SW Open Regionals Results 2003 - Tempe
D
Regional Championship in Tempe, AZ, dangerously close to an
undesirable relocation, all was well by 9am Saturday when teams took
to the fields. October 11 & 12 found 9 teams converge onto Benedict &
Diablo fields, the familiar sites of New Years Fest, infamous for
leaving competitors with bloody mementos of a weekend in the sun…but
rain on the 10th only served to soften the fields considerably and
provide for the plushest (and greenest) Arizona fields in recent
memory.
Seeding going into Saturday:
1. Condors - Santa Barbara
2. Johnny Bravo – Boulder
3. PBR Streetgang – San Diego
4. Sack Lunch – Denver
5. Traffic – Los Angeles
6. Ciclon – Orange County
7. Smoke – San Diego
8. Santa Fe
9. Sunburn – University of Arizona
Saturday saw 1 pool of 5 playing games to 11 and 1 pool of 4 playing
games to 15. Specific format can be found at
http://www.vots.org/Reg2003/
POOL A
Round I
Condors 11 Santa Fe 11
Ciclon 2 U of A 6
Round II
Condors 11 PBR 11
U of A 2 Santa Fe 1
Round III
PBR 11 Ciclon 11
U of A 3 Santa Fe 5
Round IV
Condors 11 PBR 11
Santa Fe 1 Ciclon 8
Round V
Condors 11 Ciclon 11
PBR 5 U of A 3?
POOL B
Round I
Bravo 15 Sack 15
Traffic 4 Smoke 4
Round II
Bravo 15 Sack 15
Smoke 2 Traffic 10
Round III
Bravo 15 Traffic 15
Sack 7 Smoke 8
Both of the #1 vs. #2 matches had close 1st halves before the
favorites pulled away to win by a relatively large margin.
Sunday, these results pitted sections against one another in the
semifinals of the front door bracket. The Condors lapsed early
against Sack Lunch who relied heavily on their deep game. Dar & Matt
"Baums" (the red-haired one) unleashed a few bombs and made some sweet
catches to keep their team in the hunt. Keith (the white-haired one)
and Kirtcher (sp?) helped Sack on the receiving end as well. After
briefly falling behind, the Condors turned down the turnovers and up
the defense, winning convincingly.
The Bravo/PBR game was close early as well, with a strong defensive
effort by both teams (and a sleepy 8am offense). Though early, the
sun was less than kind, but Bravo eventually widened the gap and
finished the game on a few turnover-heavy points.
Condors 15 Bravo 15
Sack 7 PBR 9
The 2nd/3rd place bracket "prequarters" saw Ciclon replay their
Sectional defeat of Smoke and Traffic handle Santa Fe without much
trouble.
Ciclon 15 Traffic 15
Smoke 9 Santa Fe 3
Battling through the backdoor quarters, Sack Lunch never looked back
in a prompt defeat of the OC's Ciclon, while the PBR/Traffic game
quickly developed into a blow-for-blow SoCal grudge match. Tied at
7's and staring at halftime the game seemed it could go either way,
but when PBR took halftime… and the next 5 points as well… the
bleeding was terminal, and the Streetgang took the game 15-9.
The 7th/8th place game this round had Smoke defeating Santa Fe sans
difficulties.
Sack 15 PBR 15 Smoke 15
Ciclon 3 Traffic 9 Santa Fe 8?
As per the new formats manual, the front door finalists had a full
round bye before the 1st place game to get out of the heat and stay
fresh for the best game of the tournament… but first PBR would face
Sack Lunch (for the first time ever) to get to the game-to-go. Sack
Lunch certainly had something to prove, but PBR would have none of
that, and came out swinging.
PBR 15
Sack 5
The finals proved to be another Southwest classic… the Condors meeting
Johnny Bravo for another day playing under less-than-ideal conditions
(for the past few years the SW's choices are gale-force winds… or
temps over 95 degrees). Players sought sun shelter where they could,
and the shade side of the field was lined with spectators. Fans
witnessed a turnover-light game, as Johnny Bravo has seemed to loosen
their control of a stifling D in favor of a much-improved offense. In
turn, the Condors offense was chilly as usual and chose to keep D's
coming at key moments in the game's development. James Studarus and
Steve Dugan kept the disc moving for the Condors, allowing for quick
underneath strikes by Jason Seidler and JD Lobue. Brandon Steets kept
their deep game wide open with multiple endzone busts, and got an
endzone D mid-game to keep the game close (bendy outside-in backhand
across the goal snatched from 10' out of nowhere by Steets). Big
Tommy had his hands full with the D of CU Coach Catt Wilson early on,
but evened the odds late with a key endzone grab. For Bravo, Steven
Rouisse was potent as ever, and forcing him forehand resulted in quick
punishment. Bob Krier had several deep scores in usual fashion, as
well as a nice grab through a great D bid by Corey Sanford of the
Condors. Bob's offensive load was lightened by new wingman Tim
Paymaster, who made his presence felt with two huge endzone skies and
a big midgame D.
The neck & neck final was not without controversy, as a few times
observers' services were employed to settle disputes. The first came
on a run-through D by Steve Dugan against Bravo's Ben "Rookie"
Bronson… a play where some contact occurred, but the observer ruled in
favor of the Condors… resulting in a Santa Barbara goal. Ben answered
back with a goal-line handblock just a few points later, as well as
more than 1 point-saving layout catches.
Bravo leads for the majority of the game, generally up by 1 or 2…
until Barbara would go on a 3-point run to bring it back to within a
break. Eventually, faced with a 14-14 game and a bit of overtime
disagreement, the hardcap went on with both teams left with zero
timeouts… Condors pulling. Within a few passes Bravo puts it deep to
young University of Colorado superstar Josh "Richter" Ackley with JD
Lobue covering. It appears JD has a good angle on it until he
stumbles… drawing a gasp from the crowd… but then gets a hand out to
barely tip the disc to the ground for the D. Condor's ball for the
win. They patiently march it down to the red zone where Mike Namkung
finds himself marked by Steve Rouisse, count getting high with no
timeouts. As Mike releases a high-release for the goal to former UCSB
prodigy Taylor Cascino, Steve reaches a 10 count, declaring "stall" as
the Condors begin to celebrate. After much discussion, the game's 3
observers confer and decide the best option is to send the disc back
to the thrower for the dreaded "re-do." Disc in again… stall begins
at 8, Namkung high-release lefty break mark, again to Taylor… again
stall is called… but this time the observers rule that 2 seconds had
not elapsed from check-in to release… Condors goal.
Condors 15
Bravo 14
There was speculation both ways prior to the backdoor final as to
whether Johnny Bravo would be exhausted for the game-to-go after such
an intense final, or whether their last game had just fueled them to
finish the tournament with a strong win. Although the game was
exciting for the fans with plenty of big layout grabs (provided by
Bravo's Will Deaver and PBR's Paul "Gump" Davis), high-flying goals,
and strong play on both teams' behalf (a big D by PBR's James Town
resulting in a goal comes to mind), in the end Bravo would retain its
UPA Championship berth.
Bravo 15
PBR 10
Great tourney. Props to Jill Mayer and the rest of the Tempe/Phoenix
crew for putting on a good show. The fields were green (and lined!),
there was plenty of food & water, the beer flowed freely Saturday
night during team social hour at Diablo… aka Masters round 6… and just
about everyone had a great time.
Final Results went exactly according to seed.
Nationals Bids:
1. Santa Barbara Condors
2. Boulder Johnny Bravo
Other placement:
3. PBR Streetgang
4. Sack Lunch
5. Traffic
6. Ciclon
7. Smoke
8. Santa Fe
9. University of Arizona
Brian Bogle
SW Open RC
p.s. My apologies for tardiness in getting this info to the public...
lord knows I would've loved to write it up last night had I not found
my internet down when I rolled back into LA at midnight.
p.p.s. Off the record (yeah, right), there are 2 major problems we
ran into over the weekend regarding scheduling priorities that I'd
like to address. Heavy weight was given to holding ALL FINALS (and
games-to-go) at the same field site Sunday late morning/early
afternoon. Although in principle this is fine, it meant that ALL the
open & women's teams had to relocate field sites after Round 1 Sunday
morning, rather than insuring each division remained at the same site
all day. Semifinal losers of close games had to immediately jump in
the car, make the 10 minute drive, jump out and quickly start their
game. I want to clarify that Regionals should NOT be an event
designed specifically for spectators. Not yet, anyway. It should be
condusive to fair competition, making strong efforts to avoid
situations where a "fluke" could occur due to a scheduling abnormality
(for example... a superior team cramps up between games due to a drive
to other fields, making the difference in a key elimination match).
Secondly, Sunday games were scheduled to start at 8:00am. Again,
although I'm not necessarily opposed to early games, it was the
reasoning behind the early time change that irked me. From what I
understand, some teams in other divisions had complained that the
game-to-go round took place too late Sunday afternoon for them to
travel back home (If this applied to any California teams, then their
claim is preposterous... everywhere is SoCal is a reasonable drive
from Phoenix AND Southwest Airlines flies most places for less than
$100, if price is an issue). Frankly I think it must have been Rocky
Mountain section teams that asked for the early schedule, as most the
latest flights departing for Denver left Phoenix at around 6:30pm.
ANYWAY... Open teams had been told, as ALL teams should have been
told, that if they had any intention of playing in late round
games-to-go, they would either need to make arrangements to depart
later on Sunday OR fly out early Monday morning. I absolutely DO NOT
think this is too much to ask any team with the desire to go to
Nationals, and I am pretty pissed that the entire schedule was altered
to accomodate a select few that could not make other arrangements.
It's the National Championship qualifier... if you can't rearrange
your schedule to take off a few hours Monday morning, and that's the
only possible time to get home, your team will just need to play
without you to make it to the show.
Joe Seidler
>
> Final Results went exactly according to seed.
>
> Nationals Bids:
> 1. Santa Barbara Condors
> 2. Boulder Johnny Bravo
>
> Other placement:
> 3. PBR Streetgang
> 4. Sack Lunch
> 5. Traffic
> 6. Ciclon
> 7. Smoke
> 8. Santa Fe
> 9. University of Arizona
>
>
> Brian Bogle
> SW Open RC
>
Thanks for such a great recap.
And I liked your comments about the tournament too. Nothing ever gets
better unless people speak up.
chollaball
> although I'm not necessarily opposed to early games, it was the
> reasoning behind the early time change that irked me.
this sport is about the players!
Denver-Phoenix has never been a cheap or easy flight, and is a 12 hr.
drive. you would rather be pig-headed about start times, instead of
attempting to accomodate 1/3 of the players at the tournament? that's
a great attitude mr. regional coordinator--let something irrelevant to
the game provide a competitive advantage to some teams, and a further
disincentive to attending regionals for others. the organizers should
be commended for attempting to make the tournament accessible to the
most number of PLAYERS. obviously you were not one of the RCs trying
to fairly represent the interests of all your teams.
getting an hour ahead of the desert heat, and the potential health
dangers, should be a good enough reason by itself for starting
earlier.
jill
Brian. Teams expecting to compete in a finals or a backdoor game AND
catch a 5pm flight are just asking for trouble. Depending on the
number of teams that show up, there could be 5 round required on
Sunday. Trying to push it so that teams can make the early flight is
just silly. If you're competing for nationals, you can take the 8:30
flight (and yes there is an 8:30 flight).
Brian's other comment about moving the teams to the main site for
finals/backdoor makes some sense also. But unfortunately, dealing
with four different coordinators with four different opinions meant we
had to make a decision. Ultimately, having the offsite close down
mid-Sunday served a few helpful purposes 1) all teams ended up close
to the airport when their games were done and 2) we didn't have to
rent both sites ALL day which saved money and 3) we didn't have two
sites to clean up at the end of the day on Sunday when everybody was
beat up and wanted to go home ... it had all consolidated down to one
site by then.
So obviously many different view points for any sitation.
chollaball
fields ~3pm) and compete in games-to-go is bad planning. but its
separate from objecting to moving up the start time to ease the burden
of travel on one section, and brian was talking about catching 6:30
flights. a one hour schedule adjustment can very much affect that. a
move from starting at 9am to 8am has no real downside, but tons of
upsides for lots of players, especially in the Phoenix heat. to whine
about it just becasue it "irks" him...and the flippant attitude about
staying over til monday (extra hotel, meals, rental car, missed day at
work, family committments)...that strikes me as not being sensitive to
all the needs of all the teams in the region, and that is imo a
terrible attitude for an RC. the RC should as best as possible
attempt to accomodate and compromise so that the burdens of travel
dont fall prohibitively on one section. i did not see that brian's
post. if i'm wrong, i'd welcome clarification and offer my apologies
to brian for my mischaracterization.
ji...@azmayer.com (jill) wrote in message news:<1d4ada8b.03101...@posting.google.com>...
D
something late in a tournament planning process that has a direct
impact on other players.
>obviously you were not one of the RCs trying to fairly represent the
>interests of all your teams
Ha ha ha ha! Right. Feel free to ask any captain in the SW Open
division whether I was trying to fairly represent their interests.
And you think avoiding "competitive advantages" was also low on my
list!
>getting an hour ahead of the desert heat, and the potential health
>dangers, should be a good enough reason by itself for starting
>earlier.
Call me crazy, but I think most people would prefer 1 hour of sleep to
4 degrees Fahrenheit.
>to whine about it just becasue it "irks" him
Was I whining? I'm sorry if so, since I was intending to alert future
organizers to weigh these things earlier in the future. As these
things were important to me, I should have brought them to the
attention of all other parties putting Regionals together. At the
very least they would have then been out in the open. Ahhh, sweet
hindsight.
But looking back I'm sorry I said "irked me" when what I should have
said was "Frustrated me to think of things from the point of view of
an open player who sacrificed another night away from home to ensure
he would get the chance to play the full Regional path towards a UPA
Championship when he then found out 2 days before games began that he
would be getting up an hour earlier Sunday because some people asked
for schedules to be altered due to travel plans."
Over a month ago when teams from the Rocky Mountains were planning
flights to Regionals, before teams had participated in Sectionals,
before bids to Nationals had been determined, I had little idea what
the schedule would be for this tournament. I told curious teams in
the open division, "If you intend to participate in the backdoor game
to go, I cannot guarantee it will end in time to make a 6:30pm flight
out of Phoenix." Thus, 2 Colorado Open Teams made plans to fly out
Monday morning.
After determining the number of Regional attendees (thanks in large
part to the TD setting a reasonable deadline... something the SW needs
as fewer than 16 teams often advance), open's original Sunday schedule
started at 9am, the backdoor game starting at 3pm. Making a 6:30pm
flight would have certainly been posssible, but close. If our Region
had had 1 or 2 more teams turn in rosters on time, we would have had a
3rd bid to Nationals (growth) and our format would have been changed
adding another round... and teams would have missed their flights.
Keep in mind that by the time specific formats are decided, the
cheapest tickets have come and gone.
>the RC should as best as possible attempt to accomodate and
>compromise so that the burdens of travel dont fall prohibitively on
one
>section.
Short version: This is a relatively low priority for an RC. The main
way this is accomplished is the relocation of Regionals from Section
to Section every year.
I hope this provided a bit more explanation.
Brian
JB
What if we moved Co-mixed to the summer?
JB