All-Region Commentary

Neeley played at Regionals so here’s his first and second All-Region squads along with his reasoning. Feel free to to critique his decision making but please, be gentle, because he’s just coming off an injury.

Neeley’s All-Region

All-Region picks are a tricky thing. Like MVP awards in professional sports, everyone defines the criteria for the accolade differently, and with as many opinions on the comparative importance of team finish, how integral a player is to his team’s success, and individual skill as there are readers, any writer who broaches the subject is doomed to rub somebody the wrong way.

Still, those of us with opinions are unable to resist, and here I am to offer my take on things. In picking my top seven, I put most value on which players contributed most on the teams that went deep into the tournament.

It’s no secret that the Atlantic Coast is deep in talent, and individual standouts were not all that hard to come by. Still, for better or for worse, Virginia or NC State’s third-best players had an advantage over well-known players like Sam Gainer, and Clemson’s very talented Ben Slade was less likely to make the team than his brother, Michael.

Also, it should be noted my picks are influenced as much by the field locations determined by my team’s schedule as they are my own opinions (although my decision not to play on Saturday and during Sunday’s pre-Quarter round due to a hamstring pull did afford me a bit more time to watch teams other than my own). 

To neutralize this process, I decided to make both a first and second All-Region team. Without further adieu:

Monup’s AC All-Region Team

Based on an extremely scientific process of asking the captains of each team to vote for their All-Region team we bring you: Monup’s First Annual AC All-Region team! Thanks to the captains that voted and congratulations to the players that made the team. We’d be more than happy to be listed as a reference on any and all of your future resumes.

First Team

 

1. Robert Runner – UVA Night Train (Consensus Selection)

2. Peter Dempsey – Jojah Bulldogs (Consensus Selection)

3. Rusty Ingold-Smith – UNC-W Seamen (Consensus Selection)

4. Brodie Smith – UF Gators

5. Tyler Conger – UVA Night Train

6. Alan Kolick – William and Mary

7. Thomas Ward – NC State Wolfpack

Second Team

 

1. Ken Porter – NC State Wolfpack

2. Brett Matzuka – NC State Wolfpack

3. Ben Slade – Clemson Joint Chiefs

4. Chris Mullinux – UT Volunteers

5. Eric Olivier – Charleston Bums

6. Taylor Nilan – Jojah Bulldogs

7. Brian Casey – UNC-W Seamen

Also receiving votes: Daniel Petronio – FSU DUF

A couple notes:

One consensus selection that is not shown through these votes, someone from NC State deserves to be on the first team. Every captain from the Region that voted had a member from the Wolfpack on his ballot but, as can be seen here, the votes ended up split between three Wolfpack players.

In case of a tie, we were the deciding vote.

Neeley has his own first and second All-Region squads with some of his own commentary and we’ll have that up in a bit. Sorry about our recent absence but finals have been bogging us down. Not to worry though, as Robert Runner told us in an e-mail (although he was speaking for himself and we are now speaking for us) “I just finished up with exams, so I can fully focus on Ultimate.”

AC Open Regionals – Superlatives

We’d like to start off by introducing a new contributing writer for Monup. Everyone meet Jonathan Neeley. Neeley is a player for UVA Night Train and a talented writer who wants to help the Ultimate scene grow and plans to do so via writing. He’s going to be helping us out in the coming weeks with our Nationals previews both from the perspective of a journalist and a player.

We handed out superlatives for Sectionals and here we are doing the same for Regionals. Neeley is also providing some perspective on superlatives.

Morning Pull: AC Regional Photos

Our photographer from last weekend, amid having finals to worry about, has managed to finish editing his photos from last weekend and would like to share them with you.

You can visit his site here. He was paid a minimal amount of money for the amount of work that he put in and took some great photos. So we encourage you to purchase his photos as they are more than reasonably priced at $2 per photo. As you’ve already seen his pictures are of the highest quality and he’s got an eye for action.

So, peruse the pictures and find a couple you like to share with family and friends… or just to put up in that shrine to yourself that we all know you have in the closet.

All Region team and Superlatives are to come later today. We’re also in the process of writing a paper on Emmanuel Immanuel Kant’s theory of the universal communicability of the beautiful and sublime compared to his ideas on the categorical imperative and its first formulae or maxim. As you can imagine, we’re semi-strapped for time. On a related note, if you understood anything that we just wrote, shoot us a message because we have no idea what we’re talking about.

AC Open Regionals – An Observer’s Take

As we’ve already made abundantly clear on this blog, we were supremely impressed with the level of play during AC Regionals, both in terms of sportsmanship, talent and excitement. However, we didn’t want our opinion to be the only thing that lead to that conclusion. Here’s a Q&A that we recently had with El Diablo’s Mike Nash. Nash, from everything that we’ve heard and seen, is a really nice and really knowledgeable guy when it comes to Ultimate. We figured that his experience would be something that would interest everyone.

AC Open Regionals – Sunday Recap

Here are the rest of our Sunday recaps. We must say that this was, far and away, the best tournament that we have ever been a part of. It had all the drama and excitement that we could ask for along with excellent organization and logistics. The Ultimate and weather were beautiful and if someone can promise us that every AC College Regionals will play out like this one, we’ll be there forever.

The Game – Florida vs. NC State

We know this is what you all want to hear about anyways, so here it is. The recap, from our eyes of the N.C. State and Florida game-to-go at UPA Atlantic Coast Regionals. Hopefully we’ll have some photos of the action up later tonight Recaps for the rest of the day are coming in due time. Thanks for reading.

A beautiful spring day in Charlotte, N.C. If one didn’t know any better, he/she would say that it was even peaceful. However, in this location, at this time, things were anything but peaceful. The Ramblewood Soccer Complex, a location that will most likely live on in infamy, as it was the location in which the might Florida Gators, the team that was expected … no, supposed to win Nationals, met their match, the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

AC Regionals – Saturday Recap

Play today was awesome. All teams were spirited and the competition was the most even and overall highest level we’ve ever been a part of. Below is the day recap without photos. Our photographer has a life to live and therefore will not be able to edit photos for a little bit, which we’re fine with, we just don’t want people to get antsy. Photos will be up later this evening.  with photos included!

A Florida player brings in a huck against Georiga. Photo courtesy of Jesse von Fange.