Scobel Wiggins Photography

Slackjaw was the most upwardly mobile team at ECC. The third Bay Area team, powered with a strong Bay Area college influence, has rapidly improved this year. My team, ¡Viva!, had never previously lost to Slackjaw, but this weekend went down twice, 13-4 in nearly windless conditions (Slackjaw had only 5 turns in the game, none in the first half) and 13-7 on an extremely windy Sunday afternoon.

Photo: Mark Tomko

Slackjaw is tall across the board, and very athletic. Christina Contreras (formerly Stanford) is a big, athletic player that they can use in goalline situations near the front of the stack and throw into space for. Daragh Clancy and (I think) Brittany Smith really controlled the skies for them, and we had a tough time going deep against them at any point. In wins over Traffic and Schwa it was the same story...they play consistent offense and really shut down the other team's deep game. At least half of their handlers (especially including Scoops) are very tall, meaning that turnovers do not lead to good hucking opportunities for the other team.

Mike DeSousa (formerly a player with Berkeley and a coach with Dark Meat, a top West Coast youth team) is coaching the team this year, and I think he was instrumental in helping them to adjust to conditions. They hucked and zoned very effectively in the wind, and they were patient in nicer conditions.

I was impressed with their zone defense...their off-point in a four-person cup really attacks the throwing lane. While this might open up holes in the cup, you can only take advantage of it if you already have a popper or wing setting up for that throw, meaning that they are now forcing the handlers backwards even on swings to the live side. This really slows the lateral movement of the disc, making their zone effective as a windy block getter and as a windless play-stopper.

Really impressive performance overall by Slackjaw; hats off to them and looking forward to having another chance at them at Regionals.