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DAY 4 RECAP

by Giles Deshon
posted 8/19/03

In a fantastic showcase of ultimate at McGill University’s Molson Stadium, Vancouver maintained its stranglehold on the open (Furious) and women’s (Prime) representation at worlds while Chaos from Winnipeg won mixed. The day before at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu the juniors’ title went to Mofo from Manitoba for the second year running and Wuz from Ottawa also backed up this year and took out the masters.

A highlight of nationals this year was the hot air balloon festival that filled the dusk sky with bizarre and wonderful shapes including Jesus Christ floating on a cloud.

OPEN

Sunday’s first game proved that quite a gap remains between UPA champions Furious George and the second year team combo team, Goat. Throughout pool play and the elimination rounds, Furious was never challenged. They dispatched EMU 15-1 and Joystik 15-5 on their way to another championship. Goat squeaked past Phoenix 12-11 in pool play, but weren’t troubled by General Strike 15-2 or RWBB 13-7 during quarters and semis.

Goat played a horizontal offence but were unable to really get it working effectively. Furious was able to stifle downfield movement and pressure the dump hard. Goat looked best when they utilized Andrew Edgell’s speed. He caught three of Goat’s goals and threw one of them in the 17-6 game. Pary Bell threw a sweet flick huck to Jamie Hoover. (The hangover from the fabulous Saturday night party at the chalet on the top of Mont Royal meant that I missed Goat’s first goal.)

Furious played an interesting poaching D against Goat’s horizontal offence. The monkey’s mark denied Goat the huck, and a number of short passes to players who had beaten their man were picked off by poachers. Goat’s defense was effective and managed a number of turnovers on the Furious offence, but strategic superiority and individual brilliance kept Goat locked out of the game. Jeff Cruickshank won MVP of the final with an awesome layout catch in the endzone when it looked like Antz Maley had successfully run around him to a better position, and an entertaining layout D which he macked to his own player (Toby Marcoux) for a Callahan goal.

MIXED

The mixed final matched Chaos up against last year’s champions, Lucky, from Victoria. Chaos entered the tourney ranked 5th and upset North Bay’s 626 in pool play. In the quarters, they disposed of Idle Hands 12-4. In a stunning win, Chaos beat BoneSAW 15-10 in the semifinals. Lucky beat Bodhi 12-9 to advance to semifinals. They looked as though they had the semis in the bag until 626 staged a late comeback. Lucky held on to win 13-11 and advance to the finals.

Chaos came out pumped on Sunday, with two awesome layout Ds by Christy Mader (#8) who had a sick game. The Chaos offence often had the men handling, using their women as cutters. Nina Bansal (#2) was an unstoppable cutter and ran down (and laid out for) several great hucks. Donovan Wiebe’s throwing was awesome. Dwayne McFaddin made a great defensive play busting past three Lucky players to snack on an endzone D. The crowd favourite was the crazy feet and 100% hat spike rate of #2, aka AKWAK, from Chaos, a player who exuded style even when not contesting a call and providing tai chi style entertainment while waiting for the disc to be returned to him on a foul call.

Lucky managed to make an impression on the crowd too, but it was not a favourable one. Suffice to say the crowd’s booing got under Lucky’s skin, proven by five Lucky players showing some particularly white parts of their skin to the crowd during the women’s final.

WOMEN

The most exciting game of the day was the Stella/Prime rematch. Stella blew by Boxx 13-0 then took Flo 14-5 in the semi while Prime’s road to the final was past Sirens 11-2 and Dame Edna 14-9. Stella had beaten Prime 10-7 in pool play and went up 4-1 early as Prime kept hucking it long to no one. After a very long point, Stella continued their run and went up 8-3 before Prime called a time out.

Strategically, Prime changed up the defence, switching to a four woman very open cup zone. Al Lemay started strongly for Stella, using her trade mark IO flick, but went down with a hand injury relatively early on and didn’t return to the field. Erin Huck and Monica Kerr-Coster were strong throughout and they both showed their commitment with awesome grabs and chilly handling.

Stella immediately looked uncomfortable against the zone and failed to complete some ambitious throws, allowing Prime to get a sniff. Prime stepped up their offence and were increasingly able to convert their chances. Steph Chow had a sick layout D block in the endzone against Erin Huck which definitely pumped Prime up to work hard on defense. Stella began to complete trickier throws, but was slow to move the disc downfield against the zone and unable to deal with the transition to woman defense. They simply could not score.

Rasa Augaitis (#55) had a great game and was Stella’s best cutter, providing safe options against the Prime zone and taking a great catch at a pivotal point in the game. Gillian McFetridge also put in an brilliant performance, cutting hard and demonstrating a gorgeous layout D bid technique as she curved into the perfect shape to extend as close as she could get to the disc. Stella had no shortage of talent, and Prime certainly made some calls late in the game, including a travel call on a goal, but if the calls upset Stella, it wasn’t evident from the stands.

Val Dion was Prime’s standout player with a ridiculous number of layout grabs late in the game which were inevitably followed by good passes. Without her, Prime would have looked more vulnerable. At 9-9 Prime had the momentum, the strategy and the big game experience and they took it home 12-9. Stella showed that they can play with the big girls, but seemed to lack the strategy needed to dig themselves out of the wrong end of a 9-1 run. Prime is all-round an excellent team, with the guts, determination and strategy required to come back from a 5 point deficit against a strong defensive squad from Ottawa.