 seed, beat Harpoon 11-7. Slow White, who brought a split squad due to a strong recruiting year, continued both their teams strong showing with 15-3 wins in this round.
In Quarters, WMD gave SW X a run for their money as they lost 12-10. WMD seemed to ramp up over the weekend after their rough start. Chinstrap overcame a deficit to defeat Philly KRU 15-14.
At this point, there were 5 teams in the 9th place bracket that wanted to qualify for the Boston Invitational, so that was a bit exciting. MHUC and Gecko ended up finishing 9th and 11th to secure the at-large bids to the BI.
Both Semis were close affairs. Tandem went up a couple of breaks over SW Y, but SW Y made a late run as the time cap went off. At 12-12, Tandem put up a long throw which was caught on the end zone line, at this point, the hard cap went off, Tandem scored to win 13-12. In the other semi, SW X edged Chinstrap 12-9 to earn a rematch with Tandem.
Both teams seemed a bit fatigued in the final, but Tandem continued with good offensive efficiency and took home the Mixed Easterns Championship Trophy.
So, congratulations to Tandem and to Gecko and MHUC for qualifying for the Boston Invitational.
The tournament was a great success even with the weather. Teams seem to like playing at this venue and appreciate the attention to detail that Tommy and Barbara provide.
A quick note about the other divisions:
Big Ego Ultimate (basically old dog) avenged their finals loss to Above and Beyond in 05 and took home the Masters Easterns Trophy. Jim took the time to remind me of what number championship this was for him, but I forgot what it was as it was too large to remember.
In the Youth Division, Amherst High School brought a Mixed team to the Open Division and won both the Massachusetts title(over Lincoln-Sudbury) and the New England title(over Amherst JV A....that's right there is a JV B as well). I watched them play a bit and they are very fundamentally sound as well as disciplined. I know that Hh posted some derogatory crap on the Ultimatetalk chat line about "indoctrination", but frankly, if any club team played like that...we would call it good Ultimate. It seems a bit precious for folks to take it upon themselves to decide when it is or isn't good for our young players to have the opportunity to play good Ultimate. It is hard for me to see how offering the opportunity of high standards and positive behavioral values can be bad for our young players.
So, as usual, this weekend provided an overall look at our past and future. That opportunity is a rare one, and, again, thanks to Tommy Proulx for his vision.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Mixed Easterns
When Tommy Proulx first approached me about the idea about hosting a stand alone Mixed Easterns tournament, I was quite skeptical. I wasn't convinced that the division could sustain a tournament in this form. Luckily, I have never claimed to be a man of vision, and Tommy's idea has turned into one of my favorite events of the year. The opportunity for this tournament came when we lost the traditional weekend for the Boston Invitational to permit issues. In 2003, Tommy moved the Boston Invite to the last weekend in June, and it turned out that most teams preferred the tournament on the later weekend (again, to my surprise). As 2004 rolled into the spring, Tommy had the idea for Mixed Easterns, but the idea also included a Masters Easterns tournament as well as both the New England High School and Massachusetts State Championships. The result is a tournament that has representation of pretty much the entire cross section of our demographic. As my Brit friends say, "Brilliant!"
This year we have seen a surge in interest in Mixed Easterns and had over 40 teams apply. The seeding is almost done and the tournament information is here:
http://www2.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=68&id=2650
Adam Tarr was very helpful in working on the formats (we now have formats on the SRT for 40, 38, 36, and 32 teams), and it is a nice blend of teams from the NE, Canada, and the Mid-Atlantic.
What is curious is that the tournament has something to offer for teams that are in very different places in their seasons and history. There are brand new teams, Canadian teams ramping up for Nationals, and established teams looking at their new, 2006 rosters. I don't think it is a stretch to say that the development of Mixed Easterns as an extra early-season tournament is one of many reasons why NE Mixed teams have had a stronger showing at Nationals over the past 3 years.
Lastly, one of the cool twists to the tournament is that two top finishing teams qualify for the aforementioned Boston Inviational.
So, it should be a great tournament.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
06 NE Regionals...from my perspective
Well...I guess Neva was right.
Coming into the tournament, our primary outcome goal for the season was to make the second day of Regionals. Certainly, many established programs might chuckle at such a goal, but for us, after losing in the backdoor quarters last year, I felt that it was an appropriate, if not ambitious goal. I think that some teams probably felt that we "didn't belong", but we were very clear that our concern was getting to Sunday and not proving anything to anybody. This goal carries historical weight for our program as well. I think, coming into the weekend, the Whips felt still under the shadow of our 03 class of 14 talented seniors. Nell and Naomi, our captains, played on Wellesley's first and only (so far) B team that year, and the A team lost a 10-9 heartbreaker to Tufts in the backdoor quarters that year. My understanding is that the only other time Wellesley made day 2 was in 2000, when Andrea lead the team to the game to go. This all might seem quaint, but I was talking with Bernie from Tufts during our semis, and, as a contrast, Tufts has made day 2 every year, except last year, forever. When discussing this goal with the team, we talked about the sacrifices necessary to achieve this goal, and the team, as usual, was up for the challenge to our commitment as well as bucking a historical trend.
As I packed for the weekend, I was most anxious about the fact that we did not have a format and a schedule yet. At about 9:30pm, I finally received an e-mail confirming both. The lack of such info basically meant any preparation during the week was guesswork, and we happened to guess right as the format was indeed the standard double elim bracket. I guess there was some issue with field availability, but the experience certainly informed me, as a UPA coordinator, about what information is necessary and when it needs to be disseminated.....but that is fodder for another post.
ROUND 1:
Every game goes to seed except Yale over Harvard. As I said in my previous post's comments section, I had Yale at 9 instead of 10 to begin with, but I do feel the data supported Yale at 10. As I hung our during our bye, I had the pleasure of hanging out with Northeastern's Coach, Jason Adams, and he said that they had a nail biter with Williams 15-13. If I recall correctly, Williams went up 7-2.
Our day opened up against Smith. I had heard that they liked to huck and play zone, so we decided to back them. It was just windy enough to help our zone, and we took half 8-3. We were able to open up the roster a bit, so that was positive. In the second half, we continued to open up the roster, but each time we did, Smith went on a mini-run. We were able to close out the game comfortably at 15-9.
ROUND 2:
I believe everything went to seed in this round, in both brackets.
For us, it was our big game as the winner went on to semis and, more importantly, Sunday. Also, as not the biggest squad, I felt it was vital to avoid the fourth round backdoor quarter game. So this was the time and our opponent was, as expected, Northeastern. A few of my players were a bit nervous before the start. Tyke said she felt nauseous. We received going down wind, and they broke us and then scored downwind. We were having trouble with their 4 person cup. We were able to get some breaks as well and started to break down the mark of their cup. It was pretty windy, so neither team was that efficient, but we were able to secure half, 8-5. We traded to start the half, and then we seemed to make some mental errors. We had decided not to take undue risks in our own red zone, but we made some casual passes, they broke us twice, and it is 10-9. We then bear down and go on a 4-0 run. They score to in row before we close it 14-11. The game is long and ends 3 minutes after semis is supposed to start. We take a moment to recognize the achievement of our outcome goal before heading over to play in semis.
ROUND 3:
In the other semi, Dartmouth beat MIT. Brown, Williams, Vermont, and Northeastern win their games in the backdoor.
I had some ideas about tweaks for Tufts, but I was concerned that we were out of gas. We talked briefly about what we wanted to achieve in this game. We decided to go all out for a few points and see where that took us. Pretty much the only glimmer of light from Sectionals was our zone, so we decided to commit to that. The first point had a few turns, we had success with our zone and scored 1-0. After that it was, I swear, the closest 15-1 game ever. Tufts played great, but we never gave up. We were able to open up the roster a bit and some of our newer players made some good plays. Marisa popped well, and Kat made a nice block to save a goal. Good stuff. While it is always frustrating to lose in that fashion, I am always proud of how mentally even my girls are. We never get too up when we have success, but we also don't get too down when we lose....especially if we feel we played good Ultimate.
ROUND 4:
I left as Brown was up on Vermont 10-8, and they won 13-11, so we would play them in the morning. Northeastern beat Yale in the other backwater quarter. So a good showing from the Metro Boston Section.
We had a team dinner and bonfire at Tories house in VT afterward.
SUNDAY:
MIT beat Northeastern 14-11 in the other backwater semi.
I had scouted Brown during their Vermont game, so I was pretty familiar with their sets and calls. I thought we would have success with our zone, but they are talented, fundamentally sound, and a very difficult opponent. Plus their coaching staff is much smarter than I am.
We receive going downwind. I think we trade and then they break us and score downwind. We seem to wake up and have good success running our offense upwind. We are able to tweak our zone a bit, and we go up 7-3. I remark to the team that I love the fact that you can't tell how we are doing during a game. No big celebrations after we score, no cheer, but our heads are up when things are not going well. Bernie from Tufts said we play with heart. I hope that is true, but I know that we do not rely on emotion to stoke the fire.
Brown, however, for a young rebuilding team, has a lot of heart and fight as well. They start going over the top of our zone, and they go on a BIG run. We are finally able to score downwind and take half 8-7. We decide during half time to have LB push more aggressively as deep deep to help Naomi as short deep. We are also saving a point of man defense as we have not shown that the entire game. We pull to them and trade to 10-9, cap is on, game to 12. We are pulling to them upwind. We decide to play man for the first time, hoping to surprise them with pace. We pull, get our marks wrong, and are lucky that we get a drop. We are, after a while, able to score upwind. 11-9. We get a turn and can't convert. After a controversial catch which gets sent back (I don't even need to acknowledge my obvious bias, but I felt it was clearly not a catch), we get a turn and score to win 12-9.
I must mention Ted Munter's positive sportsmanship. At one point in the game, one of their defenders knocked down Angie as she was going for a catch. This occurred right in front of Ted. Angie went down and held onto her head. After a few moments, Angie was able to get up, but was pretty disoriented. It was an awkward moment as it was clearly a foul, but I try my best (and fail sometimes) to let things go their way on the field. As I was helping Angie off the field, I felt my only choice was to ask her if she is going to call a foul. Clearly a leading question, but a question nonetheless. Angie says "Yes, I think so." The defender contests, but Ted jumps in and says "I don't think you can contest. It was a foul". She rescinded the contest.
THE GAME TO GO TO THE GAME TO GO:
MIT. It came to my attention during the week that some of the MIT players took issue with my comment on a previous post that "me and the Tufts coaches enjoy the chess match". I must have missed the rule that one can't use chess as a symbol for Ultimate strategy as putting Ultimate into the same sentence with chess denigrates the proud heritage of such a real intellectual pursuit. I am pretty sure I meant it as a turn of phrase. In any case, my apologies to the chess folk. Of course, this mandates that I must use chess as a symbol for the entire summary of our game....so here it goes.
Like the seven distinct chess pieces (horsey, turret thing, etc), MIT in white, and Wellesley in black lined up on the field of battle. As is customary, the game begins with the first moves (called the "Startings"). Wellesley gets the first move as they are black.......
Ok, enough of that. It takes too much research.
We had to move to another field, so now there is a distinct crosswind. MIT mixes up their defense sets while we settle in on adjusting our zone. It is back and forth, but MIT is having success at breaking our trap by throwing up the line and around our wing. About mid-way through the half, MIT comes with a cup and man downfield. It takes us a bit to adjust and they take half 8-6 (Nancy even mentioned to me in an e-mail that they were doing this but I forgot to prepare. Damn.)
During half, we discuss some adjustments to their man/zone combo. We are getting open, but we are not cutting under enough. We also tweak our zone a bit. Petek, who has played maybe 3 points all weekend, basically focuses us on the how we are going to stop the up the line throws. She is a model for any player who does not play a lot, but remains focused and talking on the sideline.
MIT keeps up with man downfield and the cup underneath. We get good swings that result is open looks. Tyke makes a perfect cut deep for LB, who makes a great pass, but Yelena makes a HUGE block and they score to make it 11-7 game to 13. We have success working up field, but turn it. Our zone is working well and there are a number of times where they put up very risky long passes. On this point, however, one of their receivers catches it, and calls a timeout. During the timeout, I can see that Naomi is emotional. I realize that she is starting to wrestle with the end of her college career. I check in with her, we play good defense, but they score...12-7. I walk back to the line with Naomi and it is very emotional, but very few words are spoken. At this point, there are few adjustments to be made. I really can't talk other than bleat out something about playing with heart............ which I pretty sure most everyone on both sidelines is quite happy about, so the team makes it own calls. I am thankful that we have a "bottom up" foundation in terms of decision making. We score, and then score again. Digging deeper, running on fumes, playing with heart. Langdon makes a huge grab in the back of the endzone to make it 12-11. We pull and get the disc back. Ralph makes a great cut and Nell puts it into the endzone, but it just goes off Ralph's fingertips. MIT works it and has success with a deep shot. They score. Game over. 13-11.
My girls were remarkable in being able to take the loss in stride and will take pride in their achievements. I am especially proud of what Nell and Naomi have achieved over their careers at Wellesley. They have worked very hard and become leaders of a team that rose to the occasion and achieved its goals in a clear way. The team was remarkably selfless and focused on the concerns of the whole. It was a great weekend and a fantastic season.
Congratulations to Dartmouth and Tufts for earning the spots to Nationals. They dominated the region this year. I wish them best of luck.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
NE Women's Regionals Preview
The seedings and format have been posted here.
I guess it is generally accepted that this is a two-horse race with MIT lurking behind. Based on this season results, this might not be too far off, but we must play the games and there are 13 other teams that will be hanging around.
In order of seeding:
1) Dartmouth- Athletic, smart, well-coached, and experienced. They probably have 10 players that will make All-Region. Big win at Yale Cup has them ramping up for the weekend.
2) Tufts- Fast, well-coached, gritty, and focused. They have some stars as well. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, they were very calm and determined at Sectionals.
I guess I don't need to write anymore.
3) Wellesley- What can I say about my own team? Well, I think we have played well when it counts.
4) MIT- Talented and experienced. Well-coached. No question they will be in the mix on Sunday.
5) Brown- Whenever I have talked to someone about Brown's current season, the comment is the same "Very well coached". There is no doubt that this is true considering the amount of turnover they had this year. That a team in a "rebuilding year" is considered one of the 4 best in the Region says a lot about the program and bodes well for their future.
6) Northeastern- Had a bit of a rough go of it at Yale Cup, but secured a big win over Harvard at Sectionals to avoid a quarters match-up with Tufts or Dartmouth. Coach Adams, in his second year, has some very talented players like Allison, Tooker, and Lindsey.
7) Harvard- Harvard has played well all year and they secured some experienced Graduate students to help the cause. Like many of the teams in the 3-10 range, they probably have an eye on Sunday.
8) Vermont- Won the WNE section. This is a solid team that will do some damage. They do have to contend with a tough quarterfinal match-up if they win their first round match-up against...
9) Hampshire- I haven't seen a Hampshire team play in 10 years, but I am huge fan as I learned the sport on that very campus 30 years ago. Can I be considered an alumni? They had solid results at Sectionals. If the SRT is correct, they have a very small team.
10) Yale- It was clear that Yale had a gut check moment at Yale Cup as they had disappointing results. I think some of it had to do with the fact that they were running a great tournament. This is a talented team with skills and speed. I think they have a very solid chance of beating seed.
11) Williams- Has seen a couple of years of rebuilding. Did not fare well at Yale Cup, but won when it counted at Sectionals.
12) Middlebury- Similar to Williams in that they had a rough time at Yale Cup.
13) Massachusetts- My actual Alma Mater. Lady Zoo is a young team, and they do have talent. They will give some upper seeds a game.....
14) Smith- Their results on the SRT reflect some good wins, but up and down performances at Tournaments. Smith has always played well at Regionals in the past few years.
15) UMF- Their SRT roster indicates an experienced squad. They had a good showing against Dartmouth at Regionals.
16) Colby- Sectionals was their first reported tournament. I am glad to see more ENE teams at Regionals.
I think that there is more parity in the Region overall than in past years. I am really looking forward to the weekend.
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