EMORY LUNA SHINES AT COMPETITIVE CCC

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ATHENS, GA
Nov 4-5, 2006

BY: Katherine Wooten
Posted to rec.sport.disc

This year's Classic City Classic drew womens teams from across the country, and there was great competition all weekend. Congratulations to Emory Luna on winning the tournament, and a nice prize package from VC Ultimate. The finals game was Emory versus Wisconsin-- Emory coming out on top 13-9.

Recap of Saturday play:

Power Pool A: Stanford brought a smaller squad, but looked clean and efficient. Christina Contreras and Alicia Danztker are running great. Florida lost very few girls from last year and will be punishing teams with their offense this spring. Stanford handed them their only loss of the day, in a time-capped, double-game point thriller in the last round of the day. Michigan had a great game against Stanford, upsetting them by one. Penn State played well, but not well enough to best the other three; Georgia looked young and inexperienced.

Hightlighted Player Pictured here at QCTU 2005, senior Amy Smith (Emory #13) was a key player in her team's tournament win. She uses her speed as a tireless cutter and tenacious defender. -photo courtesy of Emory Luna's website

Stanford 3-1
Florida 3-1
Michigan 3-1
Penn State 1-3
Georgia 0-4

Power Pool B: Wisconsin went 4-0 in their pool, playing great and taking advantage of Claire's height at every opportunity. Texas held seed at number two in the pool; they're looking like they have a great mix of athleticism this year and should place higher than 16th at Nationals in the spring. Emory had an off day, with a few close games but only one win. Iowa State is scrappy and unpredictable, so they took advantage of several teams...and had a very close game with Wisconsin in the next-to-last round. UNC-Chapel Hill has a lot of girls, but will continue to get better as the spring goes on.

Wisconsin 4-0
Texas 3-1
Iowa State 2-2
Emory 1-3
UNC-Chapel Hill 0-4

Pool C: Pool C was pool play as well, and the top two finishers received the opportunity to play into the A Bracket Sunday morning. Pittsburgh ran away with this one, beating everyone else by sizeable margins and securing a prequarters game for Sunday. They have several Pounce players on the roster, and their club experience is clearly an advantage over many other teams. Wake Forest and Davidson ended in a 2-1 tie, and it went to point differential with Wake securing the second play-in game. Wake had a very small roster this weekend, but they still pulled out wins. Returning Lucia Derks in the spring will clearly impact Wake and the number of W's in their column. Virginia's veteran Andrea Duran was one of the best handlers on any field this weekend, hopefully her team will gel around her and their game will get even better. Ga Tech went 0-4 in the pool, but with their young roster it's not that surprising.

Pittsburgh 4-0
Wake Forest 2-1
Davidson 2-1
Virginia 1-3
GA Tech 0-4

Sunday A Bracket results:

In the prequarters, Emory rolled over Georgia and Pitt beat Michigan to advance. Wake started Sunday dropping several in the end zone, and lost to Iowa State 12-6. UNC looked strong and took the final prequarters game against Penn State.

Emory squared off aginst regional rival Florida in the quarters and went up 5-1 out of the gate. Mustering an amazing comeback, Florida charged back to double-game point before Emory closed it out at 11-10 under time cap. Next door, Texas was battling Pitt in a great game...but Pittsburgh silenced any naysayers by getting the win, also by one point...12-11. Stanford looked a little surprised by Iowa State's style at first, but settled down in the second half and closed it out 12-6. Meanwhile Wisconsin beat UNC 13-7.

Semis: Because of the 3-way tie in Pool A on Saturday, the top two seeds ended up with each other in the semis. Stanford and Wisconsin each looked great, but in the end Wisconsin was the one to advance to the finals, winning 11-9. On the other side, Pittsburgh's swan song was at an end, and Emory's Amy Smith was accruing D after D to push Emory to the 13-5 win.

Finals: Wisconsin had the experience advantage over a lot of teams this weekend, but Emory has some blinding speed in Amy Smith, and she simply never gets tired. Defensively she's getting blocks and offensively she's scoring every other point. One might wonder why Emory didn't do as well on Saturday, but they had Lauren Truxillo and Adrienne Tecza for Sunday only. Adrienne provided plenty of height to counter Bella Donna's tallest players, and Trux is the calming force that the Emory offense needs to succeed. It was a great game, Trux played phenomenally, as did the rest of the Emory girls.

Party recap: Stanford and Florida kicked ass at the boatracing competition, Georgia and Wisconsin showed up in full force, and one of the UGA rookies channeled a table-top dancer for the night, requiring the "assistance" of a bouncer in getting down. Multiple times. The dancing and the music was top-notch, and the beer never stopped flowing. Thanks everyone for a great tournament!