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.

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.

CCC LIII Saturday: Our Impressions

By the end of the third round at CCC we determined that we could no longer depend on anything. The entire world was upside down and we were very cold. These are a couple of categories that we thought up that really sorted out the mirey muck that was the Saturday of CCC 2009.

CCC LIII Previews: South Carolina Gamecocks

(Ed. Note – We did go to South Carolina. We do believe that USC has the most charming, best looking and overall awesomest Ultimate program that has ever graced the face of the planet. That being said, we will now carry on with our completely unbiased team preview.)

As interesting as Nationals level teams are, the fact of the matter is, most teams that compete in the UPA Series are not Nationals caliber teams. In fact, just over 20 teams make it to Nationals every year out of the, literally, hundreds that compete in Sectionals. The struggles, challenges and everyday life that goes along with being one of those teams that isn’t basking in the limelight of the sport at the end of May are rarely told. Historically at South Carolina, Ultimate hasn’t necessarily been about winning Nationals. It’s more about the constant improvement of oneself and the goal of competing at the highest level that one can compete at.

However, South Carolina captain, senior Kevin Anderson, is ready to change that tune just a little. The Gamecocks haven’t made it out of their section in three years and Anderson believes this year is the year for USC to make some noise.

GA/SC Sectionals – Saturday Recap

Today was more or less the perfect day for an tournament. While, in our opinion, wind severly detracts from the fun that is had while playing it does add an element to play that is not present with still air.

There were no large upsets to mention, the teams that were expected to go undefeated (Georgia, Emory and Georgia Tech) did so and did so with ease. Possibly the most hotly contested pool was the D pool, where Charleston upset South Carolina on universe point to steal the No. 4 seed going into Sunday. Not only that, but we found that SCAD was the most underrated team in the field. Buz gave Charleston all they wanted and a little bit more before playing with South Carolina for the entire first half.

As it turns out, it is much harder to cover an ultimate tournament that one is actually playing in. We managed to speak with the captains from every No. 1 and No. 2 seed in all four pools except for a representative of Kennesaw State and Clemson. We will touch on all six of those team’s performances and post some photos below.