2008 Labor Day Championships

Fury

from Peri Kurshan:

Fury has come off their victory at Worlds and is maintaining their dominance on home turf. Fury excels at moving the disc quickly by running give-and-go's to the open side thereby putting the disc in the hands of their throwers with forward motion. They also capitalize on the athleticism of their players by spreading the field well and staying out of each other's way in order to isolate their receivers one-on-one. This combination gives them many opportunities to play the long game and score off of very few passes, making for exciting Ultimate and quick points.

They are particularly efficient at transition offense after getting a turn. The addition of two former Boston players, Nancy Sun (formerly Brute Squad) and Lyrica Hammann (formerly Lady Godiva), has given them an even deeper contingent of handlers.

In addition to their well-executed offense, Fury utilizes an array of different defensive sets, switching between them frequently. This strategy prevents their opponent's offense from getting comfortable or having multiple chances to figure out an appropriate offensive response.

In our game against them, we gave up a few turns to them on our goal line (on which they capitalized). On the bright side, our D-line was getting turns on them, and their defenders weren't getting blocks on our receivers. All eyes will be on Fury once again this year, to see whether they can defend their title even in a year when training to peak twice.

from Kath Ratcliff:

Semifinals at Labor Day was a NorCal Sectionals preview as Zeitgeist and Fury got to play for the first time since the Boston Invite. Winning Worlds hasn't hurt them much either, as they came in to the tournament favorites and continue to be favorites (in my mind) to win it all.

This game started off pretty well for Zeitgeist, after converting the first O point, then immediately getting two breaks. Fury calls a timeout, wakes up a little, converts their next O point and puts in their zone D team. Fury, like Riot, runs a four-person cup with very dynamic markers and middles who stop any throws to the center of the field. Also like Riot, they have a very good trap that makes you want to keep the disc off the sidelines at any cost. This combination buys them a 5-3 lead and a Zeitgeist timeout to stop the bleeding.

Zeitgeist converts on their next offensive possesion, then gets a D and puts it in to tie it up at 5's. Fury converts on O, and runs off another two points to take it to half. In the rest of the game, Fury scores about two for every one of Zeitgeist's, leading to a fury victory, 15-9.

Fury's offense relies on the fact that everyone on their team is a very capable thrower, and they look to break the mark to their upfield cutters, who then continue the break throws to the endzone. They run a spread offense, with the handler focusing on the first isolated cutter for upwards of 6 seconds, and once they get open (which they almost always do), they have a very disciplined upfield with someone always streaking deep for that thrower. They are always looking to hit that first deep look, and if it's not there, their deep receivers will come in for the under throw and look to dish it off to a handler as quickly as possible.

I would say that their biggest strength as a team is that they can rely on their pretty outstanding athleticism to get the disc back if they turn it over.