Cal States 2009

Cal States is one of my favorite tournaments and provides an interesting early season glimps at the best west coast teams. I only had a chance to watch Open and Mixed this past weekend, so here's what I got.

Notes from the Open Division:
NW:
Tier 1:
Jam: Didn't get so see much of the defending champs, but I did notice a lot of roster changes. Gone: Bruss, Cissna, Gabe, Husak, Scow?, Steets, Woody?. more?
In: Julian (Kansas/CLX/Monster/BCBC), Tommy (Cal), Fast Asian Guy (MagnUM), Johnny Hester (Condors), Ian Ranahan (Revolver), Will Chen (Harvard, Stanford Coach). Maybe more?
As long as Damien is around, the team will be strong.

Revolver: This years Revolver team has the most team speed I have ever seen. An already very fast team with Chapman, Weisman, Martin, and Jit has added Ashlin (Davis), Cassidy (Santa Cruz), and BEAU (word on the street is that there might be a late addition). Damn. It didn't look like they were challenged all weekend. Oh, and Cassidy was unstopable in the finals (while being guarded by a high school tryout on Sockeye). He played every O point and had 2 goals and 2 assists with 0 turns and 1 awesome spike.

Sockeye: Looks like they should be keeping Skip and adding BJ and Kurt Gibson. I hope they take The Sultan, and we'll see if Seth chooses to play club or just focus on team USA. There were some other no shows this weekend, but I have no info on that front.

Tier 2:
Portland: Looks like Thompson High from regionals with more bodies. More skilled then Rhino, less desire // work ethic. Their fate depends on Aaron Richards.

Rhino: A fast hard working team. Didn't see any UO guys, but they do have finals next week, so Solstice might show a fastly differend Rhino team. They seem like the team most prone to runs, either for or against.

Scumbags: Looks like they had a lot of fun. This team was sharing a bid with the Slugs, so there were a ton of players, with lots of them coming and going. It will be interesting to see what the roster looks like at Solstice, and how it changes at tournaments closer to the bay.

Shark (YR): It looked like their O line rotation wasn't nearly as tight as in years past. I think having Will the Thrill captain will really help that, and I think it could change the culture of the team. Loosing 808, Joey D, Corey Lee, and Charles also changes things. They had a strong showing, but it looks like some of their stronger tryouts decisded to play elswhere (Fedi from Arizona, Kissman, and Jamison from tide).

SW:
Tier 1: Only contains Bravo until proven otherwise.

Tier 2:
Condors: AKA Black Tide alum from '06 or later with some SLOCore. Look for them to improve as the season goes on, while having the best fundimentals of any tier two team. The SB isolation will help the Tide, especially if Husak and Steets decide to come out for the later half of the season. Word on the street is that Dugan will be around to help, but will be playing masters with DoG come fall time.

LA (Strike-Slip): LA is once again full of talent, but it's all from different college programs that teach different things. The team will take time to jell, and they need to get on the same page ASAP. The team also seems short on blue-colar type players. To many people who are used to being the star. Until their downfield cutters work hard consistantly, they are going to have issues. I predict Dr. Buel will bring it all together. Also, a lot of their hopes rest on where Matt Welsh decides to play.

SD (Street Gang): The actually united Sand Diego team looked very strong, and a lot less like a Squids Only club than either PBR or SD United looked. They also emerged as the potentially dominant team in SoCal for the season. If this weekends results (and team rosters) are any indicators, I'd expect SD vs LA in the Game to Go come regianls with SD going back to Nationals for the first time since '05.

Notes from the Moxed Devision:

A lot of teams in the Mixed devision are waiting on Womans teams to anounce their rosters. Mischeif and CTR are not among those teams. Scotty Conway was playing with the home town people after playing with Flycoons last year and Family Style before that.

Personal: I played co-ed this weekend working on my recovery from ACL surgery. I felt faster than last time I played (Memorial Day), but I think I was limping a bit more. I've decided to stop climbing for the next two weeks and focus more on rehab. Hopefully I'll be able to play Open come Solstice, if not, maybe I can find a co-ed team to take me.

Co-ed Scouting Reports

Last weekend I attended the one day co-ed thing in the bay as a member of Brown Chicken Brown Cow (BCBC say the name with a 70s porn bow chica bow wow melody), but wound up being a spectator. My plan was to have fun for a day, and maybe right something in the blog about scouting reports, my thoughts on co-ed, and why I'm playing open this year. Well, I don't really feel up to all of that, so I'll just stick with the scouting reports thing. Honestly, I wasn't as observant as I usually am, instead focusing on drinking and being obnoxious (I call it heckling). Still, I'll try and dig through the fog to say something useful.

Australia: I'm not sure about the ethics of giving stuff about a National team away right before worlds, but in reality, this probably won't help anyone. They run a vert stack and the dump goes up the line when activated. After that they like to hit the inside to the front as a space throw. Off the break the love to continue down the line. Even when you think you've cut off the around, they'll still take it, especially if you're forcing backhand. Aside from that, their cutters aren't the strongest throwers, but they are all good athletes. Employ hucker calls.

Night Train: I think loosing Nilla hurts them, they seem like they could use another set of hands. They still love the deep game, and Will DeBello is still the go to cutter in terms of the guys. Bethany is good, don't let her go deep on you. Doug needs to do more, he just doesn't have enough ego to assert himself like he should. Brian Yoxall is so married.

Mischief: They're a very different team at these things then they are once the series rolls around. They're also a very different team this year without Kevin 'Dollar' Smith and Tyler Grant. They still rely heavily on their athleticism, and seeing as most teams in co-ed can't match it, they probably won't regret their strategy any time soon. Chucky needs to sack up and drink more, I don't acknowledge 'I've been drinking for the past three nights' sort of excuses; sometimes it's 10 am and you need a beer.

CTR: They're a very meat and potatoes type of team. They move the disc well, and don't really take many chances. Still, if Shasta is indeed not back with them, they've lost a lot of the possibility for big plays (from the thrower end). Mateo is a nice pickup for them, super consistent, and has the ability to dominate as a give-go handler in co-ed.

All I can say about Monkey and AIR is that they have some beastly athletes. Don't underestimate Lil' Tom James or Beach.

Hope that was interesting, and good luck to all these teams as the season continues. Extra good luck to Australia at WUGC.

Word.

Quick notes from CalStates

CalStates went down here in town this past weekend, and thus the hype machine for the summer has started. Here's my early contribution.

Condors:
They've been picking up a couple of LA guys per year for the past few years, this time they're just going bigger (also, with only two bids from the SW, the LA guys want to get back to the show). There are no '09 college players not from the SB that are still trying out for the Condors, so they're not poaching the young talent from LA. In fact, they're letting LA do the work in developing the young guys. Still, their roster is not set yet, and we'll see how big of an effect the new influx of personnel will have.

Furious George:
It was cool to see these guys at such an early tournament. It was also predictable because of Worlds. It looked like Lugsdin and Cruickshank both didn't make the trip down, and Oscar, while present, wasn't playing. Also of note, due to CUPA rules, they were trying out a bunch of non-Vancouver guys, 5 of whom were from GOAT. So remember, while Furious will be representing Canada at Worlds, GOAT placed higher at the UPA Championships last year.

Jam:
They took 3 new guys this year, and it wasn't to get younger (although they did a little of that). I don't know how much of the JL stuff is carrying over, seeing as JL ran a ho while Jam seems to primarily be a vert stack team. Their performance at CalStates was a little surprising, but I think it'll just light a fire.

Revolver:
Funny thing, of the new players they took, there is only one player who will be playing college ultimate next year, and none of the players they took were from Stanford. In fact, I'm not sure if any Stanford guys even tried out this year. They got a lot taller with their additions, picking up Seth Wiggins, David "Fetch" Janinis, Tyler Grant, Chuck Kindred, Alex "Dutchie" Ghesquire, and Patrick Sweigert. As per CalStates Seth Wiggins spent most of his time playing with Sockeye, and both Nan Gao and Nat Kinsky were out.

Sockeye:
They did their usual CalStates thing. Winning a lot of games, and getting the tryout guys a good amount of time. They moved all the tryouts onto the finals team to get a closer look. Seth didn't play for either team in the finals.

That's it for the 'Elite' teams. It's weird writing about people I know (and some I don't), but I guess I'm just trying to get some information out there. Does the public really have a right to know? I'll have to struggle finding the answer to that one.

The State of West Coast Elite Disc (open)

I'm writing this because Match Diesel seems to be the only non-player writing about elite disc, and I think he's way off base when it comes to the west coast. I figured I'd write scouting reports about some of the top teams (I think he did this a few weeks ago). I'm going to break up my little scouting reports into two categories, a "how they play" category which should be self explanatory, and a "talent/culture" category about who plays on the team, how the team operates, and the over all talent level.

Revolver:
How they play: They move the disc well, and the majority of their risks come with break mark throws. They are built on consistency and seem to run into the most problems when they put up too many 50/50 shots to Wiseman.

Talent/culture: A lot has been made about how this is the Stanford team and Jam is the Cal team, that's bullshit. It's true that Revolver has a good amount of Stanford guys (at least 9), but they also have 2 from UCSC, 2 from Cal, 2 from UCSB and 1 from Davis. Basically, they're the younger team and Jam is the older team. Talent wise they're very strong, but mostly their strength is that nobody on the team thinks they're better then they are.

Jam:
How they play: I've already said a good amount about this team. They like the long ball and they like "keeping it fun" as Idris explains in his blog. Each individual seems to hold the disc a long time. I think this happens because everyone on Jam can make things happen with their throws. I think Jam would benefit from a culture of fast disc movement (but I think that about every team). Basically, there aren't any role players on this team (no, I don't think I'd fill this void, I just think some of the better players might have to take a little bit of a back seat).

Talent/culture: This team has a lot of great players, none of whom payed college last year. I think Boo is the youngest guy on the team, and I'm pretty sure everyone else played in club nationals '04 (just as a point of reference). A lot of these guys are at least 5 years out of college, and there doesn't seem to be much of a talent pipeline into Jam.

Sockeye:
How they play: The same as last year, just with more talent. They do a good job of not showing their hand while still dominating during the summer, but I think everyone knows that their O line from the finals last year will be back in effect this fall (just with Tim G instead of Dave Bestock as an O handler)

Culture: Sure there is strong imported talent, but this team does the best job of any team in developing the local talent pool by taking on young local players. As far as team dynamics go, I don't think chemistry will ever really be an issue for the Fish unless Seth becomes captain (I kid). Anyway, it seems like everyone wants to play for these guys, even if they don't need to be a hanger on to some great players coattails (I'm looking at you Michael Stout). As per what has been said about their chemistry issues in '05 and their recent stockpiling of Callahan winners, the '05 finals were just real windy, and just because you've won a Callahan this decade doesn't mean you would have won in '98 (when looking at that list, remember that UCSB, who won that year, doesn't nominate candidates and Namkung, Steets, Husak, and Yarbrough were on Tide in '98). Whatever, they're still stacked.

That's all I'm writing for now, I don't know enough about Rhino or Furious to write anything intelligent about them.