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All text copyright 1999 Tony
Leonardo and the Ultimate Players Assoication.
Photos: copyright 1999 Chuck Figur, Margo Hasselman and Keith Borsheim.
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Saturday’s play had been set: top seeds Santa Barbara, Brown, NC State and Carleton received a bye into quarters. In pre-quarter play-ins, Michigan would face UNC-Chapel Hill, Stanford would meet Yale, Colorado against Iowa and Santa Cruz versus Cornell. Rice, Oberlin, Kansas and Salisbury State awaited pre-quarters losers in the consoaltion bracket, an addition to this year’s tournament.
In the play-in round, Michigan versus Chapel Hill looked to be an ideal matchup. Both teams were coming to Nationals for the first time, both are big State schools with rising Ultimate programs, and both wore traditional school colored uniforms: Chapel Hill in blue and Michigan in gold.
UNC’s junior Ray Parrish and Michigan’s junior Tim Murray provided the sparks with great ups and hot defense. The game began in UNC’s favor, but Michigan stormed back to take an 11–9 advantage.
Michigan ran what I have always regarded as a standard midwestern stack, featuring short-middle cutbacks with swing passes to maintain possesion. A favorite Midwestern throw is the inside-out forehand, and Michigan used those and mid-range hammers to break through marks.
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Chapel Hill countered with trademark North Carolina sass. Insiders credit their come-from-behind win over East Carolina at Regionals as the inspiration to utilize bursts of attitude and intensity. It works. Darkside isn’t as vocal as ECU and UNCW, but a little mustard from them seemed to do the trick against the team from Ann Arbor.
The game turned back in UNC’s favor when Parrish rose up in the endzone between two Michigan defenders, including Murray, and skyed for the disc. When he came down he let MagnUM know he was ready for more, "Anyone else want to guard me?"
The very next possession, a mental mistake on the goalline turned into a possession that UNC converted to tie at 11s. From there the Darkside rode the momentum all the way to victory 15–11. Michigan looked tired and may have run out of gas after their comeback to start the second half.
The play-in results left the following quarterfinal matchups: UCSB vs UNC-Chapel Hill, Brown vs UC Santa Cruz, NC State vs Colorado and Carleton vs Stanford.
The Colorado fans were out again and Mama Bird looked to avenge last year’s Nationals elimination loss at the hands of Jinx. N.C. State was ready and waiting.
State received the opening pull, swung the disc, rifled a forehand up the sidelines, followed by another, then another, then a score to the corner. Five passes and twenty seconds later the score was 1–0.
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"That's a set play. We call out five guys in row so we can run it all the way down the field, and with five guys it doesn’t look like a homey," explained Jinx part-time coach Brian Dobyns, "if you’ve got a bunch of guys who know each other really well, then they’re going to score."
Colorado could not find a way to stop State from scoring, and soon it was 4–1 N.C. State. ‘Rev up the buzzsaw’ is the motto for State and they had a Black & Decker steeltip set on shred. Colorado appeared a little dazed after State’s offensive burst.
The Jinx defense is deceptive. On one hand, starters Chris Hinkle and Brian Snyder appear relaxed on defense, playing to contain the offense as opposed to challenging it. But then on streaking cutbacks, speedsters Brian Bolduc, Kris Bass, Patrick Hard or Rhett Nichols will bear down on the opponent with a full head of steam, looking for the block.
Colorado features a man back for dumps and it appeared that the Stanford offense would work to prevent too many cutback isolations. What Colorado failed to figure out all game was how to stop State from scoring. They certainly knew where to look, considering that one man touched the disc every other throw.
Chris Hinkle is an offensive machine, involved in nearly every play for N.C. State. After a Colorado score was followed by some sort of junk zone defense, Hinkle came up throwing, tossing a hammer to the endzone to take a 5–2 lead.
Finally, Colorado scored two in a row as the Jinx defense took a breather. The last one was a huck to Driver who caught it above Brian Bolduc, then straddled him and offered some words of advice. Bolduc almost tackled Driver before an observer stepped in with warnings for both teams.
Colorado needed to be fired-up and Driver hoped to instill some attitude into his team. Instead, N.C. State, familiar with years of attitude from several notable North Carolina fireheads, scored three in a row, the last two on soaring hucks from the second or third pass in the stack. They weren’t slowing down and they weren’t holstering their guns. Mark Driver and the rest of Colorado were rattled.
Jinx cruised into half up 8–4 on the home team. They were playing on another level.
Mama Bird opened the second half with a score from Ben Bronson who went up high for a disc and then stroked a forehand into the endzone. But N.C. State stayed put and traded points to 10–8 before the final turning point in the game.
At 10–8 Brian Snyder sent a big throw downfield for an apparent score. But it was brought back on a travel call. Unfazed, State patiently worked underneath, baiting Colorado into being wary of another huck. The strategy worked, they scored to go up by three. I’ll let coach Dobyns explain the rest.
"A one goal bulge with a team like Colorado is no bulge at all, but a three goal bulge with any team gives you a chance to use people you might not otherwise use on your defense."
And what defense was your team using?
"The game plan was to play them straight up and not allow any of thier hucks, because they go downfield well and they go downfield often. Play denial defense, keep them from having easy cutbacks and wear down their offense, make their offense work really hard."
N.C. State, now with a late three-goal lead, had the opportunity to rest their offensive mainstays and send in the defensive stalwarts. Colorado got the next point, but the damage was intractable. State stayed fired-up and ran off the next four points to win with emphasis 15–9. It was a similar score to last year’s Nationals match between the teams.
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It was a tough loss for Colorado. They had hoped to at least get to semis for the hometown fans. But Ultimate players aren’t used to having fan support. Their presence may have added to the pressure on Colorado to perform well.
"I’d say there was significant hometown pressure," related Mark Driver, "I don’t think we played up to potential at all in this tournament."
Continued Driver, "We certainly gave a lot of points to them. It was pretty disappointing, our chilliness on offense. We had a lot of drops, a lot of miscommunication errors. I think we took ourselves out of the game more than they took us out of the game."
Up next for Jinx: rivals Brown University in the semifinals.
SEMIFINALS
N.C. State playing Brown was a dream match for semis. State’s losses this season came at the hands of Brown, Carleton, and no one else. In their last loss, Brownian Motion outscored Jinx 15–5 after giving away the game’s first four points. It was on North Carolina turf too, in the finals of College Easterns.
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Brown had thwrated N.C. State with a clam zone, recording block after block and scoring on the turnovers. State looked tired, confused and timid. They refused to throw above Brown’s cup and never altered their four-man zone offense.
Brown’s crafty deep man Justin Safdie beat Jinx’s Brian Snyder to endzone discs countless times while Fortunat Mueller schooled them offensively with breakaway scores and big backhands.
Brown expected more of the same in the rematch. They wanted to stop Snyder from going long and they counted on their zone defense to monkeywrench the Jinx buzzsaw.
"When we played them at Easterns they certainly didn’t know how to pop," recalled Justin Safdie.
Unfortunately the Ivy Leaguers were playing with a less-than-healthy Safdie. Justin injured his back at Regionals and was sitting out points during Brown’s run through pool play. He had to be doped up on Naproxin to play through the pain and there is no doubt that his extraordinary game was hampered by the injury.
Also unfortunate for Brown was N.C. State’s re-tooled strategy. Coach Dobyns recognized the team’s problems in the Finals loss to Brown and adjusted the offense in time for Nationals.
"[At Easterns] we were using a four-man across handling scheme and they were playing a really flat zone. We were able to move the disc back and forth—but we didnt go up the field," explained Dobyns, "so we’ve dropped one of the four guys forward as a popper and now we’re using hammers to go over that front line."
Whoops. Looks like N.C. State knew how to pop now.
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N.C. State began the game receiving and immediately pulled the trigger on a long throw to Kevin Kusy, guarded by Safdie. Safdie couldn’t make the play but Kusy couldn’t hang on. Like a boxer, Brown counterpunched with a deep strike of their own to veteran Lyn Debevoise. But he couldn’t hang on either. Brown came out in a clam and forced a turnover. Two passes later they threw it away and State scored easily.
Mueller walked back to the line hanging his head. He does this every now and then, but something was different this time. His eyes, normally bright and meaningful were downcast. It was 1–0 Jinx.
A couple more throwaways from Brown and the score was quickly 3–0. State had once again jumped out to their customary early-game lead.
Brown finally got two in a row to put them in the game. Brown isn’t the type of team to start off slow and rally late in the game. Like N.C. they usually come out of the gates fast and play point-for-point after that. Even at such an early stage in the game it was evident they were not playing their best.
At 4–2 Brown had a good chance to convert a turnover into points. Uncharacteristically Mueller missed a scoring opportunity by throwing the disc away. This was the first of at least five turnovers for the Callahan winner. State scored the point to go up 5–2.
Brown got on the board thanks to a Moses Rifkin score to Harper Alexander. As underclassmen, Rifkin and Alexander make up one half of Brown’s super recruiting class. Jeremy Schwartz and Kyle Weisbrod are two others that played competitive high school Ultimate.
Once again strategy captain John Gearen set up Brown to come out in a zone defense. Jinx was more than ready. Using the popper most effectively they roached the defense with amazing ease, getting the point on a put from Kris Bass to Pat Hard.
Bass, Hard and Rhett Nichols were all over the field for N.C. State and Brown could not find an answer. Their zone was not working and their defense was unable to find the seams to register blocks.
At 7–5, Forch dropped a pass, Chris Hinkle picked up the turnover and hucked deep to Kusy who came down with the half-ending goal.
Brown tried to regroup at half. They have a great deal of patience and Ultimate serenity.
Related Gearen, "I think we just said, ‘Don’t lose confidence in us. Play our game. They will play a good game or they will play a bad game—don’t wait for them to turn it over. Don’t expect them to shut us down because when we’re running on all cylinders, people have not shut us down.’"
However, they were not running on all cylinders while N.C. State’s engine was maintaining a steady 5000 RPM. That number would rise in the second half.
Brown opened with a downwind huck from Rifkin to Mueller. State countered with a full field Snyder rope to Pat Hard. Brown put one back in, a textbook backhand from Forch to Alexander. 9–7 State. Maybe Brown could make it a game after all.
Not if Hinkle could help it. The sandy-haired man with the big feet owned the field. He had thrown every other score in the first half. Not enough!
So on the next possession Hinkle sent it deep after the second pass, putting the onus on the receiver to make a great play. Patrick Hard was happy to oblige as he rose up in the endzone and skied for the goal.
Next possession Bryan Bolduc turned on the afterburners chasing a Brown huck and made the mad block. State worked it upwind and then Hinkle let another one rip to Pat Hard who got air while the Brown defender stayed planted. Another huge score.
A mental drop from Brown and Hinkle throws another huck score. It was three in a row like that. Brown was stunned, State ecstatic. Hard, Hinkle, Bolduc and the rest of Jinx were playing two levels above Brown.
Brown could never recover. A Forch score to make it 12–8 would be the last hurrah for B-Motion. N.C. State scored the final three on three straight possessions and the game was over like it began. 15–8 State was going to Finals for the first time.
How did they keep up the intensity?
"Well, it’s pretty easy when you keep scoring and its a big game like that," laughed a stoked-up Chris Hinkle after the game, "But we’re not done yet. We’ve worked hard all season. We’ve got one more game to go."
Brown’s co-captain John Gearen was still a little confused at the end of the game. "I felt that, in the final analysis, we werent worried enough. At times in the past we’ve been too afraid of teams. Now we feel confident, that we’re going to pull it out. I think in this game, perhaps, it translated to not as much intensity."
It was also pretty clear that Brown did not play a particularly good game, and that Forch in fact played one of the worst games of his career. Safdie was nearly invisible as were seniors Matt Kromer, Matt Root and Olivier Humboldt.
At least they kept their heads on straight. Afterwards a group of Brown alumni who had made the trip to Boulder scrimmaged the current Brown team. They were up 7–6 last count.
And Forch, who appeared so out of sync and flustered throughout the entire semifinal, was able to joke around with friends who reminded him that "you’re not a real superstar until you’ve buried your team."
"I’d like to play Carleton," said captain Tommy Burfiend after their quarters win. "We’re both really big and we both put it up. A chance to see some atheletes get in the air, get after the disc. It should be a fun game."
Related Jesperson of Carleton, "Obviously I think they are the team to beat until someone proves me wrong. Most college teams make a few mistakes—but offensively they [UCSB] get the disc and hold onto it. We’re going to have to throw a lot of defensive looks at them, not necesarily force a block, but make them throw a pass tthey aren’t used to throwing."
The game began badly for CUT. They had just finished a tough game against Stanford and had little time to rest up and prepare for the best team in the nation—the team that had so far given up only 21 points in four games.
UCSB was relaxed and ready to throw around a little attitude. They really enjoy projecting a bad guy image. It works really well when you’ve got the talent to back it up.
The game opened 3–0 in Black Tide’s favor. CUT’s defense looked sluggish. They were not getting back on hucks.
Santa Barbara would not let up on the pressure. They were taking Carleton out of their game with a prevent zone. CUT began to revert to their old handle-heavy ways, swinging the disc across the field without looking to send it deep.
The winds and dark clouds also conspired against them, threatening to make the game too windy for Carleton’s hucks and just windy enough for Santa Barbara’s throws.
The tough quarterfinal game, the long history between the teams, the wind, dark clouds, a tough Black Tide zone—only one thing was missing from making this semifinal a rotten and forgettable event for Carleton. And then Greg "Hollywood" Husak scored and spiked the disc.
It was looking like trouble for CUT, now standing in a four-point hole at 6–2 UCSB. Wait, better make that five as Carleton’s zone offense again failed to connect, this time heading downwind.
Half ended with Black Tide up 8–3. It was a remarkably quick half. Carleton’s defense gave up eight goals in eleven opportunities whereas UCSB only let Carleton score three times in ten chances.
James Studarus was having little difficulty throwing goals. Burfiend, Adam Glimme and Ernie Aubin were having an easy time scoring them.
"Let’s play our game CUT!!" screamed the sidelines, as usual packed with CUT alum appearing out of nowhere.
Well, it’s about time someone pointed that out. So far Carleton was playing every game but their game and they were getting creamed because of it.
But the winds had picked up to stay and the zephyrs favor the Californians. It looked over for sure at 10–4. CUT finally put in a big score on an upwind huck from Seth Partnow to make it 10–5. Yawn.
UCSB took the pull and nonchalantly sent a disc deep that Partnow defensed. Tide again lined up in defensive battle formation—the dreaded zone. Carleton worked two passes and said fuggit! Clay Preheim cranked to Kaiser for an alley-oop in the endzone. Bang. Within four, crowd’s in the game, and the big man is feeling all right.
The Carleton defense came out like banshees, trying to stop Black Tide from scoring downwind. UCSB looked unfazed but then threw the disc away nonetheless. Jesperson connected with Wilhelm and the score was 10–7.
Santa Barbara wisely called timeout. They needed to get that edge back. CUT was on fire, the sidelines were in the game and they were not playing up to the expected levels of Santa Barbara Ultimate.
As they do so masterfully, so naturally, UCSB responded with a critical upwind score, working it underneath by sending cuts deep and then under, hitting them in stride with the disc. Junior Oren Skoog did the honors this time.
Carleton faced a big point. Their run of three was snapped and they were heading upwind again. Patiently the handling clique worked it upfield and then let it go to the endzone where Alex Nord was hanging out. Score!
Hollywood was pretty quiet up until these final crucial points of play. He hadn’t gotten any skies like the one on the cover of the Nationals program (incidentally over a CUT player). But he still relished playing under pressure. He returned the point with a nice forehand to a streaking Brandon Steets who layed-out perfectly for the score to make it 12–8.
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Carleton still had more game left in them. They scored upwind, totem pole to totem pole style, Nord to Wilhelm. On defense Carleton tried a zone again, hoping that UCSB wouldn’t roach it like they did in the first half. After working countless passes, Black Tide threw the disc away.
Michael Hanslick picked up the plastic and...sent it long! But not a very good throw. It was upwind and floated. Nord and Hollywood were positioning at the goalline. The disc started to come down. Nord bodied Hollywood, went up for the disc, caught it and landed two feet over the line facing Husak. Hola, that face has got to burn seņor!
Hollywood tried not pay attention to the howling Carleton fans on the sidelines. The scoreboard still had SB by two, and their motto is down by two, so that’s a comfortable four-point margin.
Really, UCSB has just too much big-game experience to be afraid, to choke away a game. Carleton even got a chance to score again after a Black Tide turnover. But their run of six straight possesions resulting in scores was over. Studarus and Hollywood hooked for the score. Another Carleton huck to Nord for a score (where were these in the first half?). Studarus and Hollywood hooked up for a score. Studarus felt comfortable enough to jaw Carleton.
Rangy James has a way of getting open and rugged Husak finds ways to make openings. This was their game time, so they did what they’ve been doing for four years. It didn’t matter who the opponent was.
The last hookup put Tide ahead 14–11. Carleton was still in a groove but time was running out. Tommy Burfiend got a d-block for UCSB and it looked like it was all over. But Carleton got it back and scored again to make it 14–12.
The crowds swelled with excitement, hoping for one last CUT burst to tie the game. Black Tide knew who to put on the line for offense. James. Hollywood. Glimme. Burfiend. Schneider. Working patiently, using the underneath cuts, Tide moved to within thirty yards of victory and called timeout. Studarus had the disc on the left side. Time–in, Hollywood is bolting to the front cone with a defender in his shorts, Studarus breaks the mark with that albatross high-release backhand and the disc sticks to Hollywood’s hands. Game over.
"I think we might have defeated the second best team here, outside of us. I can’t believe we didn’t know them from last year. We beat them pretty handily and we heard they lost a bunch of guys, but they came back bigger and stronger and better than last year —those guys are studs," reflected Husak after the game.
Carleton will definitely be in the hunt next year. Maybe they had their Danny Manning all along. It’s a zen thing.
"Fourth year in the finals. Going to try to make it four in a row. But it will be tough. We havent seen NC State yet, we saw them play Stanford a little, but I don’t know what they’re all about. They’re good players," mused Husak.
