I missed one team

Posted

Thanks to BC for pointing out that I missed “Surge” in my last post.  Composed primarily of Queens Open and Women’s players the young team has quite a bit of talent and experience at the helm with Andrew Carroll captaining.  Carroll, for those unfamiliar, was one of the youngest recruits to GOAT in their history and is a spectacular player.  Queens has also enjoyed success in the past few years with the Women’s team winning CUUC 2011.  With an all around strong force they did quite well this past weekend at Comedy of Errors by finishing fifth.

The top 8 of Comedy are as follows:

  1. Odyssée
  2. Gecko
  3. GLIDE
  4. Bytown Flatball Club
  5. Surge
  6. The Rooster Project
  7. Wreckhouse
  8. YARR

Full results.

The teams in bold are heading to Ontario Regionals in Kingston in the middle of July.  With more information on Surge I shall now flip flop with a new ranking of Ontario teams ahead of Regionals.  Please note that my rankings are going to be different from the seeding that is assigned as I am at liberty to guess and project outcomes while tournament organizers must look at only previous results.

  1. Union – Toronto
  2. Surge – Kingston – Previously 13th
  3. GLIDE – Ottawa
  4. NoBS – Toronto
  5. BLeD – Hamilton
  6. Whiplash – Kitchener/Waterloo
  7. Smoke – Peterborough
  8. Bytown Flatball Club – Ottawa
  9. YARRR – Oshawa
  10. Quick & Dirty – GTA
  11. Legen-Dairy – Port Perry
  12. Zen – Toronto
  13. BigFish – Ottawa
  14. TWO – Kitchener/Waterloo
  15. BULLDOGS – Toronto
  16. Default – Waterloo

 

A bit of shuffling since…yesterday.  BULLDOGS have gone down a few spots.  BigFish went up a few as I was reminded that Gavin is back with them which negates the advantage of playing zone for teams in near them in ranking.  TWO also dropped a couple as Surge went up and BigFish is slightly stronger than previously expressed.  I’m still not happy with my placement of Zen at 12th as I think they should be higher but I haven’t seen them play to their potential so far this season.

The big move is with Surge moving up to 2nd from 13th.  Admittedly 13th was the wrong place for them but fifth can seem a little high considering they finished below BFC who finished fourth in Montreal.  So how can I possibly rank Surge higher than BFC?  Misfortune in seeding at Comedy of Errors.  Surge played in pool D and was seeded 3rd in that pool which points to a seeding in the mid-teens.  They easily won their pool but didn’t get a crossover game.  The result was a Sunday morning matchup against Odyssée to whom they lost 15-7.  While GLIDE lost 15-3 in the next game I think the game from the previous day of 15-8 points to Surge also being close in strength to GLIDE.  Surge then beat Wreckhouse 13-10 compared to GLIDE’s 11-10 and finally got to the top of their bracket with a 14-11 win against The Rooster Project.

All of the above places Surge as slightly weaker than Gecko but stronger than…GLIDE?  I initially thought not but the results have swayed me away.  Some would say they didn’t have a particularly difficult Saturday.  I agree but then neither did Glide or any of the other top 6 six teams as they were guaranteed a spot in the Championship bracket.  Sunday started out tough and is amongst the toughest games in a tournament but they managed 7 against one of the best teams in Canada.  Their unlucky seeding did not give us enough head to head comparisons but the ones we have are enough to support my hypothesis.

It’s at this time that one should recognize how close Surge, GLIDE, NoBS, and BLeD are.  Each has a weakness, is distinct in character, and yet very little separates them.  They are one bad game away from not making CUC but they can rely upon the inconsistency of teams lower down the rankings.  Whiplash, Smoke, BFC, YARRR, and Quick & Dirty all have a good shot at snagging the last spot but they now need two great games to make it.  If I could place the teams in a ranking of similarity I would divide it as follows:

 

Surge has become the fly in the ointment that nobody expected and while it’s risky to rank them second it’s a statement to the top teams:  there are now nine legitimate contenders for the three remaining bids to CUC.

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