2000 STANFORD INVITE: SATURDAY
MARCH 4–5, PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

There haven't been a shortage of upsets and great games to start the Toyota Stanford Invite 2000. Goto www.isthistoyota.com, by the way. They give us money.

It all went down at just about the same time, in fact, 2:30 today. That was when one dynasty ended and another regained its place. Coach Zeldin told me a UNCW fan had called it out earlier on Rec Sport Disc – that Stanford's massive (106 game) undefeated streak would be bookended by losses to UNCW (the last being to UNCW at Nationals finals in 1996).

"They were fired up from the beginning," said Dom the Bomb, here watching the competition, speaking not of her alma mater but rather Seaweed, the North Carolina contingent seeded 8th overall. Fired up? In a game to 11, UNCW took half over Stanford 6-0. That's a helluva way to start a game against the defending three-time National Champions. UNCW made three turnovers in that period.

"We didn't show up in the first half," spoke coach JD, a bit awkwardly, perhaps cautiously. "It was a lesson. Hopefully we'll continue to learn from those lessons..." Does that mean lessons in losing I asked? Its been a long, long time between lessons of that sort for Stanford, and I'm sure those are classes they only need to take for one semester to complete requirements.

It has been a great four years for JD and Superfly. But the good times may be coming up short in 2000. The chips have been cashed in: after graduating Mary Hunt, AJ, Chewie and others, the team is left with a core of only 3 seniors. Anchoring the team are 10 sophomores. But the program itself is still as strong as ever and JD is showing no signs of slowing down, or stepping down.

JD is too much of a competitor to properly reflect on the 106-game streak. Clearly, it's a record that won't be broken anytime soon. I doubt many teams have even won over 50 games in a row. This streak is one for the record books, for history.

And now it's over, at the hands of an ecstatic UNCW squad, led by Coach Zeldin and Nikki Miani, young too, but experienced and disciplined. "A lot of these girls are young and they remember when Stanford beat us last year and looked past us, and this time we were confident and cool and it was like 'remember us now?'" spoke Andrew Zeldin after the game.

So that's over and done with and tomorrow morning, Stanford has to face handler-heavy Brown. Brown too is looking towards putting the revenge on Stanford. It could be an early exit, in fact, for the team that has dominated for so long. But, as JD has already warned me, "don't count us out yet."

Onto that other record-holding team, the Black Tide. Hollywood and James are gone, we know, and Brandon Steets is ineligible. But Ernie Aubin, and Adam Glimme, and Tommy Burfeind, and Oren Skoog, and Jamie Houssian are in the house. But it's a different Tide team this year, and they've already lost to UC San Diego. Twice. At their own tournament. Definitely a new year. So here in Stanford, they were logically seeded 5th, third seed in the pool behind UCSD and Brown.

First game of the day: a UCSD – UCSB rematch. Could the Black Tide get back some respect on these San Diego boys? What a peculiar situation – when was the last time the Black Tide were getting short-shrift on the respect department? One year can be a long time for college teams.

Well, the ghost of Tides past came right back to put the Fear in San Diego, who went down 9-3 in the match. The Squids looked completely out of sync. They were playing 7 different games on each point. No one was making connections at all. They looked loose when they should have been tight, and tight when they should have been loose. Is it true that you're only as good as your last game? Santa Barbara won by four.

But it was their next game that put the Fear in everyone. Brown and "our hero" Fortunat Mueller (a media term cooked up by some hyperbolic journalist bent on mythology) were sitting in the catbird seat, seeded number one.

Half went to Brown, 8-3. Thats a five-point spread. It looked to be a certain victory for the calm and collected boys from Brown weaned on DoG. But something happened on the way to cash the check. They were mugged.

Black Tide stayed around, put some points on the board. But they were still down by plenty and Brown seemed unaffected, emotionless. Brown runs a tight offense, with precise cutbacks and deep puts to moneymen Forch and Safdie. But its that damn ferocious man to man defense that wins them games. Intense and intentional hard marks. A chapter right out of the DoG textbook – stay loose on offense and play like demons on D. But see, UCSB, they're are not afraid of the hard mark, the body shoves, the facial fronting, the clinging, dive-bombing defense on cutbacks. That's just good hard Ultimate, the kind UCSB has been playing for a long time.

Really, the game might as well have been between two players – Forch and Adam Glimme, Black Tide's überman and intensity leader. Glimme has been there before, and you could tell he was really enjoying matching up mark for mark with Forch, who seemed increasingly desperate as the game wore on and Brown failed to finish. Forch dove repeatedly at Glimme, trying to get a piece of the disc or a thigh or maybe a shoulder. Offensively, Forch seemed complacent, and sometimes even petulant, as hucks that came up short were sent his way unsuccessfully in the second half.

The Tide raced back to be down 11-10 during the horrible Brown stretch of bad hucks. But finally, Brown put one in to go up 12-10 in a game called to hard cap at 14. Then Tide returned the favor, now in a groove they were, and Brown came back to score, 13-11. This is where the Brown defense really tightened up. But Black Tide took it in stride, and scored, and scored again after a Brown throwaway, and suddenly, it was actually 13 all, game to 14. Brown had looked like they were going through the motions (god I hated that expression in High School basketball because I never understood what the fuck it was supposed to mean. Isn't it all going through the motions? Don't we all go through the motions? Doesn't everyone have a third eye like myself, watching oneself go through the motions on a daily basis? Well, um, I guess not. I now associate 'going through the motions' as being technically involved in the game, but mentally and emotionally distant.) So while Black Tide had genuinely built up emotions of upset possibilities, Brown knew to stay in their game, but they couldn't elevate their game as the situation required. They were stuck in third gear.

OK, so 13-13, Brown receiving, in third gear and Black Tide in full throttle, Kyle, a still-young Brown phenom, missed his target deep. Forch tries to get it back, diving at Glimme with no effect. Tide moves to within 30 yards and calls time-out. They are juiced. Brown needs to compose themselves but it's too late. Tide moves it up, then suddenly there is Brown's opportunity when they trap Tide on the front corner of the endzone. All options are covered by the frenzied defense. Count gets to eight....and then an easy dump to Glimme, with Forch on him, and Glimme fakes, and sends a breakmark forehand thru Forch and up the line for an eight-yard score and the game is over. 14-13 UCSB.

Brown is a professional team. They will bounce back from this loss and they will be as tough as ever, but for Black Tide, they were back on top and they were psyched. "We are not a number three seed! We are the number one team in the tournament!" they loudly proclaimed. Which is true – they earned the top seed for quarters seeding.

Here's some good quotes. Jamie, captain Black Tide: "It means a lot to us because we had a rough start [to the season]. We have some new guys out there who haven's seen us win a tournament."

Forch, Brown: "We got a lot of things to work out. We were pushing too hard at the end. It's more important that we develop our team though. I'd rather lose a dozen games and do well at Nationals. But that's not an excuse [for the loss.]" Indeed, the team looked quite dispirited and demoralized, and none more than Mueller. [Ed. Note: Prophetic words indeed: Brown went on to defeat UCSB in semis and win Nationals]

****

OK, so most everyone else held seed. Colorado looked impressive, and cocky. They beat Stanford by 4. An even match all the way, but Colorado kept on top in the end, breaking out of a 9-9 tie to take the win. Michigan stayed with Colorado for a while before going down hard in the end. In the end against Oregon, Michigan came back (they had completely fallen apart in the middle of the game) but lost 15-13. Oregon, the Ducks, played excellent all day, staying with and giving a good game to Stanford and Colorado. A couple of breaks against the Bomb Squad and they might've pulled off an upset. But the big break went to Stanford on a freak endzone play, and they scored to take a 13-11 lead, then used the emotion for the next point, 14-11, and from there closed out the Ducks. But Oregon, behind super-ups Josh Greenough, sneaky sophomore Ben Wiggins, and tall man Joe Kleffner really looked tight for a team. They had no pressure on them, however. It remains to be seen what will happen when the intensity tightens.

UNCW, coached by Mike G, looked to make some progress on last year's disappointing Seamen season. They put up good numbers with a still-young team. They had the upset of UCSD in hand, but fell at the end 13-12. UCSD was off the mark all day – sluggish, unfocused, laissez-faire, or tired, or just unconcerned. They barely escaped with the win over the pissed-off North Carolinians.

OK, so look, let me see if I can't straighten out some results for you. In pool A, UCSB took over first, followed by Brown, then UCSD, then UNCW. Pool B belonged to Colorado, then Stanford, then Oregon, then Michigan. In Pool C (Tier 2), Cal-Poly SLO slipped by Illinois and Illinois finished second, enough to qualify for a pre-quarter matchup with Colorado the next morning. Idaho State came in third, then UCSB-B fourth. Pool D finished Berkely on top, followed by Washington, then UCSD-B and Las positas. Santa Cruz and Tufts finished 2-1 in pool E, while Stanford B and Arizona finished 1-2, while Humboldt took pool F and UC Davis second, and UBC third, Maryland bastardizing the rear.

Quickly, it looks like UCSB will have to beat a juiced Michigan team to make semis to face UCSD - Stanford winner. Brown should be able to beat Oregon in quarters, but the Ducks have height where Brown does not. And Colorado should cruise past UNCW in quarters into semis to face Brown/Oregon.

On the women's side, it looks brutal. The upset over Stanford puts UNCW as the top seed, but they face Oregon off the bat tomorrow morning as good ole boys turned captains Andrew Zeldin and Brian Linkfield square off. You can bet it will be a good game - but UNCW should be able to clamp down on Sneetch star Robin Birdsong and her 6 foot frame with a 6 footer of their own. Should be a good game nonetheless.

Oregon lost the hardest game of the tournament today, as a hard cap was called midway during a point they were playing against Brown. The score was 10-8, so apparently it was enough to call it over, despite Oregon scoring the point to make it 10-9. Suddenly game over. An escape for Brown, who was down 6-4 at half to Oregon.

Brown went on to win the rest of the games decidedly, as did UNCW but not without a scare from Washington, a young team coached by legend Lori van Holmes. In pool C, UBC played with three Prime players preparing for Worlds as the Canadian representative. They looked strong, and managed to best UC Davis to claim first in the pool. Tomorrow they match up with UCSB, upset winners of Colorado, in quarters. The winner of that game, likely UBC, will play Brown or Stanford.

San Diego Psychaughit is psyched. They bageled Illinois, a pretty-good Midwestern team, 15-0, and whipped Colorado 15-3. They might have played their best ultimate ever yesterday, according to Corrinne Ginsberg, one of the leaders. They are going to be looking to win this tournament tomorrow, but must go through UC Davis to start, then UNCW/Oregon in semis. Should be exciting.

This was posted to the Stanford Invite website Saturday night, after the games had ended.

ARCHIVE HOME

1996–1998 • 1999–2000 • 2001–2003 • 2004–2005

OTHER LINKS