| Tournament Write-up: |
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Every year the Stanford Invite tournament directors pray for sunshine, but this year the skies opened up during the week before the tournament and rain was forecast for the entire weekend as well. Luckily, the tournament was in the capable hands of Cultimate, and the two Skips worked long hours to secure alternate field sites. As a result, the tournament ended up being held in Livingston, an hour and a half away from the Stanford fields. While this created a few last minute schedule changes, the fields turned out to be great, even if the grass wasn't the softest imaginable. Best of all, not a drop of rain fell on the fields the whole weekend while it continued to pour back in Palo Alto.
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Erin Crider (State College) goes up
against UNC-Chapel Hill |
On Saturday the wind picked up during the day, but wasn't nearly as strong as it would be on Sunday. In Pool W, Stanford held on to its number one seed despite some challenges from UNC and State College. UNC-Chapel Hill came out fired up against Stanford and took a 6-3 lead in the first round. Ellie Bolas' cutting was instrumental in UNC's run, as was the team's scrappiness. With increased defensive pressure after a time-out, Stanford battled back to take half 8-7. The capped game ended in Stanford's favor, 10-9. State College also had a 3-1 lead on Stanford. Unfortunately for State College, an injury to one of State College's main players, Erin Crider, coincided with Stanford's decision to start playing zone and State College didn't score another point during the game. This game was just after State College had lost a close battle with UNC. The State College-UNC game was a re-match of quarterfinals at QCTU and was close the entire way. The contest came down to double-game point. After multiple turnovers, UNC methodically worked the disc upwind for the final goal. Oregon was missing three of its handlers, including Molly Suver and Lauren Prince, and did not win a game despite handler Tobey Beaver's best efforts.
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Pool X was won by Colorado, as expected. However, they too were surprised by an Atlantic Coast team as Emory had a 7-6 lead before CU was able to come back and take half. Colorado ended up winning the game 15-10. Emory also lost to UC-Berkeley by a similar score (15-9). Berkeley has a well-practiced zone defense that Emory was unable to handle. However, in its game against Colorado, Berkeley was unable to convert the disc and CU picked apart its defense for a 15-4 win. After a relatively strong performance at Trouble in Vegas (winning its Saturday pool), UC-Santa Barbara struggled throughout the day this weekend, going 0-3 in pool play.
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Colorado v. UC-Santa Barbara in pool play |
| Pool Y had some interesting upsets as although UCLA won the pool outright, there was a three way tie for second. Brown caught UC-Davis off-guard in the first game of the day and won the capped game 10-9. UC-Davis was missing its best thrower for the weekend, Victoria "Chuckie" Wilk, but still managed to score against Washington's four person zone defense. It took awhile for Davis to find its rhythm against the zone but UW didn't take care of the disc enough to take advantage and Davis won 10-8. UW beat Brown by a large margin, winning the three way tie on the point-differential. UW also gave UCLA a relatively close game. UCLA connected deep off of its horizontal stack a number of times before UW started adjusting with a switching defense and UCLA won the game 11-8.
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Carmen Ausserer (UCSC) v. UCSD |
Pool Z was won relatively easily by British Columbia. It's closest games were against UC-San Diego and Texas, which it beat 14-8 and 13-7, respectively. The exciting game of this pool was between UC-San Diego and Texas. This game was played during the second round of the day when there was a bit of wind to contend with, and both teams had difficulty scoring quickly. The game barely made it past half-time after the cap and UC-San Diego emerged victorious (9-7). UC-Santa Cruz made it into the tournament by winning the previous weekend's Stanford Invite Qualifier tournament. This weekend, luck was not on its side as it did not win a game in pool play. What became more important than the results of the weekend's games was that no one was injured when one of the team's cars was totaled in a car accident driving to the fields. |
| The pre-quarters round saw in the windy conditions increase and more zone defense was played. UC-Berkeley and UC-Davis had played twice at previous tournaments this season, both ending in favor of UC-Davis. This contest was no different as the Pleiades were able to work the disc effectively enough in the wind against UC-Berkeley's defense and won 11-6. Washington and Emory faced off in the second pre-quarters game. Emory was successful at coming down with errant discs in the wind. Its zone D wasn't the four-person cup Washington was used to seeing, which took awhile for UW to adjust to. Emory's solid play won 15-9. The next game was between State College and UC-San Diego. UCSD seemed to be struggling with its offensive flow this tournament, and State College took advantage of San Diego turnovers. Despite her injury, Erin Crider returned to field to play during this round for State College and helped the team upset UCSD. The final game of the round was between Texas and UNC-Chapel Hill. Texas suffered from the loss of its main handlers from the squad that made the semis of the UPA Championships last year, which hurt the team in the wind. UNC's throwers seemed more able to cope with the wind and won the game 14-7.
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| On Sunday, the wind had picked up considerably and was pushing the discs towards the backhand side when going downwind. Most teams forced their opponents to play zone offense going upwind and often zone was used as a deterrent to downwind hucks. In the Davis-Stanford quarterfinal, Davis started out downwind and the teams traded till 3-3 before Stanford was able to score upwind. Davis played a force-middle, four person cup that contained Stanford's upwind offense, often preventing Superfly from advancing much out of its own endzone. Davis wasn't able to gain many yards against Stanford's trapping zone either. In fact, half an hour into the game, the score was still tied at 1's. Stanford's one upwinder was the only upwind goal of the game and Superfly won 7-5. |
Lindsey Riemenschneider (UC-Davis) |
| The UCLA-Penn State quarters game was also decided by one upwinder. State College relies on just a few players, which wasn't enough to overcome UCLA's deeper roster. Handler Karen Schulte was especially clutch in State College's disc movement while Anna "Maddog" Nazarov and Lisa Vampola were the go-to handlers for UCLA. UCLA ended up winning the battle 9-7.
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| The UBC-Emory game was also a low-scoring affair. UBC has a number of handlers who moved the disc well against Emory's zone. Practicing in the conditions of Vancouver have developed UBC's bad-weather throws, and the consistency of handler Kira Frew helped UBC score upwind. UBC finished the capped game ahead 9-5.
The quarterfinal between Colorado and UNC-Chapel Hill was the highest scoring game of all the quarterfinals. As most of the upwind pulls did not get past half-field, UNC did not blindly jack it going downwind as some other teams were doing. While working it downwind was effective, Colorado did capitalize for upwind goals on two UNC turnovers that were relatively near the upwind goal. Colorado emerged victorious 13-9. |
Emory throws v. UBC in quarters |
Anna "Maddog" Nazarov (UCLA) |
It was an all-west coast semifinal field this weekend. In one of the semifinals, Colorado and UCLA faced off in a re-match of the finals of Trouble in Vegas. Their previous contest was characterized by few turnovers and a fast pace, which Colorado won. This time the weather would prevent such a clean game. Both teams played zone to guard against an upwind goal, Colorado making use of a trapping zone and UCLA utilizing a force-middle cup. After the cap went on, the score was tied at 8-8 and it was double game point. UCLA received going downwind, so most bets were on the California team to win the game. However, Colorado got the disc back on its own goalline and proceeded to patiently work the disc upwind against UCLA's four person cup. Making use of small dish-passes inside the cup, Colorado was able to advance far enough up the field to try for slightly riskier passes through the zone. UCLA never adjusted to taking away either the cup crashing or Alex's inside-out backhand and Colorado scored the upwinder to win the game 9-8. |
| In the other semifinals game, it was the first time regional rivals British Columbia and Stanford matched-up this season. After winning the flip, Stanford was up 2-1 before it scored upwind to help extend its lead to 4-1. Stanford was utilizing a punt-and-zone style of play, looking to get quick turnovers on the downwind goalline with its trapping cup. Once UBC got the disc out of the trap, the handlers moved the disc quickly upfield and approached the upwind goal a number of times. However, UBC was unable to convert any of its upwind attempts into a goal. Meanwhile, in the point to take half 7-3, Stanford worked the disc upwind without a turnover, patiently stringing together almost 40 passes in a row before Lauren Casey threw the score. Trading points the rest of the game, Stanford won with a final score of 10-5. |
Megan O'Brien (UBC) saves a low pass in the semifinals against Stanford |
| The finals featured the much anticipated match-up between Stanford and Colorado. Going into the game, both teams were undefeated for the season and were at the top of most ranking systems lists. In fact, hype had already started about Stanford and Colorado as the favorites for the finals at the UPA College Championships. So this game would be a good test.
Colorado won the flip and started the game going downwind. However, Stanford made use of its first opportunity to score upwind and worked the disc against Colorado's zone. All game, Crystal Cook was crucial in breaking Kali's forehand trap and she and Casey worked the disc upfield. Not to be outdone, Colorado answered with its own no-turnover upwind goal a few points later and the score was tied at 2-2. Again, Stanford answered with an upwind zone goal, this time relying on a defensive block by Enessa Janes to jumpstart the O after a few turnovers. The score stood in Stanford's favor at 3-2 and Colorado promptly called a time-out. Now that more upwind goals had been scored than downwind goals, the possibility existed the punt-and-zone was not going to be viable option this game. Indeed, there was a five point stretch with only a few turnovers total as Colorado was hitting mid-range downwind passes and Stanford connected on a couple longer throws. On the turnover, Stanford played a box-and-one defense to try and neutralize the effect that Colorado's main handlers, Caroline Matthews and Alex Snyder, could have in their team's offense. After trading points, Stanford took half 7-5 and received going downwind.
The second half was shortened due to the cap and only three points were played after halftime. Stanford scored all three as it scored upwind playing against Colorado's person-defense. Nonetheless, Stanford's downwind point right after half had almost 20 turnovers, three of which were off of Stanford's incomplete hucks. The final score stood at 10-5, Stanford. Both teams played a good game with few calls. The most memorable call was a foul-called against a defensive play by Casey near the upwind goal. Unsure of whether the contact occured before or after the play was made, she did not contest the call. Unfortunately, Colorado couldn't convert this upwind chance. Also, props need to go to Colorado's handlers who swung the disc with confidence even when the team's usual go-to players weren't handling because of the box-and-one on Synder or Matthews. Jen Masamitsu also had a good game for Colorado with a great lay-out grab in the endzone and tenacious defense. For Stanford, Hannah Griego stepped up, getting four defensive blocks and either throwing or catching four of her team's goals.
The next time so many top teams will converge will be in a few weeks at Centex.
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(from left to right): Alex Snyder goes up for the D; Megan Andrews gets up; Jen Masamistu catches in front of Lauren Casey; Ruth Emerson comes down with the disc; Lauren Schneider with the D-block; Casey with a D that ended as an uncontested foul; Colorado dishes off the disc |
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