Open Sunday Writeup

            The open finals matched up Jam and Sockeye, probably the two teams most famous for not coming through in the finals of Nationals in recent times.  Of course, these were different teams-although a lot of the core remained from Jam’s last appearance on Sunday at nationals in 2001, Sockeye’s roster has almost completely rolled over since they lost the last of their three straight nationals finals in 1997 to DoG.  But on this day, one of those losing traditions would end.

            Jam is not nearly as flamboyant as in years past.  Last time they appeared in the finals was against the Condors in 2001.  It was an extremely upwind-downwind game, and I believe that day was the inspiration for rotating the fields 90 degrees so the wind was primarily a cross wind.  That day, Idris Nolan was introduced to those few in the Ultimate world who hadn’t met the self-described ‘silliest players in Ultimate’.  His dizzying array of scoobers, hammers, push passes, and at least one 360-over-the-head backhand certainly had the crowd entertained, even if it wasn’t enough to get them the win.  But make no mistake-Idris is a serious thrower.  Much of Jam’s offense relies on his ability to find the open man and get him the disc, however it has to get there.  Another of their big players on O is Damien Scott.  Damien has been slowed down a bit by injury in recent years, but he is still one of the quickest players in the game and almost never makes a mistake.  He is still dangerous going deep, although he doesn’t do it as often anymore.  Longtime Bay Area fixtures Bart Watson and Jim Schoettler rule the endzone for this squad.  The core Jam members have been playing together for a long time, and they don’t rely on sub-calling to keep the right squad on the field, trusting in their own players’ instincts.

            Sockeye had a pretty big infusion of talent this year.  Keith and Kevin Monohan each returned from a one-year hiatus (Keith playing with Portland).  5 Carleton alums also joined the squad, most notably Alex Nord and Chase Sparling.  On offense, the Monohan brothers keep the disc moving, along with Philip Burkhardt, while Chase Sparling had been their go-to-guy all tournament long.  Sockeye only runs a few defensive sets, primarily a traditional 3-2-2 zone and a matchup zone/clam look that transitions to a man D after a few passes.  On man D they often try to stop the big huck, either by poaching up one of the dump defenders or by going to an active, straight-up mark until midfield or so.  The goal is to force the maximum number of passes possible, so that dangerous defenders like Lou Burruss, Brook Martin, and Roger Crafts can get more bids.  It had been pretty effective for them all tournament-the only bump being first round Thursday against the uber-efficient Pike offense. 

            It bears mentioning that this matchup meant that once again, as had been the case every year since going to the 16-team format, the Nationals Open champion would finish the tournament with a loss.  As several players told me earlier that morning, the rule seems to be that ‘you have to lose to win’.  I think the idea is that every team is going to have an off game, or even an off day, over a 4-day tournament.  Best to do it early on before it means being eliminated, than later on when you don’t get a second shot.  Furious George and Ring of Fire escaped the first two days without a loss, but Ring didn’t even make it to semis, while Furious couldn’t overcome Jam to make their fourth straight finals appearance.

            The game opened with a ‘ceremonial first pull’, similar to a first pitch at an important baseball game.  This one was thrown by KAVU’s own Tom Kennedy, who put it well into the endzone.  Chase Sparling tried to make the big skying catch, but came up short, receiving scattered boos from the crowd.

            The first several points of the game were significantly slowed down by calls.  Perhaps due to the adrenaline pumping on both sides, the marks and defensive players were very energetic, challenging every cut and fake and pivot with a body, resulting in a ton of calls.  Shazam, awaiting their appearance in the Mixed finals the following round, was up to a count of 37 calls when the score was 4-3.  Suffice to say this was not the prettiest Ultimate ever seen, but I think most of the calls were fairly legitimate.  Sockeye’s Kevin Monohan turfed a forehand, only to get a D when Jam’s Jeff Eastham tried to break the mark.  Sockeye quickly converted for the 1-0 lead.

            Kevin Cissna put up a long shot for Jam, but Sockeye’s Andrew Fleming got the D.  On the ensuing possession, Kevin Monohan again made a mistake, dropping a disc in his hands when he heard the footsteps of his onrushing defender.  Idris threw a quick strike to Chris Ashbrook to tie the score at 1’s.  A Jam point block on the second throw caused the throw to pop up over Alex Nord’s head, and Jam’s Josh Faust picked it up and hucked it to Jim Schoettler for the goal and the first break, 2-1 Jam. 

            On the following point Sockeye came out in a vertical stack for the first time in the game, running a set play of sorts.  The disc stalled about 20 yards from the endzone, and an attempted swing was sailing out of bounds.  Mike Caldwell leapt about 3 feet out of bounds and put up a beautiful Greatest, which hung in the air and was floating down in the middle of the endzone.  About 4 players gathered under it, but Chase Sparling came sailing in from the far side of the endzone, gracefully making the catch while avoiding contact with the gathered players for the goal and a 2-2 tie.  Chase was easily 11+ feet in the air when he made the catch.

Sockeye came out in a zone, which seemed to surprise Jam a bit.  They settled into their offense, but Idris held the disc a little too long, and got stalled.  Roger Crafts tried a huck, but Ron Kubalanza, another Jam standout and new player arriving from DoG this season, poached in for the D.  A few more turns for each turn before Sockeye’s Josh Monoghan got a layout D on Damien Scott, throwing the goal to bring it to 3-2 Sockeye.

Another multi-turnover point ended when Josh Greenough threw a quick strike to Jeff Eastham for the goal.  Kevin Monohan answered with a quick huck to Chase Sparling for the goal.  On the ensuing point each team had two turns, when Idris Nolan picked up the disc.  Damien Scott streaked deep, an unusual occurrence, but one that usually results in a Jam score.  Indeed he came down with the throw, but an argument ensued about the timing of a foul call.  On the reset Idris threw the exact same throw again, with the same results.  4-4.  Sammy C-K threw a nice breakmark backhand to Jeremy Cram to put Sockeye up 5-4.

Both teams had some fairly rousing cheers in this tournament.  Sockeye’s most popular came when their D team was on the field, when one sideline would chant ‘Sock! Sock! Sock!’, to which the other would respond ‘Block! Block! Block!’ and both would yell ‘Eeeeeyyyyyeee!’  Jam saved their cheers for when they scored a goal.  The most well-known was a somewhat confusing refrain of ‘Sorry’ ‘Bout it!’ repeated 3 times over, followed by a ‘Jam-*expletive* yeah!’  Well, the UPA is trying to make this a bit of a family event, so Jam was asked to tone down their cheer.  Somehow, ‘Jam-heck yeah!’ simply didn’t have the same affect.  But it was good for a laugh from the crowd.

Kubalanza couldn’t hold onto a huck for Jam, and Ben Wiggins threw a long strike to Andrew Fleming, which he tossed to Alex Nord for the two point lead, 6-4 Sockeye.  Jam tried to force another one in to Damien, which Blaine Robbins D’ed up.  But Bart Watson got the disc back for Jam with a layout poach D on a huck.  Jam showed patience and worked the disc up the field for the score to get back to 6-5.  Jam came out in a zone-to-man transition but didn’t ever get the matchups figure out, as Sockeye easily scored to go back up by 2. 

After several turns by each team, including a dropped dump by Bart Watson, and an amazing layout catch D by Roger Crafts, who proceeded to throw the disc right away again Sockeye’s Josh Monoghan had the disc on the goal line with the stall count going up.  He looked back to his dump, but couldn’t find an opening.  He heard a shout from the endzone and, without turning his body threw a no-look backhand for the goal.  But a stall was called and upheld, and Idris picked up the disc and found Damien just outside the endzone, which he quickly turned into a goal. 

Philip Burkhardt dropped a leading pass, but Chase Sparling got the disc back on a layout D, and Sockeye converted for the 8-6 lead.  Jam turned the disc over on 3 consecutive bad hucks attempts, and Sockeye finally put it in, Matt Dufort hitting Pat McCarthy for the 9-6 halftime.

Jam hit a quick strike to Josh Greenough out of the half for a three-pass score.  Then Lou Burruss over-led his swing.  Damien picked it up and hit Jim Schoettler with an I/O flick for the goal to pull Jam back to within 1, 9-8.  Sammy C-K ran a great in-and-out move on Jam’s Chris Coco and was relatively open for the huck and the easy goal.  Damien Scott again showed a good sense of the moment, taking the slower Alex Nord deep and catching the leading huck then putting the disc in the endzone to again pull within one, 10-9.  Sockeye put on a quick two-point run during this reporter’s bathroom break.  Then Sockeye came out in a zone.  Jam ran a clinic in zone offense, hitting 3 straight give-and-go’s to get within striking distance of the endzone and hitting an easy pass to make it 12-10.  Sammy C-K couldn’t quite hold on to a layout bid and Damien Scott hit Jon Zalisk to get back within one, and then when Philip Burkhardt floated a backhand huck Damien got the D and hit a big shot to Dan Eisenberg to tie the game up.  Sockeye called a timeout to try and stop the momentum from Jam’s 3-point run.  It worked, as Burkhardt threw a much better backhand to Roger Crafts to put Sockeye up 13-12.

Jam was working the disc against Sockeye’s matchup calm defense, and a breakdown on the transition to man D left Josh Greenough relatively open in the endzone for the goal to tie it back up.  Sockeye’s Mike Caldwell tried to put a long throw down the line but Philip Burkhardt couldn’t touch it.  Damien threw an I/O flick to Eisenberg for the second time in 4 points for Jam’s first lead of the second half, 14-13.

An ugly point came as the horn blew to announce the time cap.  Both teams were obviously pressing to score the goal, as it could very well mean the game-for Sockeye to go down 15-13 in a game to 17 would probably ensure a Jam victory, as Jam’s offense had been very efficient in the second half.  Kevin Monohan dropped the disc.  Jam’s Allen Thoe put up a huck that sailed too far.   Jam’s Jon Zalisk got a layout block.  Jeff Eastham picked up the disc and called timeout, but threw a huck about 10 yards too short as play restarted.  Sammy C-K tried to hit Nord with a floaty swing pass, but Chase Sparling came in to take the disc over his teammate and two Jam defenders in yet another awesome display of physical prowess.  He hit Keith Monohan for the goal to tie the game at 14’s, game hard-capped at 16. 

Idris threw a huck to Jeff Eastham, who looked off a chance to throw to Bart Watson across the endzone, as it meant throwing a long swing into what wind was blowing.  He dumped to Idris, who then waited for Bart’s defender to look away, at which point he put an inside-out helixing scoober to Bart for the goal and the 15-14 lead.  Jam was only one point away from the championship, with 2 chances to score it.

Sockeye needed a score, but couldn’t find it quickly.  Another forced huck into double coverage was D’d.  But a Jam swing pass got hung up in the wind, and two more turnovers happened before Burkhardt hit Kevin Monohan on the break-mark side for the goal to tie it at 15’s, next point wins.

Jam just needed to hold on to the disc to win-could they find the offensive patience that had been eluding them for most of the game?  Apparently not, as Bart forced a huck to Jeff Eastham.  But he was fouled on the throw, and it came back.  He dumped to Idris, who had to make a leaping catch to bring it in. Big Jim was streaking deep, and open.  His defender got picked, and Jim was all alone as Idris put up the big flick, although it would have to go back if it was caught.  But the disc sailed out of bounds.  It was curling towards the field as Jim tried to drag his feet to stay in as he caught it.  But his feet were clearly on the line as he caught it, and he was out.

Sockeye swung the disc a few times, and Roger Crafts put up a huck.  The huck was ugly, about 20 yards short of its intended target and to the side.  Crafts called a foul, but his defender Matt Bruss contested, eventually sending it to the observer.  Observer rules ‘no foul’, and it’s Jam’s disc again, with a chance to win.  But Idris gets big eyes and goes for the tight throw to Ron Kubalanza.  Sockeye’s Giora Proskurowski came up with the layout D.  Sockeye again has the disc to win.  They work it to about 30 yards outside the endzone, Roger Crafts holding.  The stall count gets high, and he turns to hit his dump.  But Kubalanza is playing crazy defense on the dump, and Crafts has no throw.  On 9 he turns and throws a desperate hammer into the endzone, where 4 players await it.  But while the other 3 are getting ready to jump, Chase Sparling is already in the air catching it for Sockeye, coming down in the endzone for the goal and the win, 16-15.

            More analysis later, after I get some sleep.

-David Samuels