2008 Labor Day Championships
Doublewide
Doublewide has lost four double-game-point games so far this season, and have a young team. That is a formula for later success as they figure out how they want to approach these big points and find a working combination.
Vigo (#16 Kiran Thomas) is an excitingly talented cutter. One of the things that he does well, and that I recognize in cutters like Tripoli, Heijmen, and C-K is a very quick recognition and response to being looked off on cuts towards the disc. When Thomas is looked off, he very quickly drops his hips, engages his arms, and finds a new place to move to...fast. Often, Vigo is targeting a spot in the endzone on the far side of the field before his defender has fully recognized that the throw has not, in fact, gone to him on the underneath cut. Doublewide will not throw to Vigo on closely-marked in-cuts (or at least, on throws that they will frequently throw to Tank and Verbal). This risks being hung without an open cutter, but at the rate that Vigo is scoring goals, this seems like a worthwhile gamble.
This isn't a new strategy by any means, but Doublewide will often embed a primary thrower in the middle of their flat-stack offense (JDo, for instance) in order to have range after the first throw. Even if this player were not as good of a cutter as the next best option, it still makes good sense to put range in the middle of the field as opposed to stranded at an outside handler position.