Sectionals/Masters
So my first national series outside the Open division fast approaches. While Sectionals is not required for masters attendance, we are going to use it as an opportunity to get the team together and actually play against someone else. A number of us were able to get together for the Hingham Cup in August, but other than a few practices, that is all we have done tournament-wise. The next 3 weekends will define our fate and determine whether I will be staying home from Nationals for the first time since 1991.
I was poking around the score reporter, looking at a number of Sectionals tournaments that happened last weekend. I was searching for masters teams in particular. It seemed the most successful one was OLDSAG from Philly. In their section, they were undefeated until playing Pike in the finals, to whom they lost 15-13. Even if Pike is not the powerhouse they used to be, this is a respectable result. They ultimately lost in their loser bracket game against Burgh 13-11, whom they beat 9-8 in the winners bracket.
Above & Beyond, playing in the New York Sectional and seeded second behind PoNY, ended up losing in an upset against Wesleyan. They recovered to take second overall behind PoNY, beating Wesleyan in the losers bracket after Wesleyan got smoked by PoNY in the finals. That is two straight teams losing the 'game to go' to a team they already beat, to continue a discussion happening in other blogs and rsd at the moment.
In the Capital (DC) sectionals, Baltimore masters did very poorly, going 0-4 in pool play and losing their first game on Sunday to DC Funk.
In the Desert open section, Ironwood won out.
In Michigan open, I can only assume Fossil Fuel is a masters team, and they did OK, coming in 5th but getting smoked by BAT.
In the Rocky Mountain section, perennial masters power Old and in the Way performed respectably with reasonably close losses to Bravo and Sack Lunch, coming in 3rd overall by beating the other masters team, Postmasters.
Finally, over in Washington/BC open sectionals, Throwback did not hold their august seed and ended up 7th after a disappointing 1-3 start in pool play.
As for DoG, masters style, we are seeded 4th behind Boston Ultimate, Red Tide, and New Noise this weekend with Gunslingers right on our heels. Naturally as second seed in our pool we have the toughest schedule, with the two most important games of the day one right after the other. We begin with 3rd in our pool Gunslingers, who I imagine have to be wanting payback after our contested double game point win at Boston Invitational. Our next game is against #1 Red Tide, who must be riding last year's performance since they have not shined this year so far. We end with games against Tufts, which Alec, Damon, and Jeff should greatly enjoy, a bye, and then Bowdoin. If we come in 3rd, we will probably end up only playing 1 game Sunday morning, which would be tragic. If we come in 2nd, we start with Boston Ultimate and then have at least one more game. If we win out the pool, we would probably play New Noise, and if we don't beat them, we won't even get a chance to match up with BU, which would be tragic. I'll have to figure out whether to tank the Red Tide game... I'm sure Gunslingers, New Noise and Red Tide are better equipped than earlier this year, but then again, I hope we are two. The roster is finally starting to shape up, although we might have anywhere from 15-25 people show. Hopefully we can start to get some lines established, who are the hot D players, who will be making the O squad, etc.
As for the above masters results, who the hell knows what it means. If we do well this weekend, then have more faith in the above results. If we do poorly, then it means that none of those teams had their full squads... :)
I was poking around the score reporter, looking at a number of Sectionals tournaments that happened last weekend. I was searching for masters teams in particular. It seemed the most successful one was OLDSAG from Philly. In their section, they were undefeated until playing Pike in the finals, to whom they lost 15-13. Even if Pike is not the powerhouse they used to be, this is a respectable result. They ultimately lost in their loser bracket game against Burgh 13-11, whom they beat 9-8 in the winners bracket.
Above & Beyond, playing in the New York Sectional and seeded second behind PoNY, ended up losing in an upset against Wesleyan. They recovered to take second overall behind PoNY, beating Wesleyan in the losers bracket after Wesleyan got smoked by PoNY in the finals. That is two straight teams losing the 'game to go' to a team they already beat, to continue a discussion happening in other blogs and rsd at the moment.
In the Capital (DC) sectionals, Baltimore masters did very poorly, going 0-4 in pool play and losing their first game on Sunday to DC Funk.
In the Desert open section, Ironwood won out.
In Michigan open, I can only assume Fossil Fuel is a masters team, and they did OK, coming in 5th but getting smoked by BAT.
In the Rocky Mountain section, perennial masters power Old and in the Way performed respectably with reasonably close losses to Bravo and Sack Lunch, coming in 3rd overall by beating the other masters team, Postmasters.
Finally, over in Washington/BC open sectionals, Throwback did not hold their august seed and ended up 7th after a disappointing 1-3 start in pool play.
As for DoG, masters style, we are seeded 4th behind Boston Ultimate, Red Tide, and New Noise this weekend with Gunslingers right on our heels. Naturally as second seed in our pool we have the toughest schedule, with the two most important games of the day one right after the other. We begin with 3rd in our pool Gunslingers, who I imagine have to be wanting payback after our contested double game point win at Boston Invitational. Our next game is against #1 Red Tide, who must be riding last year's performance since they have not shined this year so far. We end with games against Tufts, which Alec, Damon, and Jeff should greatly enjoy, a bye, and then Bowdoin. If we come in 3rd, we will probably end up only playing 1 game Sunday morning, which would be tragic. If we come in 2nd, we start with Boston Ultimate and then have at least one more game. If we win out the pool, we would probably play New Noise, and if we don't beat them, we won't even get a chance to match up with BU, which would be tragic. I'll have to figure out whether to tank the Red Tide game... I'm sure Gunslingers, New Noise and Red Tide are better equipped than earlier this year, but then again, I hope we are two. The roster is finally starting to shape up, although we might have anywhere from 15-25 people show. Hopefully we can start to get some lines established, who are the hot D players, who will be making the O squad, etc.
As for the above masters results, who the hell knows what it means. If we do well this weekend, then have more faith in the above results. If we do poorly, then it means that none of those teams had their full squads... :)
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 2:04 PM
11 Comments:
Milage and 33-1/3 fared pretty well in the Texas sectionals. Although Milage didn't live up to their #2 seeding.
Yeah, unfortunately it was not always abundantly clear which teams were masters. Wouldn't that be mileage, anyway? Or are they implying mucilage to help their digestive systems? I thought 33-1/3 might also. Are they talking record speed or having a full squad that is JUST old enough...
You're likely to avoid the miserable fate of one game on Sunday. Due to your presence, the format will probably be adjusted to something like this.
And then a team dropped...
So, whole new schedule. As much as I cannot stand all the last minute changes that go along with being a SC, I am happy at least that a now outdated schedule forced you to waste so much of your mental energy.
Seigs
ENE SC
The schedule lines up rather nicely now, with 2 games followed by a bye, and then two games. Of course, for the other pool, only 3 games starting at 12:40PM. How convenient...
And I only have so much mental energy left, just like I only have so many throws left. It would be an interesting thought exercise to determine roughly how many forehands and backhands (and 'other') I have thrown in my 23 years. Hmmmmm.
It would be an interesting thought exercise to determine roughly how many forehands and backhands (and 'other') I have thrown in my 23 years. Hmmmmm.
Do you mean thrown or completed?
Nice dig anonymous, but does it really matter? I'm thinking more of wear and tear on my elbow/arm/shoulder. I definitely get tennis elbow (or equivalent) over a tournament. The forehand and especially the hammer are pretty violent non-smooth release throws. So during tournaments I actually try to minimize or target my throwing warmups at this point. Or save true warming up for the 'big' games.
I saw some of that Above & Beyond game; They look awful. They will be lucky to place 3rd in the region.
It was only Sectionals. I'm sure A&B will have their full team out for regionals, including all of the old NY/Cojones players who probably wouldn't bother with Sectionals. I bet they were using it more as an opportunity to get the newer guys on the same page.
i would pay money to see old school DoG v. old school New York.
have there been any real matchups since '95? not counting later incarnations of new york?
Not really. There have been almost no incarnations of old NY since then. The only time I played against old school New York since then was at Fools Fest in 2000. NY entered the tournament as Positive Force Rangers, a nice irony. Unfortunately, the team I was on was NOT DoG, but was a pickup team from all over the East coast called Coup d'Etat. We ended up playing them in the finals, and it was great, because they had upset a really good team in the semis, and then tried to zone us for most of the game in the finals, and, well, y'all know how I LOVE zone. We beat them 15-9 or so, but it was great to see a bunch of them out there again.
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