Southwest Regionals 2009 Preview

This is it.

This is the tournament that teams have been preparing all year for and are preparing themselves to leave everything out on the field. For teams who have been here before, there's a certain mystique to it. Club Regionals is drastically different from collge regionals not only in the level of play, but also in the level of passion and desire people display. Not to put down the college scene, but club is as good as it gets and the expectations are greater.

With the Southwest Mixed Division receiving a recent growth bid to bring their allocated natties bids to 3, it changes up things in the SW. I'll put in my two cents in terms of predictions at the end, but as usual, I'm just gonna do a bit of individual team previews, atleast for the top guns in the region.

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1. Barrio
Barrio has been and is the perennial favorate out of the Southwest Region. Their impressive performances at Nationals also shows that they can hang with the best. Although they have lost several key players from their 2008 squad, look for Barrio to benefit off of home field advantage in the heat in AZ as well as display their experience and poise when it counts. They've been here before and there's a reason why they are the unanimous #1 seed going into this tournament. Other than that, not much is known about the team. They haven't played many tournaments and had a rough outing at ECC with a good win over Chewy Defense. We'll see!


2. LA Metro
We're hungry. The 2008 season saw our squad losing in the game-to-go to Cougars 15-8. It was a tough loss, but at that point of the tournament, at that point of the season, we were simply out matched and out-played. We were in it. We had a chance to make it but it just wasn't our time. This year's mentality is to just run and gun, and settle for nothing less than a tournament win. I believe we're stronger this year, I believe we're mentally tougher this year, and I know that if we play to our strengths, we have the potential to run the table.


3. Operation Kapow
A new team from the Boulder/Denver area, they bring speed, athleticism, and experience to the table with numerous players who were ballers for their college teams or have multiple years of college experience. Although they have not played many games outside of their section, they feature big name players like Enessa Janes as well as the top handler/playmaker from Cougars last year. We've never seen these guys play, but their scores show that they are one of the elite. They breezed through the Rocky Mountain Section with relative ease with an easy win over Cougars, and also beat Golden Spike twice.


4. Cougars
Another team from the Boulder/Denver area, this team simply out played us last year in pool play and in the game-to-go. They bring a lot of athletic guys (including a 6'7" handler), as well as experienced women. They like to huck, they like to run, and they have the throws to back it all up. I've heard that they lost several players including their stud to Kapow, but they're still dangerous and have the capability to pull off upsets. They seem to be a "series only" team and their scores reflect that with green squares across the board except for a finals loss to Kapow.


5. Brown Chicken Brown Cow
Based off playing them twice at Sectionals, their offense mainly runs through Chuck with his big hucks as well as Lafite. They have several key girls that will continuously run their defenders but a lot has changed with this team since last year. I feel like their offense runs moreso through their men now as opposed to their 3-4 offense last year, but they still have all the required skills and personel to make some noise at Regionals. I see BCBC upsetting Cougars in pool play and taking over the D1 ranking going into the cross-over and bracket play.
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The tournament set up has 15 total teams, with 3 total bids to Sarsota, FL. There's a 4th round cross-over on Saturday evening at 4:30, and if ALL the seeds hold, would put a matchup between A1: Barrio vs. C1: Kapow, and B1: Metro vs. D1: Cougars. That could be interesting as the cross-over will determine which side of the bracket the teams will start on, all assuming of course the 1 seeds hold their seeding.

Basically the game is this. If you MAKE the finals, you automatically clinch a bid to Nationals. There is no backdoor for the second bid but the rest of the teams are then left out to fight for the 3rd and final bid. Having that 3rd bid really changes things but the team mentality here in LA is that nothing has essentially changed. We still have a very difficult road ahead of us and there is no way we will take any of these teams lightly. They are ALL at regionals for a reason and have exemplified that they are all great teams and they all deserve to be here.

It's been a great season, but we're not yet satisfied. Time to go, time to work, time to show people what we can do and represent LA Ultimate.

Keep track of LA Metro on posterous: hammie10.posterous.com

Good luck to all teams,
-Hammie
LA Metro #10

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Southwest Predictions

Open-Bids to Nationals
- Johnny Bravo
- Strike-Slip

Womens Bids to Nationals
- Safari
- Rare Air
- Lady Condors