Pres women scores?

[ugroupie]

Anyone watching Pres Day women's games and able to pass along scores?
Wild wind?

[Michelle Ng]

The weather was beautiful on Saturday and a bit overcast (but no rain)
yesterday. I'm not there anymore, but word is that it's pretty cold
and wet today. Texas women lost to Cornell and Northeastern in the
13th place bracket this morning. Sat / Sun games were played on the
UCSD campus and today's games were moved to the backup fields, which
is probably why scores aren't being reported round-by-round like they
were yesterday. I'm sure they'll be up shortly. :)

[Michelle Ng]

Stanford over Cal 10-5ish in quarters.

[Jess V. Huynh]

Oregon v. UCSB in the finals.. still waiting to hear back.

[Jess V. Huynh]

UCSB Burning Skirts over Oregon Fugue.

(Damn.)

[Michelle Ng]

On a side note, UCSB won without Katie Barry ('08 Callahan nominee)
playing. She's still sidelined with an injury...

[FJR]

I wouldn't read too much into today's results. The weather was wet
and miserable. I think most teams looked fine during the first round,
but after that it was a pretty mixed bag. I don't think Ottawa and
UCSB played their semis match and a number of other teams bagged on
their consolation games. It was an unfortunate end after two
beautiful days in San Diego.

I promise to do a write-up in the next few days, but until then, here
are a few observations on my end.

1) There are a lot of good teams this year. The separation between
the top 10 or so teams is very small. There are some skewed scores
this weekend that are pretty misleading, and it's really hard to say
if anyone is currently a favorite for this year's title. That said,
Oregon looks very good, UCSB will be in the mix and Stanford is
Stanford. Both Ottawa and UBC had some weird looking results, but
when they are playing to win (i.e. playing tight lines), they can beat
anyone.

2) Some of the best players I saw this weekend include the following:
Tory Hislop (UBC), Anne Mercier (Ottawa), Tania Reitz (Illinois),
Courtney Verhaalen (Colorado). Honorable mentions go to Jenny Lo
(UBC), Alex Benedict (Ottawa), Danielle Fortin (Ottawa). I would be
remiss if I didn't mention Fugue players, but I would be splitting
hairs to identify two or three who stood out above the rest. Their
top players include Molly Suver, Shannon McDowell, Jenica Villamoor
and Bailey Zahniser (she has that wow factor, particularly on
defense). Other teams obviously have their share of strong players,
but Fugue had more balance from top to bottom than any other team that
we played.

3) Pool C was brutal. We missed having four teams in the quarters by
a hair. Both Oregon and Ottawa were talented enough to win the
tourney. It was tough but awesome.

4) UCSD had a great performance this weekend. The tourney was
exceptionally well run (yeah Psycho!) and they upset both Colorado and
Carleton. Maybe it was partially due to home field advantage, but
running a tourney and playing at the same time is no easy task. Their
performance makes the Southwest picture quite a bit murkier. Arizona
also complicates the picture.

More thoughts soon...

fjr
USC Hellions

[joa...@gmail.com]

Here is the big question: was Meeko taking pictures?

P.S. Everyone from the tournament should thank the Greenshirts.

[dischead]

I don't think Meeko was taking pictures as I spotted her playing with
UCSD against Colorado on Saturday......
http://simonm.smugmug.com/gallery/7377295_WVdMx#475056718_kBEXj

[meeko]

tania from illinois is a BALLER.

i wasnt taking pictures. i was taking advantage of my last year of
eligibility props to simon for getting those up so fast. dang!

thanks to claremont for housing the teams that traveled the most!!!
that was huge. you girls are awesome for doing that.
also thanks to our td's (loryn and joule), our captains (sir robin and
ferris), michelle, spipit, and anyone else who was responsible for
this event.
and thanks everyone for coming :-)

[iant...@gmail.com]

UCSB and USC weren't on the same fields except on Monday and probably
never saw each other play. As such, I won't comment on USC's play
except for what I see in the scores.

Oregon, Stanford, Ottowa, and UCSB-the 4 teams in the semis-were much
stronger than the rest of the teams in the games that I saw. The
scores agree. They never lost except to each other, and the only team
to come within 4 points of them was USC with a 9-8 loss to Oregon and
a 12-11 loss to Ottowa. Well done USC. It looks like USC got the
poor end of difficult seeding and deserved to be in quarters. Cal and
UBC had some standout players but weren't showing the depth to stay
with the top 4 teams.

It was unfortunate that Ottowa forfeited the semis because the Skirts
were hoping to play them this weekend. I think Ottowa had low numbers
all weekend and probably thought Southern California would be warmer
(but aren't they used to the cold?). It was cold and wet, but
Saturday of Vegas was colder, wetter, windier, and muddier if that
offers some comparison for anyone who wasn't in San Bernardino this
morning.

Ian

[joann...@gmail.com]

listen, tania reitz is straight ridiculous. i mean, she's just dirty.
and i mean that. her jersey is easily seven times dirtier than yours.
NO ONE works harder on d. she gets more layout d's a game than i throw
turnovers. on offense, you may as well not even put someone on her,
because there's no way you can cover everything she is capable of
doing -- she can out-run, out-throw, out-catch, and out-jump you.
tania reitz is perfection, and she's my favorite by far.

[Matt.Pa...@gmail.com]

> tania reitz is perfection, and she's my favorite by far.

My favorite quote was from Cal, "She looks like a 10 year old playing
with 8 year olds", JWo is eight years old by the way -
http://illinoismenace.blogspot.com/ ^-^.

Congratulations to Psychos for hosting one of the best tourneys in
recent years.

[FJR]

The zeal for Tania is definitely merited but I don't want the
greatness of the other players I mentioned to be diminished.
Certainly, Tania hasn't received the same level of publicity that
players like Mercier or Hislop have, but she absolutely deserves it.
I would say the same about some of the USC players, but I'll leave
that up to others to discuss.

On a side note, Tory Hislop is one of the smartest players on the
field. Her ability to read the game situation and what the other team
is doing is excellent. It was really a pleasure to watch her play in
our pre-quarters match. Anne Mercier and Alex Benedict also have an
impressive understanding of the game, and their club-level experience
and years of playing Juniors Ultimate is plain to see.

Other names that will undoubtedly come up in Callahan discussions
include Georgia Bosscher (Wisconsin), Shannon O'Malley (Washington),
Alyssa Weatherford (Western Washington) and Andrea Romano (UCSB).
This is going to be a very tough year to decide the Callahan and I
don't think it's too early to start identifying who's who. I do think
that the college division should push for the Callahan to factor in
results at Nationals (maybe have the deadline be Saturday night).
Especially in a year with so many deserving candidates, I think what
could (or should) separate one candidate from another is how their
team finishes in Columbus.

fjr
USC Hellions

[FJR]

I've posted part one of my write-up on Pres Day. Check it out.

http://lovehateultimate.blogspot.com/2009/02/presidents-day-part-one.html

fjr