Masters Friday

And more of the same…

            The Masters division didn’t hold nearly so many surprises on Friday as we saw on Thursday.  The big game of the first round was obviously Refugees vs. Old Sag.  Sag had thrown the pool into disarray on Thursday by beating Keg Workers first thing, who went on to beat the Refugees later on.  If  Sag could also beat Miami, they would capture the pool and a pretty easy route into the semis.  But it was not to be today.  The Refugees certainly brought their attitude, as Sag requested observers shortly after the game started.  But the calls did not get out of hand, and the game was tight throughout.  Old Sag took half 8-7, but the Refugees used their deeper bench and slightly higher level of athleticism to open up in the second half.  A few very successful deep shots and a few pressure D points brought Miami the 15-12 win.  This was not enough, though, to bring Miami out of 3rd place in the pool.  By virtue of their big loss to Keg Workers on Saturday, they would finish third in the 3-way tie and have to face off against the B pool’s second team.

            But everything else fell about how you would expect after Thursday’s results.  In the B pool Kavu and Old and in the Way were clearly a cut above the competition, followed by HOSS and Big Unit.  Big Unit did score the 15-13 upset over HOSS to take the third seed in the pool.  In the A pool it was Keg Workers followed by Old Sag, then the Refugees in third, while GLUM had already beaten Faded and Grey Expectations Thursday to pretty much assure themselves fourth in the pool.

            So the quarterfinals featured one big matchup, a rematch of last year’s championship game as Old and in the Way would try and get their revenge on the Refugees.  People might remember that last year, Old started this game very hot, working the disc well in the wind to take a 8-4 halftime lead.  The Refugees brought out a zone in the second half, featuring some very physical marks, a very tight cup, and a lot of travel calls that raised the ire of the opponents and the crowd, although most of them were upheld by the observers.  The Refugees, in their last season of competetion together, were hoping to defend their championship.

            The game opened with Old taking the pull, and scoring fairly easily.  Old was running well, and their D team had good success forcing turns from Miami’s offense.  The game was fairly slow early on, as many calls were made by both teams, and several lengthy and vocal discussions ensued.  Tempers flared one a few occasions, and a yellow card was handed out by the observers for unsportsmanlike behavior.  But the teams seemed to come to an internal agreement to try and calm things down, and as Old rolled to the 8-4 halftime lead (again), it was a little more watchable.

            But this year was not Miami’s year.  Old was simply too fast, and ran too hard, and just wanted it a little bit more.  Miami had some miscues, including dropped hucks and turfed open-side throws, and Old got huge contributions from Heath Mackay and Jeff Bryant on the D team’s offense.  A tight throw down the line that Bryant pulled in while toeing the line, to be called in by the observer, seemed to really break the Refugees’ will as Old rolled to the 15-6 victory.

            Turns out the other 3 games were all much closer-the lesson, as always, is that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  KAVU opened up a 4-1 lead on GLUM, but the wind seemed to go out of their sails a little bit.  KAVU is a big team, but they don’t play all of their players, and the top ones seemed to get just a little tired in this game.  Perhaps they felt that they had it in control, as they seemed to have few problems scoring on offense, but couldn’t convert the turns they forced into goals.  But they maintained their 3-point lead for the 15-12 win.  More on this team tomorrow-they definitely deserve some more in-depth coverage.

            Old Sag plays a very traditional style of Ultimate.  Vertical stack, two men back, set plays.  Dump on 5, look to swing, always eat your vegetables and brush and floss every day.  But it works well for them.  They have the talent to pull it off, and the Masters division hasn’t quite caught up to the Open boys in terms of defensive complexities-most teams play a standard man D, force one way, or a 3-2-2 zone, perhaps with a trap or 4-man cup wrinkle thrown in for good measure.  Sag was playing Big Unit, who could only kindly be described as having an offense at all.  Mostly they are a free-flowing team, trying to find the mismatches and using Rex O’Quinn’s big throws to their advantage.  Sag had the talent to nullify some of those mismatches, and were very efficient at converting turnovers into scores en route to a 15-11 victory.

            Keg Workers are certainly the mystery of the tournament so far.  They have the talent to be the best team in the division, but since they are not a practicing squad, they can go through long bouts of less-than-perfect play, to be charitable.  They showed both their Jekyll and Hyde sides against HOSS.  They opened up a big lead, then had a few bad turns and gave it away.  Then opened up a lead, then gave it away.  And on, and on, and on, although HOSS could never get a lead after tying it at 9’s and 10’s.  Kegworkers held them off to the end, hitting a few big hucks to score the 15-13 victory.

            This sets up Kegworkers of America vs. Old and in the Way in the semis, and KAVU vs. Old SAG.  My magic 8-ball is showing some ill effects from 2 days out in the sun and humidity, but it still has enough gas left to tell me that it’s going to be a pool play rematch of Old vs. KAVU in the finals, although things are hazy from there. 

-David Samuels