Notes From Bay Area College Sectionals

I went to my first Bay Area sectionals this past weekend to help out the Slugs and watch the first suspenseful college sectionals in the Bay Area in a while. I was with the Slugs pretty much the whole time, so I don't have much insight on either Stanford or a non-tiered LPC. So, notes from the teams who are going to regionals (and a little on LPC).

Cal: The team nobody seems to want to play. They have a ton of versatile players that are conservative and break the mark well. They play to their strengths as a possession team, and communicate better on D than most teams. They have a lot of depth and work very hard, but from what I saw, they don't have a ton of team speed (note, when the Slugs played Cal, Choongil wasn't playing). Also of note, Ryo seems like an evil genius sort of coach.

Davis: The Davis Dogs are a very fast team. They have lots of height and athleticism to go along with strong leadership from Taylor Lahey. In the game against the slugs the did a good job possesing the disc amongst their handlers on both D and O. They also run a lot of called huck plays on the D line. Look for the Dogs to be strong again next year returning their top two players, and geting a lot of cub experience.

Stanford: I only watched them a little so my observations are limited. First, props to Will Chen for rocking the suit on Saturday, baller. I was surprised by the inconsistancy of their O, especially considering the individual skill of their players. Look for them to play much better at regioanls. Also, Alex "Glass Eye" Drlica-Wagner

UCSC: What a difference a day makes.

LPC: Watching their game against Davis it was clear that they were puting all their regionals eggs in that basket. As the game went on, and as the heat ramped up LPC's regionals hopes grew dimmer. Still, they stuck to their guns, and played their top guys almost the entire game in the game to go to regionals. If Adam, Zip, 808, Ernst, and Sticks are indeed done, I wonder what comes next for their program.

That's all I got for now. I'm intending on going to NW club regionals, so maybe I'll write something about that. Hell maybe I'll write somehting about all region hype again. Or maybe I'll not post for 4 months. Honestly though, I think I'll post more as I satart to play again.

Notes From SoCal Sectionals (Sexuals?)

Last weekend I used SoCal open sectional being hosted in Claremont as an excuse to make it down south and visit my alma mater and catch up with some non-frisbee friends. Well, I know you're probably not here to read about me chillin' at Mudd, so here goes that sectionals scouting reports thing.

I managed to watch:
Cal Poly-Pomona
Cal State-Long Beach
Cal Tech
Claremont
Claremont - B
Occidental
Redlands
San Diego
SDSU
UCLA
UCSB
USC

I figure I'll keep the reports down to teams that made regionals (it's always a shock to me the quality of some of the teams that make SW regionals, I guess that's what happens when your section sizes are 20, 8, and 5 for a region).

Cal Poly-Pomona: Um, they have girls on their open team. Their program is really young, and the enthusiasm for the sport is inspiring. I with them the best of luck as their team grows. They go into regionals seeded 16th, and will finish as such IMO.

Claremont: Their zone O is a lot better than the last time I saw it (in fact, it's good now). They rely on Stout and Jay to heavily, also, more people should want the disc in their own hands, sometimes it's just chicken shit to only cut deep.

Occidental: I saw them playing against Claremont-B, so I couldn't gain too much from watching them. I can say that they like to huck, and frequently travel while doing so. Okay funny story. I'm watching Claremont-B vs. Oxy with my boy Monkey (a sophomore at Mudd who wasn't playing ultimate due to injury, he was playing acoustic guitar covers of songs like Digital Love and Ignition (Remix)) and we were yelling at the B guys while they were on D. Well, one of the B guys not on the field turns to me and says, "Did you used to play?"

I reply "Yes." So he says "Why did you stop?" At this point, Monkey can't stand my dumb grinning anymore and says "Manz, do you know who this is? He's Joaq, the captain from last year." The B team kid sheepishly walked away and Monkey said "Sometimes I hate you, wanker."

SDSU: Not much has changed since the Stanford Qual. They don't play good man D, and instead have to rely on a match-up zone with poaches on the handlers. If you move the disc quickly, you should shred it. Steve isn't assertive enough and can be taken out of the game to easily.

UCLA: The Sultan is a baller on D. When Seraph is heated, they're a much better team. And finally, force Fozzy under, he's great in the air, but not as good with the disc. Um, make them throw a lot of throws to score, their handlers are okay with it, but it seems like their cutters don't want to have to grind things out.

UCSB: Rory was out, making Jeff handle. I don't think that'll happen at regionals. I do think that loosing A-bomb really hurt their D, because now not as many people can front. They really want to jam it up the sidelines, and don't want to have to use the middle of the field. They'll throw clam on a turn, and it's pretty good, but not as good as last year's when Alex was lurking deep. Also, Tide has always been good about not showing their hand at sectionals, I think that'll hold true this year as well.

Okay, that's all from sectionals in terms of Ultimate. I can say it was fun doing halftime shows for the easy games on day 1. Also hosting sectionals in Claremont was a great idea for the Brains, and there'll be more field space next year, so it might happen again. Word.

Edit: Jay deserves credit for at least half of my blog posts.

Stanford Invite // Qual Scouting Reports

These past two weekends have been great for watching and getting back into the swing of things with ultimate. Seeing as game by game recaps would be boring, and nobody really wants to know the details of me hanging out with X at the 5 booth or hitting on the Texas girls (hot), I figured I'd just throw out some scouting reports (kind of like what I did for club teams this past summer, man, I didn't know what I was talking about, that seems to be a theme). Anyway, here it goes.

From the qual:
UW: They have a lot of height, but they don't seem to be that explosive outside of a few top guys. I think they would benefit from having Dutch and BJ play more on both sides of the disc. On the other hand, they focus really well, and seem to have dedicated coaches. Not much, but that's all I got from one game watching them. Um, force backhand, Dutch's flick is that good.

SDSU: Make Daze work to get the disc. It all runs through him, and if he's tiered he'll have more turns. Also, have the dump defender watch his feet for the first three-four seconds he has the disc. He travels to set up his throws, but not on the throws themselves. Also, their dump set is always the same. First guy up line, front of the stack strait back. It works a lot, but they don't do a good job of going deep from the front, so it should be easy to adjust.

Claremont: You're fucked. :)

From the invite:

Pitt: They move the disc well with their handlers, shut down the around and they'll be hurting. Also, pressure their under cuts, they're not trying to huck right away, so make those first few hard. They have a good 4 man cup zone, and you won't beat it by working the disc side to side; once you're around the cup you need to attack downfield by fast breaking // give-and-go-ing, then they'll crumble (out of the zone).

Arizona: Loppy and Snatch are all region players. I like these guys to give up too much more for free. Um, pressure the dump.

Stanford: Make Sherwood stay around the disc, it's not that hard, because he's often near the front of the stack. Make people besides Ezra, TJ, and Sherwood beat you. Pressure their young throwers, intelligent poaches can hurt them.

Texas: No around, make them prove it with the IO throws. Go deep on them. stay at home, poaching won't help you.

UBC: They want to huck, don't over commit on the first in cut, they're just setting you up to go deep. Make them throw more throws, and expose their lack of depth with patient O.

Wisconsin: Their defenders really want to get the D on the inc-ut, once you turn you hips and take a step or two, they'll close their cushion. Take them deep on the double move, oh, and don't float your huck. Um, try poaching? I really don't know how to stop their O.

That's all I got for now. Maybe I'll write something else, like about how awesome 5ultimate is, or how cultimate is trying to good things, even if they seem unresponsive, but don't count on it.