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| Ranked Teams: | Final Finish:
1. Stanford |
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Tournament Write-up: (By Kyna Fong)
Every year the UPA Northwest College Women’s Regionals is a battlefield of upsets and nailbiters and 2005 has been no different. This weekend, the region’s top sixteen teams, from Santa Cruz in the south up to Vancouver in the north, have come together to Davis, California to contend for three bids to the UPA College Nationals in Corvallis, Oregon. As has become characteristic of the Northwest Region, the field is remarkably deep and outcomes are far from predictable. Five of the teams are ranked in the top 16 of the country. The sixth and seventh are ranked in the top 25. Both the National Champions and the Callahan winners of the last two years are competing. Nonetheless, the rules dictate that thirteen seasons must be ended and only three teams can be left standing to represent the region and to vie for the National title. Saturday featured four rounds of preliminary pool play and then one round of both seeding play and elimination play. Those games determined the top 8 teams, who now move on to Sunday’s Championship Bracket. Despite the shining sun and the perfect temperatures, the conditions were at times windy. Games saw their fair share of zone defenses played and several teams used strategies of big throws for field position. At the end of the day, the top seven seeds (Stanford, Oregon, Santa Cruz, Washington, UBC, Davis and Berkeley) advanced in order, with the exception of a Berkeley-Oregon swap. Oregon State rounded out the final eight, a step up from its #9 seeding. Preliminary play involved four pools. The winner of each was guaranteed a spot in the top 8 and played a seeding game to determine placement in the Championship bracket. The remaining four spots (5th through 8th) were allocated to winners of four crossover games between second- and third-place finishers of the pools. Pool A featured #1 seed Stanford, #8 seed PLU (Pacific Lutheran), #12 seed Western Washington, and #13 seed Whitman. While Stanford had no trouble holding seed, Western Washington eked out a 15-14 upset against PLU to nab the second-place finish. The most impacting upset of the day happened in Pool B when Berkeley, the #7 seed, secured a 15-8 win over the #2 seed Oregon. The two began the game by trading points until 4-4. Oregon then pulled ahead 4-6, when a layout defensive attempt by Berkeley’s Amanda Leahy sidelined Oregon’s Callahan nominee Meryl Kusyk with a knee injury for the rest of the day. While Oregon was adjusting to Kusyk’s absence, the Pie Queens took the first half 8-7 and started the second half with a zone defense strategy. It immediately paid off when on the first point Leahy snagged a huge Callahan score to jumpstart a Berkeley run to an 11-7 lead. With the wind not letting either team break the zone effectively, the handlers got the green light to huck. As a result, Kath Ratcliff, the Pie Queens’ main handler and a Callahan nominee (nominated by the Regional Coordinator), made a triple connection to Oregon star Chelsea Dengler in the deep, who in turn hucked a few back the Pie Queens’ way. The teams split the next two points to make it 12-8. At that point, however, Oregon’s offense began to find trouble connecting and its defense couldn’t contain the precision of Ratcliff’s deep puts. She connected several times with her signature backhand and at 15-8 the Pie Queens guaranteed themselves a spot in the Championship bracket. The remaining games in Pool B involving #11 seed Lewis & Clark and #14 seed Berkeley B went according to seed, although Lewis & Clark put together a valiant effort in its 15-7 loss to Berkeley. Pool C also featured two top teams, #4 seed University of Washington and defending national champion #6 seed UC Davis, as well as #10 seed BYU (Brigham Young) and #15 UCSF. Washington has been particularly strong this year with the addition of grad student Miranda Roth, the 2004 Callahan winner who led Carleton to the finals of last year’s Nationals. Her presence was definitely felt in this game, especially on zone offense when she literally touched the disc every other pass and broke through the Davis cup almost effortlessly. Davis started off with a quick 2-5 lead and at 3-5 Davis’ Lindsey Riemenschneider registered a rare footblock on Roth. After trading two more upwind-downwind zone points to make the score 4-6, the force of the Washington cup began to reveal itself. The cup, all four of whom were at least 5’10 if not taller, gave little breathing room to Davis’s handlers and allowed UW to go on a seven-point run and to grab a commanding 11-6 lead. Led by co-captain Sarah Pittiglio’s aggressive defense, Davis ended its scoring drought with some well-executed zone offense. The Davis effort proved too late though, as a protracted 15-minute point at 13-8 allowed the hard cap to come on, and the game went to Washington 13-9. The #3 seed Santa Cruz won Pool D comfortably against #5 UBC, #9 OSU (Oregon State) and #16 Stanford B. Santa Cruz is currently ranked 5th in the nation and is fielding arguably the strongest team in its history. With seniors Claire Meneely and Bonnie and Jamie McPike leading the way, Sol showed its preparation with a commanding 15-3 win over UBC. Down 4-0 from the start and 8-1 at the half, UBC wasn’t able to get itself into the game. They couldn’t find their flow in the face of the wind and the Santa Cruz zone and were forced to settle for the second-place finish. Worth mentioning were the efforts of #9 seed OSU. They started the day off with an impressive challenge of Santa Cruz, losing only 15-9. The Divas then used that momentum to launch a formidable effort against a sluggish UBC. Sarah York led the Divas to a 12-12 tie, but UBC managed to pull away with the win, 15-13. So at the end of four rounds, the stage was set. Stanford would play Santa Cruz to decide the 1st and 3rd seeds of Sunday’s Championship Bracket, and Berkeley and Washington would contend for the 2nd and 4th seeds. Meanwhile, Pool A’s 2nd and 3rd finishers would crossover with Pool D’s 2nd and 3rd finishers, and the same for Pool B and Pool C. Winners of those four crossover games would round out the top 8. Having allowed its pool opponents a total of three points combined, Stanford found itself in its first contested game of the day against Santa Cruz. And quite a contest it turned out to be. Given the wind, both team decided to play a zone defense and traded a series of upwind-downwind points. Turnovers abounded and the prevailing strategy seemed to be looking long for field position. At 4’s, however, Stanford began to have a lot of trouble executing offensively in the wind and Sol strung together a series of four points to take the half 4-8. Part of this run included a Callahan goal by Sol’s Lillian Berla, who caught a disc that had just bounced unluckily off a Stanford hand. After halftime, the teams began to trade upwind-downwind points again. Both teams, particularly Sol’s Berla and Superfly’s Enessa Janes, made a bunch of defensive blocks. At 6-9, Meneely put up a big throw to score and make it 6-10. Down four points with the cap looming near, Stanford had no choice but to kick its play up a notch. Katie Berk made two key defensive interceptions and Lauren Schneider cut beautifully in the endzone, allowing Stanford to pull to within one point, 9-10. At this point the soft cap came on – game to 12. In a Stanford zone handling showcase, Janes, Lauren Casey, Jenny Burney and Jess Guh swung the disc up the field for a score to even the game. The Stanford momentum became unmistakable when co-captain Janes got a huge handblock to generate a quick score: 11-10. In the epic point that followed, amongst defensive plays by Sol’s Berla and Zoe Hitchner, more blocks by Janes, and a layout grab by Jamie McPike, Stanford’s Casey was able to close out the game with a soft put to Burney. Game to Stanford 12-10 – a six-point run just in the nick of time. In the other seeding game, Berkeley continued its impressive play, combining effective strategy with precise execution. Berkeley took half at 8-5 and the closest Washington was able to get was 9-7. Afterwards, Berkeley pulled away to 14-8 and won with a final score of 15-10. The game involved a lot of zone defense and a lot of big throws, particularly from Berkeley’s Ratcliff, to get field position. A typical play involved Ratcliff hucking three-quarters the length of the field to Washington’s Roth. Berkeley was then able to generate a turnover near the Washington endzone and use its smooth offense to score. Other key factors for the Pie Queens were Julie “Bruiser” Shortridge’s big grabs in the air, Amanda Leahy’s perfectly horizontal layout bids on defense, and Rebecca Rundle’s many endzone catches. The crossover games involved no big surprises. Oregon, Davis, UBC and OSU all moved on to Sunday’s top 8. The story of Saturday has definitely been the phenomenal showing by Berkeley. Ranked seventh coming into the tournament, the Pie Queens have upset both the #2 and #4 seeds to head into Sunday in the Championship Bracket’s second spot. First-seed Stanford has looked very vulnerable against Sol’s experience-ridden roster and will have to face more threats on Sunday. Ranked 5th coming into the tournament, UBC has yet to display any of its usual force. Nonetheless, Sunday’s quarter-final matchups are forecasted to be hotly contested: Stanford versus Oregon, Washington versus UBC, Santa Cruz versus Davis, and Berkeley versus OSU. On Sunday, the weather gods decided to show off their range of abilities with unrelenting rain. This caused the day to be chock full of bobbled catches, fumbled discs, and slippery drops, as well as many varieties of zone strategies, The Championship Bracket featured eight teams and began with four quarterfinals games. The two teams to reach the finals of the Bracket were automatically granted bids to nationals. The third bid was allocated to the victor of the backdoor bracket, into which losers of the Championship bracket fell. Of the four quarter-final games, two were won comfortably. Berkeley handled OSU 15-5, while Washington gave UBC no chances, winning 13-2. The story of that game was essentially one-dimensional: UBC’s three-woman zone swing simply could not find a way to penetrate Washington’s 4-person, 6-foot tall cup. In the first quarterfinal, Stanford and Oregon, both winners of their sections and seeded #1 and #2 respectively in the tournament, were pitted against each other as a result of Oregon’s loss to Berkeley on Saturday. An important factor for Oregon was the return of Meryl Kusyk, who had sat out most of Saturday. The Superfly defense started off the game strong to help build an early 5-2 lead. The teams then traded upwind-downwind points until half was taken by Stanford at 8-5. Oregon burst into the second half with three straight points as 2003 Callahan winner Chelsea Dengler made key defensive plays and was able to work the disc through and around Superfly’s cup to tie the score at 8’s. Stanford then took the lead 9-8 after a high hammer throw from Casey bounced off Hannah Griego’s hands into the hands of another Superfly, Alicia Dantzker. Dantzker then intercepted a Dengler huck to Kusyk, giving Stanford possession and a lead extension to 10-8. The hard cap having come on, Stanford scored the next goal to win 11-8 and secured its spot in the semis, one win away from a berth at Nationals. The other quarterfinal between Santa Cruz and Davis was equally exciting. Sol started off the game strong with a 0-3 lead. However, when Santa Cruz started looking long and then playing zone defense after the turnover, Davis responded with a rock-solid zone offense to even the score at 4’s. As the teams traded points until 8’s, Sarah Pittiglio played a key role in Davis’ offense and Lillian Berla threw some pretty scores for Sol. At that point, Davis turned on its defense and after a few sick defensive blocks, Pleiades pulled ahead 11-8. The wind was creating swilly throws and only short cuts could be completed. At 11-10 Sol pulled within one. The hard cap came on and Davis’ Lindsey Reimenschneider pulled off a huge defensive play to give her team possession and the final point. Game to Davis, 12-10. Sol, a favored team coming in, would now have to fight its way through three rounds of the backdoor bracket to get the final third bid. In the first semi-final, Stanford faced Washington. Stanford remembered Washington’s star Roth as being a main reason for Superfly’s previous year’s loss to Carleton in the Nationals semi-finals and structured their strategy around her. Roth made her presence known right away by quickly scoring the first point with a beautiful half-field inside-out backhand huck. Stanford’s Jenny Burney responded with some big plays of her own, including a layout block in the end zone. Both teams played a zone defense, but Stanford tried out a few different types to figure out how best to contain Roth, who was running Washington’s offense. One configuration was a box-and-one where Miranda was guarded one-on-one by Burney in a rematch of last year while the rest of the team played zone. At one point, Stanford ran an effective dominator-play with Lauren Casey, Enessa Janes and Crystal Cook. Nonetheless, the teams stayed evenly matched throughout with no team being ahead by more than one point. At 9-8, Stanford leading and the hard cap being about to come on, Hannah Griego made the play of the weekend with a layout defensive block in the endzone. Not only did that prevent Washington from tying up the game, the block allowed Stanford to go up a break for the first time in the game, 10-8. During the next point, the hard cap came on and even though Washington was able to convert on the next point, it came a heartbreaking sixty seconds late. Stanford pocketed a 10-9 win and picked itself up a frontdoor bid to Nationals. The second semi-final contest was between Davis Pleiades, weary but pumped after slipping by Santa Cruz, and the red-hot Berkeley Pie Queens, still undefeated for the weekend. In the first half, Davis’ “Chuckie” Wilk threw a beautiful huck and Berkeley’s “Bruiser” Shortridge made some pretty grabs to keep the teams even until 3-3. With Kath Ratcliff running Berkeley’s offense, the Pie Queens rallied to an 8-4 lead at half. Fueled by key defensive blocks from the agile Amanda Leahy, Berkeley simply outplayed Davis and didn’t allow them a point in the second half. Final score 15-4: frontdoor Nationals bid to Berkeley in the culmination of a fairy-tale weekend. So there was now one bid remaining and four very worthy teams left to fight for it: Oregon, Davis, Washington, and Santa Cruz. The Oregon-Davis contest started with Oregon running off to a 7-1 lead. Pleiades soon started to find holes in the Fugue man-defense and managed to tie the game at 7’s. But in the second half, Oregon took control. To start off, Oregon’s “Churro” Young caught her second (!) Callahan score of the day. (The first had come earlier in the day when she caught the game-winning score against UBC.) Davis was unable to answer and after more impressive Fugue plays involving Dengler and Kusyk, the hard cap kicked in and Oregon won 11-8. With the game went Davis’ chance to defend its national title. The matchup between Santa Cruz and Washington featured big hucks and a lot of zone defense. Meneely, Berla, and the McPike twins led the Santa Cruz offense and Washington was led by Roth and Carla Fowler. Washington maintained a comfortable lead for most of the game and was up 12-8 when the soft cap came on. Santa Cruz began to stage a comeback but couldn’t complete it in time. The hard cap whistle blew, ending both the game at 12-10 and Sol’s hopes for a trip to Corvallis. So two games remained: the frontdoor final between Stanford and Berkeley and the backdoor final between Oregon and Washington. Since both Stanford and Berkeley had already secured spots at Nationals, a sigh of relief could be sensed on the field during the frontdoor final. Stanford went up 4-0 thanks in part to great defensive plays by Jen Lau and Dantzker, and despite a short Berkeley run, Stanford maintained a comfortable lead to make it 11-5. Rebecca Rundle made a beautiful layout block for Berkeley but Stanford closed out the game 13-6. Game and regional championship title to Stanford. Finally, attention was turned to the real grit-tester: the backdoor final. Both Oregon and Washington were playing their fourth game of the day. Oregon had faced Stanford, UBC and Davis. Washington’s opponents had been no less draining: UBC, Stanford and Santa Cruz. But this was the game to go. This was what the whole tournament came down to. The last bid to Nationals was at stake and this was all or nothing. Each team had its own Callahan winner leading the way and playing tremendously. Oregon’s Dengler, the 2003 Callahan winner, made big grabs and defensive plays while Washington’s Roth, the 2004 Callahan winner, threw score after score after score. Washington’s Erin Gallagher also made some key handling decisions and throws to help her team take the half at 8-4. Oregon’s Lauren Prince broke the mark with a slick forehand to Dengler for a score to make it 8-5. Roth and Oregon’s Callahan nominee Meryl Kusyk matched up in the deep but Roth was able to keep her team’s lead up until 11-7. Oregon then scored three in a row and brought the game to 11-10. Another Washington score was answered by Oregon to make it 12-11. At this point, the hard cap came on. Oregon had one last chance to tie it up and create a championship-of-the-universe situation. The last point included a number of turnovers by each team and some great defensive plays but in the end Washington scored on a high catch in double coverage. The third and final bid went to Washington. As an aside, the game to go included the most dynamic turnover of the weekend. Dengler was on the sideline in her own endzone, facing a trap cup with nowhere to throw the disc. She put up a desperation swilly flick intended for field position but it ended up going high in the air and boomeranging back towards her. A huge pack of four Washington players and two Oregon players converged under it and in a mad display of athleticism Dengler skied them all for a clean and perfect catch. Of her own throw. Congratulations to all the teams who participated this weekend for a fine display of Northwest women’s ultimate. It is unfortunate that deserving teams of such high caliber will not be in competition at Corvallis, but competing in this region will surely be an unbeatable preparation for the nationals-bound squads. Best of luck to Stanford, Berkeley and Washington!
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