This past weekend Doublewide, the club Open team out of Austin, Texas, was the surprise winner of the South Region, defeating favorite Chain Lightning from Atlanta, Georgia. Doublewide standout cutter Kiran Thomas has graciously given us a recap of this past weekend’s events:

The weather for our Semifinals game against Ronin saw winds of 10-15 mph creating a slight upwind/downwind situation. Initially, Ronin ran a man defense but it became apparent that our cutters were having their way downfield. Midway into the first half Ronin started to run a 4 man cup to slow Doublewide’s offense. This generated a few turns for Ronin but their transition offense had no luck in putting the disc in the upwind end zone.

In the second half, their zone was eventually neutralized by the play of Doublewide’s handlers who were able to go through and over the cup. Essentially this game came down to Doublewide’s ability to generate and convert turnovers and Ronin’s inability to score upwind. Final score 15-10 Doublewide, to setup yet another Regional Final with Chain Lightning.

Sunday’s weather could be best described as a gusty cross-wind. The game started out great for Doublewide as our defense continued increasing our conversion efficiency by capitalizing on a Chain miscue to take a 1-0 lead. After Chain put in their first score, the first offensive point for Doublewide was a grinder for our cutters, as it seemed like nickel and dime in-cuts were all that was available. Chain’s defense clamped down in the end zone and generated a turn on a dump getting a break back to make the score 2-1 Chain.

The two teams continued to trade, showcasing different styles of offensive play. Chain’s athletic and tall defensive deeps and sagging handler marks forced Doublewide’s offense out of our horizontal stack to a vertical stack. This allowed our offense to swing the disc and hit open under cutters for big gains. Those big in cuts opened up the deep space for 20-25 yard scores. On the flip side, Chain’s offense seemed to somehow always run the disc up the sideline eventually putting up beautiful 50 yard hucks to answer back. Both offenses traded points until right before half when Chain had an errant first throw. Doublewide’s defense was again able to capitalize on Chain’s mistake to take half 8-7 with our offense receiving.

In the second half, after some efficient offense by both teams, Chain was able to close the 2 point deficit and go on a 3 point run because of their defense’s ability to generate blocks off of great bids. One of these great bids was a nasty Callahan on an in-cut to take the lead 11-10. Doublewide’s offense was somewhat rattled but settled down to start trading points again with Chain’s offense. Doublewide’s defense began to apply more pressure on Chain’s offense by consistently pinning them deep in their end zone with well placed pulls and zone crumbles. Although Chain was able to work their way out of the end zone multiple times, it seemed as if they were a throw away from giving Doublewide the lead back.

Eventually, Doublewide got the turn they were looking for based on this end zone pressure and capitalized with a cross field hammer to take the lead 15-14. With the cap on, both teams traded points for the rest of the game. DW’s offense punched in the double-game-point score with what got them there in the first place: swinging the disc and great cutting.

Doublewide’s victory shakes things up for National’s seeding. Chain Lightning was expected to be a top 5 or 6 team, but with their loss the seedings look to be more up in the air. We’ll see how things pan out in the Central, Northeast, and Southwest Regions this coming weekend, and we’ll get a full picture of what to expect in Sarasota.

Great weather today for the Northwest; just about 60 degrees, a thrower’s wind (8-ish MPH, just enough to allow only good throwers to hit the endzone from anywhere, but not enough to make them shy), and very little rain.

Did the 15:3 format scare anyone? With the possibility of a 4-game day, all four top seeds crushed in the first games, all about 15-8. Usually, someone overlooks a lower seeds and get themselves in a tense or tight game, but this time all four top seeds came out of the blocks ready.

Semifinals featured two very familiar matchups in Revolver/Jam and Furious/Sockeye. The second of these was a high-turnover game, with lots of long points and few clean offensive plays. Both teams used big defenders against the other team’s smaller handlers, and neither team tried zone more than once.

Revolver beat their rivals to advance to Nationals, and the finals with Sockeye was a very tight affair. In the end, after two hours, there was only a pair of overthrown hucks to separate the teams and allow Sockeye to pull out a close one.

Jam versus Furious was the obvious main event, with two of the world’s top teams in a game-to-go. Jam took an early lead, 7-5, but Furious started throwing to Lugsdin deep and around the endzone to bring it back to 13-13 with the advantage. (It’s only in games like these, with little wind, where you realize late in the game how glad you are that you chose offense…or how sorry you are that you lost the flip. Until we start using non-rally scoring, that advantage will always be there).

Jam needed a break, and made a couple of really gutsy throws (a Bruss hammer to Boo, in particular, from the backhand sideline to the far cover) just to stay in striking distance. A first-throw mishuck should have killed them, but they tempted Furious into a blady huck of their own. Jam squandered a chance to get the break they needed on a low huck, but at 14-14 they scrambled to cover the endzone after a huck, forcing an additional dump swing that was mishandled at the far sideline. Greg Husak immediately found Jeff Eastham on a looping long forehand, and two lefty backhands later they had their crucial D-point.

Furious, running the same Lugsdin/Grant/Seraglia/Pottinger/Hibbert/Ortiz line out, hucked from the forehand sideline to Grant. Last point; the Jam combination of Saunkeah/Watson/Remucal/Steets gives them a lot of deep options, and Justin Safdie is on as well to cap what has likely been his most complete tournament since joining Jam. Four throws into the point, Bart bursts free down the forehand sideline for a low out throw, and no one but Bart is going to catch it. 16-15, Jam going to Florida, and Furious is out of the show for the first time this decade.

The elements ruled the day, occassionally letting us get a glimpse of traditional Ultimate between long periods of field-position battles.

The biggest effects were in Rounds 3 and 4. The gale blew in during the first 5 minutes of Round 3, gusting about 35 mph and causing misthrown 2-footers to blast all the way to the far downwind endzone. Hilarious, but also pretty devastating for teams that lost the flip (or, worse, winning the flip and failing to have predicted that the weather would be so much more important than the first possession).

Teams that were able to make forced throws were the most successful. In those conditions, players that are limited to “good” throws, flat and calm and with long pivots are going to be relatively useful. You need to be able to get a quick huck off, sometimes throwing a backhand bomb against a force flick (something that Tim Gehret is very good at). Zones need to keep the disc in front of them, occassionally allowing some yardage on a swing as long as it didn’t lead to a second, yardage-gaining, throw back through the middle of the field.

Round 4 brought the Jam/Sockeye and Revolver/Furious matchups while the wind was still howling. There were no real upwind threats in either game very early, and then the wind started to die down. All four teams had to adjust to the new conditions: defenses had to stop allowing large underneath cuts (playing for the punt) and offenses had to regain confidence in their ‘across’ throws (short breaks and dump-swing combinations).

That team meeting that your team had 4 months ago when you decided who was going to decide strategy? All of the sudden, that meeting is really important. Did you decide to have meetings during time-outs between strategists, or did you decide to ‘just figure it out, we’re all pretty smart’. Did you empower the rest of your players to voice opinions (‘Hey, the wind isn’t that bad anymore, we can just work it in’) or have you been stomping the voice out of them in favor of iron-clad discipline? Has your strategist group been imagining these weather possibilities and practicing different subcalling, or have you been working on an O and D that only work in 15 mph of wind or less? These decisions probably started months ago…and if you made mistakes then, or were forced into certain decisions (by team experience, competing personalities, etc) then you are hurting now, and the top 4 teams in the NW have an advantage over you.

That isn’t the most important point; my real thought here is more that early-season decisions can come back to sink you, and early planning is going to have a direct effect on Regionals.

Sockeye defeated Jam 14-8, and Revolver won over Furious 10-5.

We’ll see how that works out tomorrow.