Cal-States 2010 Mixed Wrap-Up

So go ahead and ignore the post I made with the pools. Slug Ultimate sent out an email with that set-up but it was altered upon arriving at the fields. Instead of a pool with AIR, TWSS, and Classy, we were put in a pool with CTR, Classy, and Dutch Rudder. The schedule had it where the 1 seed and 2 seeds in each respective pool were playing each other first round on Saturday. Which I am honestly not a fan of.

(Note: Cal States did not have anything online regarding scores or pools so this is really just me trying to recollect everything so don't get upset if the score is off).

First round vs. CTR
Came out FLAT. CTR was a talented group of players from the Bay Area. The easy excuse for us in the performance we had the first half would have been that we were trying out new players, but the truth was that we didn't come prepared. People were late, people weren't mentally ready, and we just came out playing tentative and were trying to be "too cute" with the disc rather than power it/move it like we knew we could. We went down 12-5 with CTR simply out-matching us, with the majority of the turnovers being on our miscues. After recollecting ourselves, we began to go on a little bit of a run and actually pulled it to 11-12 after a 6-0 run. However; the run was stopped at 6 and CTR scored the winning goal to win 13-11. Despite the loss, we had our heads up as we definitely brought it the second half and knew that if we hadn't spotted them such a huge lead, we would be right there with them.

Round 2 vs. Classy
Much better play this game with a lot of good disc movement. Last time we played Classy, we got ourselves down in a hole of 1-9 as a #1 seed in Chico. It was terrible and although the game was pretty much decided after 5 points, we continued to push and ran away with the game 13-5(?)-ish. Much better movement, much better decision making led to a much better result.

Round 3 vs. Dutch Rudder
Again, we carried our momentum into this third game and won the game within the first half. We were executing very well and our new recruits were definitely bringing their game, especially the new women who were simply outclassing the opposition in terms of speed, agility, and throwing. Showed us that our play wasn't simply a fluke and that we were able to be consistent in our level of play. Metro over Dutch Rudder 13-6(?)

Pre-Quarters vs. That's What She Said (TWSS)
Since we placed second in our pool, we were not granted a bye into Quarters but had to play TWSS in Pre-Quarters. We came out on fire in the first half with great play by our returning guys in addition to hard harassing defense that generated many turns. I believe we only turned it once in the first half to take a 7-1 or 7-2 lead into half, but kind of let up afterwards, but still winning by a wide margin. I was not pleased with the fact that after we took half, people got distracted, watching other games, screwing around, etc. etc. I know it was an early tournament and we were up big, but the poise begins now. The experience is gained now. Our team has a history of focus issues after generating leads and we didn't capitalize on an opportunity to stay disciplined and focused. Lessoned learned.


End of Saturday
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Quarterfinals vs. (#1)Polar Bears
As I stated in the preview, Polar Bears were the logical #1 seed for this tournament and despite winning their pool, teams that played them said that they struggled a bit in the early going but I am more than sure that their early round struggles were similar to ours in trying out new players, and getting things back into gear. This was a 10:30am start for us and was the featured game after a very great Wolf vs. Condors battle in which the storied club team from Santa Barbara upset Wolf on Double Game point. We were warming up on sidelines and right when that game was over, it was 7 on, ready to go.

Polar came out strong and quickly got a break on us. We had some bad miscues that resulted in turnovers in our own red-zone which (with their throwers) led to easy break scores. After that first break, we managed to break back at around 5's, but quickly lost that break right after half. It was 9-10, with Polar Bears generating a red-zone turnover again and calling time/out to set up a play. This proved to be the turning point in the game with our defense holding the line and Yugo making a very smart and timely poach D. [Insert Transition/fast break offense here] Before we knew it we had worked it down the field on the fast break and scored to tie it at 10's. Big swing of momentum and later on after a couple near breaks for us, we punched in a break to take the lead.

That ultimately led to Universe point, with Metro going up-wind on offense. A lot of people had begun crowding to watching this game, and the final point did not disappoint. We had a stellar line out against their best defensive line and after some calm disc work, Keegan hucks up a break-side backhand huck to Barrs who goes up high and wins the 50/50 for the dgp win. It was a good win for us and we showed a lot of grit and a lot of heart even on the brink of being down two breaks late. Defense won us that game... albeit it was great defense after an offensive turnover. We took a lot from this game, and knew that these adjustments would need to be worked on over the course of the season if we wanted to step up higher into that Elite level of play during the Series.

On another note, I think the mentality was pretty good for the last point. Most of our team had no idea it was dgp until it was over (myself included), and if you think about it, DGP is like any other point really,. Great win for us... and we were "rewarded" with a bye before Semi-finals.

Semifinals vs. A.I.R.
This was a battle. Both teams were very balanced but I felt like AIR integrated their women into their game plan a lot better than we did. We began to fall back into some of our habits and found ourselves down a bit and it was a "trade-points until we ran out of time" scenario. We couldn't generate a break and even times we'd get a turn, we couldn't punch it in, or we'd turn it right back. It was a very intense game and to their credit, AIR has really taken that extra step since the last time we played them in 2009. They have solid throwers, very dangerous deeps, and their women held their own and were very effective. AIR wins 13-11 to advance to Finals vs. Mischief.

3rd place game vs. FunK
In typical Metro fashion, we spotted the team 3 points before rallying back to force DGP at 11's. We fought hard but there were some moments where we just let golden opportunities slip by. They were a solid group of players that matched up well against our crew, but as the heat continued to increase, fatigue definitely became a factor in this game. Early season, no one is quite in shape and it showed as we had some uncharacteristic drops, and some untimely mental lapses. It was a well fought game and we were proud of ourselves after this one with our 4th place finish.

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In all, it was a great tournament for us. We got to see our new recruits show off their abilities and to really get a sense of how our team would be this year and quite frankly, it's looking a lot better than in years previous. Our next tournament is not for another month, so after finalizing our roster within the next weeks, we will be practicing full-time to get ready for GRUB in Colorado. Just wanted to say that everyone played well and all the try-outs were ballers and that the decisions to trim our team to a final roster will be difficult.


Other Notable Results:

Our sister-team from Los Angeles, 7-Figures, also played well this weekend with a DGP win over Polar Bears and a solid showing. Their women were running circles around players and they look poised to do a lot of damage in the very competitive mixed Southwest Region.

Wolf was upset by the Condors in Quarters on double game point. I watched the majority of this game and the Condors played a very sound team-oriented offense. Of course there were the huge bombs put up by Arbiter to a streaking receiver... but other than that, it was a very good win for the Condors who surprised a lot of people with this win.

Open Finals were between Revolver and Street Gang. All weekend these two teams had simply been rolling but the finals was clearly a mismatch with Street Gang's deep game simply not being effective enough against the athletic and skilled Revolver team. The hucks that were hitting receivers open by 15 yards for Street Gang in earlier rounds began to float into 50/50's as the wind picked up. it was a one-sided affair with Revolver pulling away 15-6 for the tournament win.



Till next time,

Hammie #10