The tournament organizers hyped Trouble in Vegas as "the best or worst idea ever." Although speculations abounded about the horrors that could be unleased with so many underage college kids descending on Vegas, it seems that the tournament was a success. I'm sure that as time goes by more and more stories will unfold about what really happened this past weekend, but this is just a sketch of how the games played out.

All weekend the weather was beautifully clear, in the mid 70's with varying degree of wind. Consdering that the other major tournament played this weekend (QCTU in North Carolina) had to contend with snow flurries, it would be hard to complain about the weather for Trouble in Vegas. Despite decent weather, many of the games' scores were quite low. Games were to 13 with slightly shortened rounds (90 minutes total), but early season offenses often had difficulty scoring quickly in even minimal wind and lots of games were capped.

Of note is that on Saturday, the wind died off significantly by the time Pools C and D started playing. Pools A and B had their rounds in the morning when it was windier and the games were dominated by zone.

Saturday Pool Play

In Pool A, one of the tournament's top seeds, UCLA, was in for a surprise as they ended up finishing third in the pool behind both British Columbia (UBC) and UC-Berkeley. This was UBC's first tournament of the season, and the team was fired up to play. One of the team's leaders, Megan O'Brien, had actually competed in the club Trouble in Vegas tournament the weekend before and she helped lead her team to one-point victories over both UCLA and Berkeley (9-8 and 8-7, respectively). Berkeley was also raring to go against UCLA after losing to the team in January and avenged its loss in another one point game (8-7). As predicted, Carleton came in last in the pool in its first tournament appearance of the year. Nonetheless, Carleton gave Berkeley a run for its money, only losing 9-10.

Humboldt State was the surprise team of Pool B. This season, Humboldt has been trying to overcome its second tier history, so convincing wins over Cornell and Texas A&M are steps in the right direction (13-7 and 12-3, respectively). Representing the Southwest, UC-San Diego took the pool outright, although it barely made it past Cornell in a 10-9 nailbitter and played a close game against Humboldt (9-7). Despite its successes during the fall pre-season, Cornell wasn't able to pull out a win against its west coast opponents this early in the season. Additionally, Texas A&M was unable to come up with a victory in pool play.

Pool C also had some unexpected upsets. Dartmouth had been hailed as one of the top teams in New England, and beat UC-Santa Barbara (7-4). That was the team's only win and Dartmouth finished last in its pool after losing a tiebreaker to Oregon. UC-Santa Barbara won the pool after beating Northwestern and Oregon (11-6 and 9-1, respectively). UCSB is another team that has been striving to be one of the top competitors in its region, and solid performances at tournaments thus far indicate this could be its break-out year. Northwestern also surprised fans not used to seeing teams from the Great Lakes knock down Northwest teams like Oregon. Props to Northwestern for being ready to play outside and come in second in its pool.

Pool D was the most competitive pool of the pack. Colorado lived up to its hype and maintained control of the pool, although UC-Davis almost upset CU in their close 9-8 match (Davis was up 6-5 before Colorado took half). Meanwhile Wisconsin turned some heads by playing a close game against Colorado (13-10), beating UC-Davis (9-6), and coming in second in the pool. While Tufts played well against its opponents, it wasn't able to chalk up the victories it needed to finish higher than last in the pool.

Sunday Reseeded Pools

On Sunday, the pools were reseeded and Pools G through J were created. The results from these new pools would determine placement in the championship bracket for Monday.

The three teams in Pool G finished the same in their new pools as they did in the Saturday pool. UBC continued its unbeaten streak to win the pool handily, with Wisconsin coming in second and Oregon and Texas A&M rounding out the rest of the pool. The closest games in this pool were between UBC and Wisconsin (13-9) and Oregon and Texas A&M (12-8).

Pool H was a tough draw for Dartmouth, which ended up last in its pool again after losing to the west coast schools. UC-San Diego beat both its in-state rivals from the North in tight games: 8-5 against UC-Davis and 8-7 against UC-Berkeley. Davis ended up taking second over Berkeley in another close game (9-7).

Pool I was also laden with three west coast teams, but Tufts beat both UC-Santa Barbara and Humboldt by the score of 9-8 and then came in second to UCLA after losing (6-13). This was a big step for Tufts after coming in last in its pool the day before to heavier hitters. While UCLA won its pool this day, it was not invincible. Humboldt only lost to UCLA by one (7-8) and UC-Santa Barbara only lost by two (7-9).

Pool J only had one west coast team and Colorado won the pool relatively easily. Northwestern came in second in its pool for the second day in a row after beating Cornell and Carleton. The team didn't seem to quite have the legs to overcome the early 3-0 lead that Colorado posted. The only game of the pool with a close score was between Northwestern and Carleton (8-6), however Northwestern was up 8-2 before the team started playing its rookies and allowed Carleton back into the game. Carleton was missing a few of its key veterans at this tournament.

Monday Bracket Play

This three-day tournament was unable to reserve its fields during the three-day weekend for President's Day, so the last day of play was on a regular school day. This hurt a few rosters as some players had to leave on Sunday night to make it back for school obligations.

Monday played out a full bracket of 16, starting with pre-quarters. Four teams that had played especially well in the Division II were thus given a chance to play in the championship bracket. The teams that moved up were UC-Santa Cruz (6-0), Western Washington (5-1), Oregon State (5-1), and Syracuse (4-2), while the Division I teams that dropped down to the lower brackets were Dartmouth, Carleton, Humboldt, and Texas A&M.

Most of the pre-quarters games went as planned. The four former Div II teams all lost to the top seeds of Division I (UBC defeated Western Washington 11-4, Colorado beat Oregon State 12-7, UCSD beat UCSC 13-4, and UCLA defeated Syracuse 11-3). Northwestern beat Oregon for the second time during the weekend, Wisconsin won over Cornell 13-5, Davis beat UCSB, and Tufts narrowly defeated UC-Berkeley 10-8.

The quarterfinals thus included three Southwest teams, two Northwest teams, and one team from the Central, Great Lakes, and New England. That type of parity in the distribution speaks highly of the level of play in women's college ultimate across the country. Interestingly enough, all four of the teams from Saturday's Pool D made it to the quarterfinals. Two of the quarterfinal match-ups were blow-outs. Colorado dispatched of Tufts while UCLA defeated Northwestern, both games with the final scores of 13-5.

The other two games were much closer. UC-Davis' roster was actually down to 8 women due to class conflicts on Monday and regional rivals UBC and Davis kept their game close. Each team had difficulty scoring efficiently and the final capped score was in favor of UBC, 9-7. Wisconsin and UCSD had an even closer battle. After trading points, Wisconsin finally emerged victorious at the cap, ending UCSD's unblemished tournament record with a score of 10-9.

Despite both being the only undefeated teams left in the tournament, UBC matched-up against Colorado in the semifinals. Kira Frew and Megan O'Brien couldn't lead their team to another victory and Colorado advanced to finals. During this round, there was a significant cross-wind that favored one direction. The teams traded downwinders till 2-2 before Colorado started scoring upwind and took half 7-3. UBC didn't make too many mistakes during the game, but Colorado was able to take advantage of the mistakes that the Canadians did make and the final score was 13-4. Both UCLA and Wisconsin were 6-2 going into their semifinal game, although UCLA hadn't lost a game since Saturday. Dana Gerrits and Holly Greunke lead the Wisconsin squad in heart and play, but Belladonna didn't have an aswer for UCLA and UCLA won 12-6.

This was to be UCLA's second appearance in the finals of a tournament this season and was Colorado's first chance to win a college tournament. Both teams had been tested during the weekend, although Colorado was the more unscathed at this point. Playing with few turnovers for the first few points, the score was tied at 6-6. Colorado then took half and went on a run to increase its lead to 10-6. UCLA had brough the count to 11-8 before the hard cap went on. UCLA then scored the final point, but it was too little too late and Colorado emerged victorious 11-9. Quoting Mike Whitaker, the Colorado coach, "It was incredibly clean, hard fought ultimate for usch an early tournament, especially as the 10th game of the weekend." Names to watch for both teams include (among others): Alex Snyder, Caroline Matthews, and Heather Pavlak for Colorado and Anna "Maddog" Nazarov, Lisa Vampola, Emily Gauthier, and Pooja Shah. Both Colorado and UCLA have now positioned themselves as the teams to beat in the Southwest and have tested themselves against teams from around the country.

The rest of the bracket was played out for seedings and to allow more teams match-up opportunities. The full results are posted on the Score Reporter site. Congrats to Colorado for its first tournament win of the season and to the tournament organizers for pulling off such a large scale success.