My thoughts on Queen City

While my grades, post-graduation what-to-do search, and general non-ultimate sanity would have gone out the window had it happened, I really wish we could have gone to Queen City. Vegas was awesome, and the extra-Regional competition was great because it exposed us to some different playing styles and defensive looks that aren’t that common in the Atlantic Coast. On the other hand, though, teams like Georgia, UNC, UNC-Wilmington, and NC State are who we’ll be seeing in Charlotte, and with a field that also included Michigan and Notre Dame, it’s really too bad they fell on consecutive weekends.

Since I couldn't be there myself, my thoughts and speculations should be of much help.

-First, as far as Virginia Ultimate is concerned, our girls team went, going 2-2 in pool play and 1-2 in Championship and Championship Consolation on Sunday. From an ultimate growth perspective, Hydra is interesting to me because they have a giant roster of over 35 girls but do not have the infrastructure or willing coach/captain for a B team. This leaves a lot of the top talent kind of frustrated, a lot of the middle talent kind of frustrated, and a lot of the bottom talent kind of frustrated. Regardless, the acquisition of a coach has payed big dividends this year, and I'm hoping that they continue what seems to be a progressive re-vamp of the program.

-If there was much doubt from their CCC performance, Notre Dame is for real. They rolled through pool play, and watching score reporter yesterday, it looked like they were with Georgia until half, only giving up a few breaks later in the game.

-ECU? They went 3-1 in pool play and with a 12-13 loss in the quarters, were the only team not named Jojah to put up double digits on Notre Dame. We played them in the finals at Wolfpack in the Fall, but they’ve got to be pleasantly surprised by how well this weekend went for them.

-On the flip side, NC State can’t be happy. 1-3 in pool play and a 15-11 loss to Wilmington in pre-quarters makes me wonder what the deal was, and I’ll go ahead and make the obvious guess that they had some guys out with injury. Just a guess, though.

-Davidson went 4-0 on Saturday, and after being ousted by Wilmington in quarters, wound up beating UNC on consecutive days. I’ve heard a lot about the talent on this team due to Conger and Robert playing club with Guiller, and I hope to see them play in Texas.

-They missed the finals somewhat handily, but by the look of it, Wilmington was the third-best team at this tournament. Their pool play games weren’t all that close, and getting to semis doesn’t look like it was too hard either. This is one of those teams that I really hope we play before Regionals.

-Despite a tight first half with Rage in the finals, Georgia more or less skated through Queen City, as neither pool play nor the bracket had any team finishing fewer than three points behind. All-Region talent Greg Swanson and Peter Dempsey are likely to garner some Callahan talk, and from what I can tell, they didn’t graduate all that much last year. I’d pay to see them play Florida right now.

-UNC seems to be experiencing some real growing pains from the loss of Mat Thomas, Josh Torrell, and a number of other seniors from last year. Their two losses to Davidson, along with being blown out by Jojah in a rematch of last year’s backdoor final affirm what the suspicion that there’s really not a clear frontrunner for this third Atlantic Coast bid.
-In other news, I didn’t see Clemson or JMU beating William and Mary.

All of this said, I’ve yet to make the glaring note that it’s only February, so I'll save my more ambitions prognostications for practice tomorrow. As of now, Florida and Georgia look to be regionally dominant, with Wilmington, Davidson, Duke, and Virginia adding their names to the mix of possible challengers that already includes UNC and NC State. A few teams will be at Hellfish, Ultimax, and the Peter van de Burgt Classic, but I’m really looking toward Centex for any major shake-ups in the current outlook.


Funny quote: “Stay tuned as Brown is schooled in one of few universal truths of modern life: People don't like it when you beat up Rihanna.” If you’re from Seattle and don’t read Last Days in the Stranger, you’re missing out.