Weekend Update: 2010-10-03

This past weekend saw the best of Europe go head to head and the second to last stage of finding out who’s the best in North America.

Covered in this Weekend Update:

That’s it!

EUCF 2010

The best teams from Europe gathered in Lloret de Mar for a three day tournament to crown the Open and Women’s Champions of Europe.  Each division started with a round robin on Friday, followed by playoffs on Saturday, and concluded with the finals on Sunday at Lloret de Mar Stadium.

Much like in the US, EFDF divides Europe into four Ultimate playing regions:  Central Eastern, North Eastern, Western, and South Western.  If required then Regionals are held in each Region and the winners move onto European Finals.

The Open division featured the following 16 teams:

While the Women’s division featured the following 8 teams:

If many of the names on the lists above look familiar then it’s likely that you saw them, heard of them, or played them at WUCC 2010 or Paganello.

As we were not on site we can only point out results at this time, although there are a few curiosities to point out:

Open Results:

  1. Flying Angels Bern
  2. Skogshyddan
  3. Freespeed
  4. Clapham Ultimate
  5. Chevron Action Flash
  6. Ragnarok
  7. Viksjofors IF Ultimate
  8. Fusion
  9. Silence
  10. Fire of London
  11. 7 Schwaben
  12. Feldrenner
  13. Helsinki Ultimate
  14. Otso
  15. Cotarica
  16. Ultimate Vibration

Women’s Results:

  1. Hot Beaches
  2. Leeds Women
  3. Iceni
  4. MISSCOLDISCO
  5. Cosmic Girls
  6. YAKA
  7. JinX
  8. Lotus

USA Ultimate Regionals Weekend 1 of 2

Here we go: weekend 1 of 2!

Mid-Atlantic: Masters and Mixed

Held just south of the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center and to the North East of a dirt horse training track in beautiful Virginia the Masters division saw seven teams vying for two spots.  Finishing as expected in seeding Boneyard (1) comfortably took first place 15-6 over Chesapeaked (2) who then faced Natty Brothers in the game to go.  Natty Brothers (4) upset T-Rex (3) 15-9 on their way to face Chesapeaked.  The game to go finished 15-5 in favor of Chesapeaked.

Also in Upperville, Virginia the Mixed division brought sixteen teams fighting for two spots.  Using a double elimination bracket Saturday morning started with tough face offs of teams in the middle.  Three games at 0900 were won by a single point and several finished with a four point margin.  The top seeds made it through safely to the second round where they faced little resistance.  The semi finals brought no upsets to setup a Championship match between wHagenweel (1, the H doesn’t matter) and AMP (2).  In their last encounter on July 17th at the Philly Invite AMP lost 11-9, this time around AMP won emphatically:  15-6.

In the 2nd place bracket Renegade squeaked past “Hooray for Coed, Hooray” 12-11 and defeated Blueprint 15-10 to face wHagenwheel in the game to go.  In a repeat of their Chesapeake Open and Glazed Daze results wHagenwheel won the game to go 15-10.

South: Masters, Mixed, Open, and Women’s

Held in Austin, Texas the Southern Championships featured every division dukin’ it out in one weekend.

Masters featured six teams going after two spots.  Saturday had a round robin style of play with second seed JACK being upset by Slow Country Broil (3), 10-12,  and Early Bird Special (4), 9-13.  First seed Ball and Chain lost to JACK 13-11 in a bit of rough patch as they had come off of a tight match against Slow Country Broil first thing in the morning (12-11).  Nevertheless, Ball and Chain finished first in round robin play and defeated Slow Country Broil 15-6 on Sunday morning.  Slow Country Broil then played JACK for second and won 15-10.

With sixteen teams and three bids to Sarasota the Mixed division started with quite a bit of excitement on Saturday.  Sixth seed Conspiracy Theory surprised Nooga by Nature (3) to pull and upset that put them against Dirty Birds in the semis.  Having already defeated them in Sectionals Dirty Birds dispatched them once again to take a spot to Sarasota and face Bucket for first out of Region.  Bucket had cruised on Saturday and did so through the finals winning 15-7.  Meanwhile, Dirty Birds defeated higher seed Codename (5) followed by Jukebox Hero (2) to earn their spot to Sarasota the hard way.  Still fighting in the second place match DB fell to Conspiracy Theory once again:  13-10.

Featuring defending Champions Chain Lightning the Open division had plenty of firepower going after three spots.  Elite teams Chain Lighting and Doublewide easily powered through Saturday to setup a finals meeting on Sunday morning.  In a major upset Doublewide took the first place match 15-10 and should be seeded first in Sarasota.  Chain had to face the winner of Vicious Cycle and Tanasi for a second place placement match.  The Game to go between Vicious Cycle and Tanasi was close and finish 14-12 with facing Chain in the placement match.  Chain made quick work of the match and won 15-3.  VC then returned to play Tanasi in the game to go for the second time in the day and lost 15-8.

The Women’s division had 11 teams with top seeds Showdown (1) and Ozone (2) who finished fifth and eighth, respectively, in 2009 at Finals.  Both top teams faced little resistance in Pool play or semis and faced each other in the finals.  Top seed Showdown won the first bid in a close game:  11-8.  Fifth seed Top Shelf, who had upset 4th seed Hayride on Saturday, cruised through quarters and semis to face Ozone in the game to go.  Ozone, not wanting a repeat of a close 13-11 match on Saturday, came out firing and quickly finished off Top Shelf:  13-6.

Northwest: Masters, Mixed, Open, and Women’s

With a single bid and five teams the Masters division was a fight to the bitter end.  Canadian Nationals runner-ups FIGJAM were the first seed and expected to make the finals.  They did not disappoint and went 6-0 winning 15-8, four games 15-6, and two 15-3.  Fifth seed Gauntlet made a surprising move to 3rd in pool play (finishing fourth) while defending USA Champions and current World Champions “Troubled Past” finished fifth.

As this post is getting longer and I’ve used up all of my conjunctors I’ll just get on with the results quickly.

Mixed featured sixteen teams fighting for two bids.  Both Polar Bears (1) and Swagger (2) were defeated by Mischief by one point each (16-15 in the semi for Swagger and 15-14 in the finals for Polar Bears).  PB then defeated Swagger in the game to go.

Open had thirteen teams for three spots and included the most famous Ultimate teams in the World.  The division included Revolver (1), Sockeye (2), Furious George (3), Rhino (4), and newcomers Emerald City Ultimate (5) (as well as delightfully named Pizza Hut Taco Bell (10)).  The three top seeds made it through pool play relatively unscathed to setup two massive semifinals.  Revolver defeated Rhino 15-11 in the first and Sockeye won by a similar score against Furious.  In the finals Revolver defeated Sockeye to set the record at 3-1 in their favour for this year (I hope I have this right, the wins are:  Prague, Labor Day, and Regionals while the loss is at ECC).  The game to go featured Furious and Rhino in a rematch of pool play.  In a crazy come from behind victory Furious won 15-13 and heads to Florida.

Tyler Kinley, of Sockeye, has posted a recap on RSD for each day of Sockeye’s experience at Regionals:  Day 1 and Day 2.  He also includes a fantastic summary of the Rhino/Furious game.

Finally, onto the division that I was keenly following.  Eight elite Women’s teams going after three spots put the NW in a tough spot.  Fury (1) and Riot (2) were heavy favourites to make it and they did so with Riot winning the finals 15-12.  The game to go came down to two teams that had expected to be in this match for the past two months:  Zeitgeist (3) and Traffic (4).  With a 1-1 record coming in both teams were considered evenly matched.  The final result was a 15-8 Traffic victory to snag the final spot to USA Ultimate Championships.

Recap (not in order of seeding)

Masters:

Mixed:

Open:

Women’s:

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