CCC LIX – Random Thoughts and Previews

Obviously we didn’t have time to preview every team in the field. Our pools and seeds post discussed a little news on each team but we wanted to go ahead and give the briefest of thoughts in a more news-like manner on some of the more notable players, occurrences and oddities of the teams attending. In alphabetical order.

Tally Classic 2010 – Semifinals – Notre Dame Papal Rage vs. Clemson Joint Chiefs

After a killer quarterfinals round for most of the semis teams, we halfway expected to see some dead tired players taking the fields for the Tally Classic’s Final Four. However, the tournament director announced that the championship bracket teams would be taking a full bye before continuing to play. While the announcement frustrated some teams (Virginia and Michigan State had already begun their game), others were thrilled to hear the news, as it meant an hour to rest weary legs before a shot at $1000 was put on the line.

On one side of the bracket was a game between Cinderella story Clemson Joint Chiefs and last year’s Tally Classic champions, Notre Dame Papal Rage. Clemson had already pulled out two magical double game point victories over sectional rival Clemson over the course of the weekend but Papal Rage made sure that it wouldn’t fall into the same trap. Double game point came calling again but it was Notre Dame that answered the call this time, winning 13-12.

Tally Classic 2010 – Quarterfinals

The Sunday Morning Bracket started without much of a hitch as all of the first round games went to seed and went there easily. As soon as the team’s that had been able to sleep in rolled up to the fields. Things started to get dicey and fast.

Michigan State was matched up with Wheaton College, Virginia faced off against Florida State meanwhile Notre Dame had a rematch with Georgia Southern and Clemson had a replay of Saturday’s contest with Georgia Tech.

Aside from Burning Couch’s big win over Wheaton, this round was as closely contested as any at the Tally Classic. Clemson topped Georgia Tech on a capped universe point, Notre Dame staved off Georgia Southern after being down a break in the first half and Virginia and Florida State got a late start but Night Train barely prevailed 9-7.

Tally Classic 2010 – ACC South Championship – Virginia Night Train vs. Clemson Joint Chiefs

If there was one team at the Tally Classic that was surprising people, it was the Clemson Joint Chiefs. The boys from Upstate South Carolina had spent their morning forcing Virginia to double game point, trouncing Miami and beating Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC Bracket. Across pool play and in the crossovers, things were going pretty much to seed but Clemson was threatening that balance.

Meanwhile, Virginia had more or less pranced through all of their games except against Clemson and, as night was settling, most of the spectators were not expecting the Joint Chiefs to be able to compete on the level that they had the first time they squared off against Night Train.

Those spectators were in for a huge surprise though, as Clemson beat Virginia handily, 13-8.

Tally Classic 2010 – Round Four – Georgia Tech Tribe vs. Clemson Joint Chiefs

At this point in the day, we moved from the regular pools on the fields to the bracket play of the ACC South Championship. Due to the cancellation of the ACCs in late January, the organizers of the Tally Classic decided to fill what they consider to be a void by taking over as best they can, the role of the ACC championship.

In the first round of ACC Championship bracket play Virginia Night Train faced off against Wake Forest Womb in what turned into a blowout. On the other side of the bracket, Georgia Tech Tribe and the Clemson Joint Chiefs engaged in what turned out to be anything but a blowout on either side. Clemson eventually triumphed by a score of 12-11.

Tally Classic Previews: Clemson Joint Chiefs

The Joint Chiefs pose after Queen City Tune Up. Photo courtesy of Jesse von Fange. http://www.unitesports.biz

In addition to having one of the best team names in all of college Ultimate, the Clemson Joint Chiefs also have one of the more driven leaders. Graduate student captain Ben Slade has spent three years at Clemson attempting to take the Joint Chiefs from being just another Ultimate program, to a team with a solid farm system and an even more solid product on the field.

Weekend Roundup

We know this is a little late this week but we’re thinking it’s in everyone’s best interest if we use our Ultimate contacts from around the nation to keep you as posted as possible on what’s going on in the college scene.

Last weekend posted some of the first sanctioned tournament results of the season.

Joint Summit Classic

We played in Joint Summit last season and won the tournament. From what we can tell, competition was much improved this year from last season. With the canceling of The Dave Baldwin Tournament Georgia scrambled to find someplace to get its early season tournament in. Fortunately, Clemson was able to accomodate them.

The weather was miserable for the whole tournament and, as we discovered at CCC, weather can be a great equalizeer. South Carolina captain Kevin Anderson told us that standing water and mud on the field was expected every round and it was a miracle the tournament was even allowed to continue.

East Carolina started the tournament as the two-seed and managed to break that seed for the weekend by beating a Georgia team that was struggling with a new offense and missing a number of injured players in the finals.

Congratulations to East Carolina for the victory in what proved to be a tougher tournament than anyone expected. Word on the street is that Jojah’s Peter Dempsey balled hard over the weekend. If you don’t believe us, look at his stats.

We’ll have to do some research as to what affect wins like this one have on the final allotment of bids to Regionals. While Jojah might be able to shrug this one off, under the new system, a game like this may mean one more bid to Regionals for the North Carolina section and one less for the GA/SC section.

On another note, if you want to know just how much Ben Slade means to his team this is food for thought. Slade did not play on Saturday and Clemson lost to in-state rival South Carolina and unheard of Warren Wilson. However, Slade laced up his cleats on Sunday and Clemson promptly took care of business against previously undefeated Alabama in the quarterfinals.

Santa Barbara Invite

Another tournament that struggled with rain. We didn’t have any contacts at this tournament (the struggle of living on the east coast). However, results seemed to go more or less as expected.

Colorado came out on top thanks to three straight universe point wins. Beginning during the crossover on Saturday, taking out Stanford 11-10, and then continuing all the way through bracket play. Cal-San Diego and Cal-Berkeley both took Mamabird to double game point.

Could this finally be the year that someone challenges Colorado in the Southwest? Mamabird has won the region since the years of the Condors but if UGMO and UCSD is at the top of its game, could they prove to be too much for Colorado over the course of Regionals weekend?

W2W4

We know, original right. These are the tournaments we’re keeping our eyes on.

We’ve got contacts headed to Big D in Little D and the ACC Ultimate Championships. We’ll be sure to let you know how things turn out but you can probably count on the directors at ACCs to keep score reporter updated consistently.

If you’d like to be a contact of ours at any tournament, shoot us an e-mail.

If you haven’t seen The Coaches and Captain’s Top 25 yet, click that link.

CCC LIII: Our Final Impressions

So, CCC is finally over. This will, most likely, be our last post on the topic. That being said, we think that we saw a lot about the future of college Ultimate this weekend. We wouldn’t be surprised to see four or even five teams from this tournament make an appearance in Madison this summer.