1998 CLUB NATIONALS – DAILY RSD POSTS FROM THE FIELDS
OCTOBER 21–24, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

These recaps were posted directly from the fields in some cases – from Rex O'Quinn's laptop hooked up in the Polo Club's offices – while others were posted later that night from me back in the hotel room.

Day 1
So, here's what I got. The scores are posted already.

Yes, conditions were windy. Affected play? Not as much as you may expect.

Big games of today were Furious George (Vancouver, CN) facing Death or Glory for the first time since their Worlds triumph (which included 2 wins against DoG) and a rematch of this year's Tune-Up, featuring Ring of Fire against Parking Lot JAM. In the women's division, Lady Godiva faced a test against Ozone and Verge played Nemesis. All these games were 1 vs 2 seed.

But perhaps the best game of the today (and I must add that there was only ONE upset the entire day, Home Brood over Nemesis 14–11) was New York's WSL All-Stars versus Jam. Insiders knew the matchup was a good one, and it proved to be. Both teams play intense, open-ended offenses and defenses. Huge blocks, great throws, and a certain level or interpersonal intensity that few cities can duplicate. Both teams operate on pressure.

Pressure to win and pressure to play well. Screw up a point and your teammates will let you know (or in Jam's case, Coach). Lots of carping on both sidelines about team play. You can't exactly call the game unspirited because the vitriol is usually reserved for one's own team.

Offensively, both teams are unafraid to make big plays and to grind out points if necessary. Lots of running. Lots of tight passes. Unfortunately for WSL (and later Jam) not a lot of cohesiveness when times get tough.

WSL started off 4–2, fell into a tie at 6–6 and from there it was point-for-point on both sides. AT 12–12 WSL scored (after many turnovers) and got a gift upwinder from a dropped pass to go up 14–12. It looked to be their game to win. But Jam closed to 13–14, cap called to 16. Still plenty of offensive possessions for WSL. But the offense could not connect. Whether they were tired (according to D members on the team) or simply out of rhythm, they simply failed to move the disc. The o tightened up badly; every pass went for 5-10 yards at best. Jam capitalized and scored 2 in a row to take a game point lead at 15–14. On the next point, Jam turned the disc over a few times and WSL worked it upfield to within 10 yards of a tie. Then—9 foul calls in a row—no joke— by WSL, all of them on the incoming disc. In other words, the disc was never advanced before a foul call—9 times in a row. But they did score, finally, on the 10th try. It was anyone's game now, first team to score. Jam felt little pressure, apparently, as Cribber sent a huge and not terribly well-placed upwind huck that was somehow caught, and Jam scored easily to win 16–15. Immediately afterward, Cribber had this to say to the whole field "Both teams is a f***ing disgrace."

WSL finished 1–1 with a hard-fought 16–13 victory over Z. Jam hoped to make it a 3–0 day with a win over Ring of Fire. Not so fast. Jam jumped out to a 9–4 half-time lead. Ring won 17–13. You do the math. Ring's defense played super tight on Jam and found little difficulty converting points. Jam was at fault too, making bad decisions, throwing away lots of discs, playing a little too loose. Ring looked good. They played a very open game, very confident (perhaps the biggest factor in Ultimate) and very intense. They still felt like underdogs, yet supremely confident underdogs. Truly, when they catch fire they light it up. Tomorrow they face WSL in the second round. They have the inside track to Semis now, having finished a comfortable 3– 0.

In the women's division, there were few surprises. Except for maybe Nemesis. Semifinalists two years in a row, they lost nobody and gained 7 players from last year's savage 12 squad. So what happened? They lost to Home Brood (a good team in their own right) and got crushed by Verge (looking very confident and very dominant). Perhaps the chemistry of last year's team was lost with the additional players. Maybe the competition has taken it up a level. Hard to say.

Godiva had little problem—until they faced Ozone. They won 14–11 in a tight battle. Both teams look good... Rare Air gave up 5 points on the day, clobbering BackHoe and Johnny Cocktail. I'll have more on them tomorrow when I see what's going on . Nemesis faces Philly tomorrow 9am. Last year they caught Philly off guard and sleepy and won. They have to do it again this year or they may be eliminated. A Philly win and they play HomeBrood on Saturday for semis (if seedings hold).

Similarly Ozone plays Rare Air 9am and the winner of that game has the inside track to semis. Plenty of fun stuff to come.

Masters: Cigar (New York) and Tempus Fugit (San Francisco) and Trouser Schnauzer (Chicago) look good. The teams have not played each other. It all comes out tomorrow... DoG beat Furious 16–9. They played old grandmasters, talking comfortably with the enemy when they opened a four-point lead. They played intense. They played zone. It was windy. Furious didn't have a chance, in retrospect. DoG's defense tightens all offenses and that isn't good for a team like FG that likes the deep play and scoobers for short passes. Still, Furious has the track on Semis, especially if they hold seeding and beat Condors tomorrow morning.

Furious beat Sub Zero in a gritty game, 17–15. That game tired them out and may explain the lopsided loss to DoG. Sub Zero, meanwhile, looked good. They played a similar long game to Furious and feature many young and fast college grads. Very conceivably they could surprise DoG much like Furious did at Worlds. Expect a tight game (tomorrow 11:45)

The Quick and Dirty Summary

Pool A Open

DoG—avoid down game and they're in Semis

Furious George—Controls their own destiny. Beat Condors, they're in. Lose and there's a good chance it'll goto point differential.

Condors—Can definitely beat Furious. Win that game, and force a tie-breaker with a win over Sub Zero on Saturday and they are in. Lose to Sub Zero and it's a three-way tie.

Sub Zero—can play with anybody. Just the team that can beat DoG. They have to hope for Condors to take out Furious if they don't.

Refugees—Bagel Bowl tomorrow morning vs Red Tide

Rage—Likely 2–4 finish

Red Tide—Avoid 0-fer with victory over Miami tomorrow morning.

Pool B Open

Ring of Fire—another big win over WSL and they're in (they won't lose to Houndz)

Jam—Win over WSL was huge. Must avoid let-down against Z on Saturday. Good position to make semis. If WSL beats Ring they will probably be on the short end of point differential

Houndz—Finished 2–0 today instead of 0–3 last year. Will end with 3–3 record.

WSL—Avenge big Saturday loss last year with win over Win and they are looking good with point differential. Are psyched to beat Houndz Saturday.

Z—Tough first-game loss to Houndz deflated a talented team. Too many turnovers. Pumphouse and Guapos will be gunning for them. A grueling tournament for the Chicago contingent.

Guapos—Rumor sez a couple of big players skipped Nationals. 1–5 finish.

Pumphouse—Scrappy, will play well against Regionals mates Z. They always like to get 1 victory. They may be able to do it.

Women Pool A

Godiva—Waiting for the finals

Ozone—Their game to go is against Rare Air tomorrow morning.

Rare Air—Their game to go is against Ozone tomorrow.

Condors—Pull an upset over Rare Air on Saturday and they have a chance.

BackHoe—Not keeping it together. Their match of record is against regionals rivalry Catshit in the last game tomorrow.

Catshit—see above. May also surprise Condors.

Johnny Cocktail—Great name

Women Pool B

Verge—Face a determined Philly team and Regional foe Hombrood. Not out of the thicket yet.

Nemesis—must regroup and beat Philly in the AM to make it.

Philly—Dance over Nemesis and their game-to-go is vs HomeBrood Saturday.

HomeBrood—Victory over Nemesis gives them a chance. Now they have to beat Philly on Saturday. Could be 3-way tie, point differential completely in the air at this point.

Twister—Can beat Ambush and Hucksters. Will they?

Hucksters—Going for a 2–0 record against NE when they play Twister last game of the day

Ambush—Salvage Nationals with a win over Twister.

Subject: Day2 Round 6
From: Rex O'Quinn <rex@iphase.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 23, 1998 11:14 PM

Open

Dog - Condors 18-17
Ring - Houndz 17-11
Refugees - Rage 17-8
"Z" - Los Guapos 17-8
Sub Zero - Red Tide 17-6
WSL - PH5 15-13

*******************

Women

Godiva - Rare Air 15-9
Verge - Peppers 15-4
BackHoe - Catshit 13-14
Twister - Hucksters 15-12
Condors - Cocktail 15-14
HomeBrood - Ambush 15-6

******************

Masters

Cigar - Tempus Fugit 1 15-11
D'K - Trouser 2 15-14
AARP - Pocokomo 3 5-15

********

Coed had a bye for this round

**********

Well, the matches are all set now, after a couple of very exciting games. The most exciting of them all was Condors vs DoG. Condors strode to a 16-14 advantage after leading all game. But DoG scored the upwinder, then down to tie at 16s, game to 18. Condors scored, DoG scored, Condors received going downwind for all the money, but a scoober caught in/out of bounds went back to thrower and they could not score. DoG worked it upwind patiently vs the zone and finally punched it in for the win.

Sub Zero cheered. The Condors loss meant they had a chance. Tomorrow morning Condors and SZ meet, winner goes to Semis.

Houston lost to Ring, but thats ok. Ring is in, undefeated. Houston plays WSL tomorrow. A WSL win makes a three-way tie. Jam is out with the -7 differential. WSL wins by 3 or more and they go. Houston wins or loses by 2 and they are in.

Women's is almost set. HomeBrood have locked up semis birth. Verge is in. Godiva is in. Catshit is out, but they beat Rare Air and BackHoe today. If they beat Godiva they would actually have a chance of qualifying. But more likely Ozone will go. Rare Air lost 3 today.

Masters showed some tempers. Tempus and Cigar (West vs East) squared up and brawls nearly ensued. Insert your favorite old person squabbling joke here. Both teams are quite strong. Cigar won 15-11. Trouser lost. But now its all up to quarters and semis.

In semis, RippIt plays Bad Larry, a good matchup. RPira Haku beat Rippit today. Red Fish Blue Fish is undefeated. Flying Cobb is also looking strong. They face a Blind Date tomorrow morning.

More later on.

Tony

  Subject: Day 2 Round 4 Nats Results
From: Rex O'Quinn rex@iphase.com
Date: Fri, Oct 23, 1998 6:11 PM

Will be on the web soon!

Day 2 Round 1

Open

Refugees - Red Tide 17-15
"Z" - PH5 17-6
Furious George - Condors 9-13
Parking Lot JAM - Houndz 10-14
Sub Zero - Rage 16-14
WSL Allstars - Los Guapos 17-12

****************************

Women

BackHoe - Johnny Cocktail 15-5
Twister - Ambush 13-10
Ozone - Rare Air 15-10
Nemesis - Philly Peppers 13-12
Condors - Catshit 15-12
HomeBrood - Hucksters 15-1

******************************

Masters

D'K - Pocokomo 9-15
Love Handlers - Tempus Fugit 4-15
AARP - Trouser 10-15

******************************

Coed

Flying Cob - Pira Haku 15-9
B.L.T.C. - Bad Larry 10-15
<XU> - RippIt 3-15
Blind Date - RedFish BlueFish 1-15
Mon Ami Burundi -Ultimate Addiciton 15-6
W.U.P.A.S.S. -Disclicious 15-5

Commentary from Tony:

Rise of the South again?? Houston stuns Jam, wins 14-10. Ring of Fire, in the MA and not officially South, but we all know they are good ol Southern boys, looks good and in the driver's seat. They are playing WSL now, early.

Ozone faced "the game to go" for them against Rare Air this morning. They pulled oput the win 15-10. Nemesis defeated Philly, but by only 13-12. They will surely lose out on point differential if seedings hold as anticipated.

The great Northwest?? Not in the Open division. "World Chimps" Furious George has been affected by the wind. They played the Condors, used to praciting in windy Santa Barbara, and also used to playing at Nationals, and lost 9-13, Condors are undefeated. Sub Zero will have a chance on point differential if they beat the Condors Saturday. But George is likely out, with a +/- of -2 in the games vs SZ and Condors.

And Jam fell apart against Houston. Countless drops. No team chemistry. They are 2-2 and praying Houston loses to Los Guapos, which may happen because they are due for a letdown and Guapos, I think, has beaten them before. If Houston wins, they play Ring and WSL last. Point differential puts Jam in a Jam at -7. Ouch.

Homebrood has an inside track now on Semis in their division. Their likely "game to go" will be saturday against Philly (traditionally not a strong AM team, so look out)

Masters. Cigar (new york) Tempus (LA) and Trouser (Chicago) all undefeated. Anyone could make it.

Co-Ed. Red Fish Blue Fish is "dominant" according to one opposing player.      

Commentary Day 3

First of all, i'd like to say: read the Newsletter. Everything you see here will be in the upcoming Newsletter in twice as much detail. Plus all the other divisions. Me and the UPA are trying to do what we can to improve the quality and make it a good read. If you don't get the newsletter, call HQ and demand it! Criminy.

It turned out to be an anti-subbing strategy that proved the one to beat at this year's Nationals. Say what?

Santa Barbara brought a tight squad of 17 and unlike most elite teams, they did not have offensive or defensive squads. In fact, they never called players in or out, instead relying on tired players to call themselves out. Talk about team chemistry. You gotta be pretty loose and confident to do that on the Nationals level, where every play is watched by a single media hound and dozens of people on RSD.

Seriously though, Santa Barbara came out smoking against Sub Zero. Burned a hole right through them. This was SZ's first appearance of Nationals though. They have a lot to learn. Not dropping passes is the first thing. They may have been too tight. The score was many to a few. I left at 10—3 Condors.

Meanwhile, WSL All-Stars only seem to play spectacularly when the pressure is tight and emotions run high. They were provided an easy target in Jon Gewirtz and the Houndz. One hothead versus a team built on hotheads. New York's gonna win that battle every time if you go there. Gewirtz went there, jawing to WSL's nice guy and inner-team good spirit Allon Katz after he missed on a beautfiul layout. Gewirtz scored and had a few choice comments to Allon when he was on the ground. It may have fired Gewirtz up and the Houndz too for a few points, but it gave WSL all they were looking for. Finally someone else got to be the bad guy and New York could play with an expressed purpose of vanquishing bad spirit.

The Gewirtz score brought the Houndz within 3 at 10—7.

For Gewirtz's part he was only playing his game. Every day in every professional sport in the nation athletes are playing that game. In Ultimate it doesn't quite fly, but make direct vulgar remarks in any other sport and no one bats an eye. Still, Ultimate is Ultimate.

Explained Jonny, "I'm competing. I'm playing hard. It's not personal. I'm competing and I let him know."

WSL outscored Houndz 7—2 after that point. They advanced to semis in a rush.

In the women's division, HomeBrood, Ozone, Verge and Godiva advanced as expected. Homebrood fell to Godiva in semis as expected, but the Verge—Ozone game provided plenty of excitement.

Verge jumped out to a 4 goal lead (2 upwinders). But Ozone caught them by half and from there it was point-for-point. Both teams were having difficulty moving consistently into the wind. That isn't to say they couldn't score upwind. Both teams put in a fair amount of upwinders, but only after a typical 6-8 turnover point. Late in the game it looked like Ozone, then Verge, then Ozone would take charge for good. But neither team would give up and both teams played awesome defense. Ozone wasn't afraid to put the disc in the air. Co-captain Chris O'Cleary used her arm length to great advantage, sending crank after crank downwind, playing the punt game.

The games was capped at 14-14. Verge was receiving going downwind. A few passes later Kathy Porter sent one to Lori (#16) and she made a huge grab in the endzone. Ozone couldn't return the favor however, failing to score downwind. After several turnovers and golden opportunities for Verge to score the final point upwind, #8 and #61, two solid handlers, connected on a give-and-go for the win in the wind. Verge advanced to finals with another chance to unseat stodgy Godiva.

Semis Open. WSL and DoG played a Regionals final to 18-16 DoG. No wind in that game though; WSL ran DoG hard. Still, WSL was fired-up to take a bite out of the Champions. Down 6—2 early, WSL stormed back to tie at 8-8. They had a huge opportunity to score an upwinder and take half, but they could not convert 10 yards from the goalline. Boston scored instead and recieved to start the second.

At half, Boston, always the thinking-man's team, focused on starting off with a bang. Instead of playing big to end the half, Boston focused on playing big to start the half. The strategy worked. They scored the first three coming out of the gate and very quickly held a 13—8 advantage. Several big blocks by Billy Rodriguez and Paul Greff.

WSL finally got on track (or Boston eased up in anticipation of closing the game big. It's remarkable how much these guys really can turn it on and off). They closed to 12—14 on a big block by Corey, two inside-out forehands from Babs and a block from John Lipsky.

But that was all she wrote for WSL. DoG regrouped and finished out the last three points 17-12.

Ring of Fire and Condors looked to be a great match. And it was. But the Condors just stayed loose and confident throughout, while Ring might have put too much pressue on themselves to win and assume the task of taking on Boston in the finals. Both teams feature a batch of young athletic players (Ring recruiting from NC State, UNC and others, Condors primarily from UCSB) and a core of veterans. Both teams have an easygoing manner, unlike WSL and Jam for instance.

But it was the Condors who made less unforced errors. Both teams could make the big play, make impressive upwind throws and hot layout grabs. But too many times it seemed Ring was not connecting and grooving. Condors held a 2-3 goal advantage late. But Ring closed to 13-14. The Condors did not seem concerned or upset. They stayed within their game and countered with an uplifting upwinder. From there, after a few Ring drops and throwaways, the Condors finished up 17—13.

Masters: Normally tagged the bad guys, New York's Cigar found themselves in an unsual position against Tempus Fugit (from Burbank/Long Beach) who were generally regarded in the division as contentious. It may have only been 1 or 2 Tempus players. No matter, Cigar (with a packed squad of many players who had played competitive Open up until this fall). Cigar stayed comfortably ahead most of the game and finished 16—11. Congrats to Sas and Kenny Silver.

Stay tuned for tomorrow
Tony

I assume that a Finals post was also made, but I can't find it on my hard drive.

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