1999 NORTHEAST REGIONALS

First off, the poor Metro New York region and Brooklyn's Red Hook kinda got shafted. For some reason, our TD at sectionals never quite knew how many teams from our region were going to Regionals. He thought five for sure, and apparently even tried to get 6. But the RC, up in Boston, didn't think six teams from the Metro region was warranted (and truly it wasn't) so he bounced the team qualifier question to UPA HQ and it came back like this: take Div 1 and Div 2 teams from each section and award regional bids based on size proportions. The way it worked out, NE/Boston Area got 6 bids because they had a ton of college teams and Metro, which woulda had 5 had not the issue been raised, got 4 instead, and all this unknown at the time of Sectionals. So Red Hook lost two tough games in a row - the first one to a Master's team and the second to Suspicious Package by one point, and their captain, apparently, told the team they were in before the game started. So that was quite a flashpoint for New York/Boston relations, and as par the course, it was lack of communication in the Ultimate ranks.

Onto Regionals in Ft. Devins, Massachusetts.

DoG carried 25 on their roster and had no problems, even unveiling a new offensive scheme (side stack and european style ISOs on 4 corners O). They beat WSL All-Stars handidly in the finals by 7 or 8. WSL committed many unforced errors, notably drops. They were never in the game. DoGs mix of young and old kept them hungry and they did not lose focus.

Best game of the day: Eh?! the Canadian women's combo team (Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto) defeated Tallulah, from Boston, 17-16 in the loser bracket semis. The game, amazingly, was capped at 12 when Tallulah led 11-10. But neither team could go ahead by 2 as Eh?s defense was really good down the stretch. Every time Tallulah would score, Eh? would counter and this went all the way to 16s, with the hard cap at 17. Then on Talullah's 3rd or 4th pass Eh?s Joanna McNutt got a huge layout D setting up the winning score. It was a great game to watch – neither team gave up and they were evenly matched. Tallulah, as the 3rd team in Boston, is becoming a team to be reckoned with.

Eh? went on to eclipse New York's Ambush by 4 or so in the game to go. Ambush could never quite string together a run to get over the hump after going down by 3 or so early, and Eh?s talent kept them steady (5 players from Stella and other top players from around eastern Canada certainly helped)

Godiva had no trouble all weekend as all the big guns were in action – Teens, Molly, Layzer, Parham, Poochie, etc etc. They won by 8 or 9 over Twister, then scrimmaged themselves for a true test. I dont know if Dark or Light won that scrimmage. Never found out from the Lady.

It was rumored that Tommy Stoughton had hurt his back and would not be able to play for Red Tide this weekend. Untrue. Stoughton, a veteran and real workhorse, propelled Tide along with Benji, Kevin Massey, and EO. Once again they were more emotionally charged for the game-to-go with Blackjack (Mike Jones-led Connecticut-Rhode Island-Boston combo with key collegiate talent) and got more and more fired-up after each point and after big plays by Benji, Eo, Massey, Stoughton, and the like.

They led by 3 throughout the game and Blackjack, despite an impressive roster of new talent, could not overcome the experienced Tide squad. I think I counted five infants in on the picture taking of the grizzled Maine team after the win.

In Co-Ed, Electric Mayhem Orchestra, or EMO –named after the Muppets band– brought 20+ players and some real talent (namely Corky with a much-more subdued haircut) They beat an impressive Mon Ami Burundi (with a couple of hotheaded players apparently) from Toronto. Mon Ami is a long-time co-ed team with the summer league Toronto championship already under their belt.

This year marks a real increase in serious Co-ed talent rising to the top. It was clear that the four top-level teams here this weekend (EMO, Mon Ami Burundi, NYCE (New York), and Pablo Rising (Boston)) were a lot more focused and practiced than Co-ed teams from last year.

Also of note: Forch lost the Ro-Sham Pushup challenge at the end of DoG's day. He finished with a tally of 250 pushups. Congrats Forch for throwing scissors way too often!

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