CCC 2010 Recaps – The Semifinalists

Sadly, as you may have already seen, we did some damage to ourselves this weekend. Up until today, our right hand looked (and felt) broken at least to a certain extent. While the swelling has gone down, the signs of some kind of deep bruising have gone up. Pain is at a minimum so we’re going to pound this write-up out. Apologies to anyone who wanted more in-depth coverage and specifically to Jojah, who was kind enough to invite our services, not expecting us to be debilitated by the end of Saturday.

We’re going to do things a little bit differently than usual since, by now, you surely know how the tournament turned out.

CCC LIX Previews – Texas TUFF

Texas TUFF from 2009-2010 poses together. Photo courtesy of http://texasultimate.com

A short look at Texas’ history page will leave one wondering what happened to TUFF in 2010. Did the team disband? As far as the results are concerned, the team might as well have. After winning USAU South Regionals for five straight years, UT didn’t even make it to Nationals in 2010. It all started at CCC 2009, where TUFF began Saturday 0-3.

The team went on to have what can easily be described as its most disappointing year in anyone’s recent memory. While being the only group of TUFF players to not go to Nationals since 2004 would typically be an extremely draining experience. UT’s squad kept the faith and knew that last season was a learning experience.

CCC LIX Previews – Georgia Tech Tribe

Georgia Tech poses after a winning 2010 USAU GA/SC Sectionals. Photo courtesy of Facebookstalking.

If there is one team in the new South Region that isn’t as worried about replacing big name players it’s Georgia Tech. In spite of the fact that Tech lost one player who currently is counted among the elite players on Chain Lightning’s roster, Tech will still have 3 of 8 main O-line players and a big chunk of its D-line players. With that knowledge in mind, Tribe is expecting big things from this season.

CCC LIX

Photo courtesy of UGA Ultimate

It’s that time again folks. The boys at Georgia have invited us back to cover their premier tournament, The Classic City Classic. This time we’re playing but hopefully that won’t hamper coverage too much.

We have plenty of previews on the way. We plan on bringing you round by round score updates on Saturday and, when/if LSU drops from competition on Sunday, point by point score updates. There will also be tournament recaps but those might fall to early next week if playing leaves us too tired to work them out on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Also, be sure to use Leaguevine as a way to keep track of what’s going on in Athens. The site worked beautifully during the club championships and, while it may not as thorough for CCC, we can only imagine it’ll do the same this weekend.

It looks like the tournament is going to be as great as it usually is and if the weathermen know anything (they usually don’t) we won’t have to deal with anything like we did last year.

Here’s the forecast for those of you too lazy to look it up yourselves.

Courtesy of http://weather.com

HERE WE GO!

Easterns 2010 – Previews – Wisconsin Hodags

The Hodags pose as a team after Trouble in Vegas. Photo courtesy of Ben Feldman.

If there is one name in college Ultimate that has become synonymous with success, it is the Wisconsin Hodags. Since the turn of the century, Wisconsin has been to every single UPA Nationals, finishing second or better in five of their ten appearances. However, last season saw Wisconsin miss the finals for the first time in three years. This season, the Hodags have yet to go through a tournament without a loss and have only appeared in a single tournament finals.

Results like these have left many wondering: Is there something wrong with the Hodags?

Tally Classic 2010 – Final Thoughts

The Tally Classic was a great tournament. There really aren’t many other ways to say it. Florida State has some fantastic field space in a brand new complex that allows for full fields with little to no slope, bumps or divots in them. The program also has a great vision for where Ultimate tournaments are headed. The format is designed with the players and, perhaps, future spectators in mind. The tournament packets given out to every team were informative and useful. Food on Saturday night was distributed effectively and efficiently. Needless to say, the inclusion of trained observers in every game is an alteration that soon will be the norm in college Ultimate.

However, there were downsides to the tournament. They were easily outweighed by the upsides but they existed nonetheless. There were really two polarizing issues for the weekend and we’ll try to explain the upsides and downsides to each of those issues in this post. Those issues were the observers and the format.

Tally Classic 2010 – Finals – Notre Dame Papal Rage vs. UVA Night Train

(ed. note: We completely forgot that we hadn’t finished the coverage of Tally until we received an e-mail from UVA’s captain, Tyler Conger, essentially said, “Hey, what happened to finals?” Here’s the recap, complete and unedited.)

At the end of a long and arduous weekend of play at the 2010 Tally Classic, only two competitors remained standing. Both had followed similar paths to get to the finals, losing their crossover games Saturday night and therefore facing a much tougher road to the finals.

However, the teams would battle hard through the elimination bracket, Virginia facing Michigan State, the team in the field that had had the best season up to this point and Notre Dame facing Clemson, the cinderella story of the tournament. When the dust settled, each team knew that only one opponent stood between it and a $1000 check.

Notre Dame ended up being the team to take the check home as it prevailed over Virginia by a final score of 15-10.

Tally Classic 2010 – Semifinals – Virginia Night Train vs. Michigan State Burning Couch

While Notre Dame and Clemson battled one field over, Virginia and Michigan State were embroiled in a dogfight of their own for the right to compete for $1000. Suffice to say that no one was looking past semis to the finals at the Tally Classic because each of the semifinal games were epic contests in and of themselves.

Michigan State had little trouble with any team over the course of the tournament, Burning Couch’s closest game, a 13-11 victory over Notre Dame, wasn’t as close as the score indicates. Meanwhile, Virginia had struggled mightily in the ACC bracket, going to double game point with Clemson once, before getting trounced by the Joint Chiefs in their second meeting and struggling out of the gate against Georgia-B, even going down two breaks to start.

However, the past was the past when the two highest seeds in the tournament met a round before they were expected to and Virginia gathered its wits together and prevailed, 13-11.