End of 2006 Season
Travelling down to Sarasota for the club’s second straight appearance at the UPA Club Championships, Metal hoped to improve on last year’s 11th place finish. The first day would see games against Ring of Fire (Raleigh, NC), Johnny Bravo (Denver, CO), and Big Ass Truck (Delton, MI) in that order.
Game 1, Ring came out determined to correct the mistakes of their 2005 campaign (1-4 over the first two days en route to a 13th place finish) and played good tough defense earning a break or two lead in the first half. The second half got ugly real quick and Ring handed Metal their first loss of the tourney 15-10. In the second match up of the day, Metal faced Johnny Bravo, a team that had blasted them just over a month earlier at the Emerald City Classic and immediately came out with two breaks. However, Metal’s defense was able to run off multiple breaks in a row to not only even the score but actually put Cambridge up 6-2. At this point Bravo began a slow run lead mostly by huge defensive stops by #38 Andrew Mangan and finding space to put up long throws to Beau Kittredge. In the end, Bravo pulled out the win 15-12.
Game 3 vs. BAT, Metal needs a win to avoid heading to reseeded pools with a loss (and make a pre-quarters appearance very difficult). The game was tight the whole way with both teams unable to stop each other’s offenses. While Cambridge held a lead in breaks for nearly the entire game, it took two stops by Sockeye import #18 Giora Proskurowski for breaks to finally ice it and grab the 15-12 win.
With the win over Truck, Metal headed into Friday’s reseeded pools with Truck Stop (Washington, DC), Sub Zero (Minneapolis, MN), and BAT [win from Thursday carried over from original pool play]. The first game was against Truck Stop, a team that is new to Club Nationals but had many players who’d been to the show with previous DC teams (Electric Pig and Potomac). In a game similar to the BAT game on Thursday, Metal was up with at least a one break advantage the entire contest and finished out with a 15-13 win. Meanwhile, Sub Zero had defeated BAT, meaning the winner of Metal v. Sub Zero would win the pool and head into Pre-Quarters.
By this time the wind had picked up considerably and up-wind breaks were becoming more and more difficult to come by. Metal was the first team to punch in an upwinder but both teams got a couple each to keep the game tight throughout. Sub Zero had once again tied it up at 13-13, Metal scored on the offensive downwinder and then punched in an upwind break to win 15-13 and earn a spot in the Pre-Quarters.
Meanwhile in the upper pools, DoG (Boston, MA) had posted a 2-3 record through the first two days and quickly rolled downhill from their #3 seed and into the Pre-Quarters. It was appropriate though as the two city rivals had played each other in an elimination game in nearly every tournament of the year. Unfortunately for Cambridge the results in Sarasota where the same as those in Maine at Sectionals and Devens for Regionals with DoG winning 15-8 and knocking Metal out in the pre-quarters for the second year in a row.
With a championship now no longer on the table, Metal played one last set of games on Saturday and posted wins over the Condors (Santa Barbara, CA) and Sub Zero to finish with 9th place.
Now that the season is over, many of the players begin coaching area college teams and prepare for the incoming New England winter.
Metal Qualifies for the UPA Club Championships
In what was a weekend of perfect weather, the 2006 Northeast Regionals held little surprises during the early rounds. All four top seeds; DoG, Metal, GOAT, and PoNY advanced to the semi-finals with only GOAT being pushed in the quarters by Chuck Wagon. In one semi-final, DoG handled PoNY with relative ease and a 15-5 win. On the next field over, Cambridge and Toronto were renewing their now annual fall series of battles. On serve at half, Metal would eventually punch in a break with a goal from Ben Faust to Matt Holzer and watch as the offense held serve for a 14-12 victory and second straight trip to the NE finals.
Sunday arrived with another dose of perfect weather and a finals matchup against crosstown rival, DoG. Things stayed close for the first half as DoG earned a break or two lead, but the second half would be a little different as Boston pulled away to continue their string of Regional championships and earn the first set of tickets to the Club Championships. Meanwhile, GOAT was working their way back up through the backdoor bracket and was not having an easy go of it at all. Both games in the morning had been close (15-13 over Zebra Muscles and 15-12 over PoNY) and a number of players had already been asked to play a ton of points going into the final game of the weekend.
So, for the third year in a row Cambridge and Toronto faced off for the second and final bid to the Club Championships. Right from the beginning, it was clear that Sunday's game was going to be different than Saturday's version and Metal's defense punched in a break on the first point. Really, Cambridge was in control the whole game and it survived a few late surges by GOAT to take the victory and nationals bid 15-9.
The team will now prepare for it's second trip to "the show" and try to improve on last year's 11th place finish.
Full regionals results
Hanwei's pictures of Sunday play
UPA Northeast Regionals
This weekend, Metal ultimate will compete in the UPA Northeast Regionals in an attempt to qualify for a return trip to the Club Championships in Sarasota, FL. Entering the weekend as the #2 seed, Cambridge will face a number of tough squads in the fight for one of two bids to the show.
Games start at 8:30 with a first round match up against the 15 seed, Magma from Montreal. Full bracket and details are available on the tournament website.
Emerald City Classic and the Chesapeake Open
For two weekends in a row, Metal traveled to two of America’s most competitive tournaments, The Emerald City Classic and Chesapeake Open. ECC would be the first look Metal would have at most of the West Coast squads and Chesapeake promised to be a good preview for what the Northeast should look like come October.
Arriving in Seattle for the team’s first ever trip west of Illinois, Metal faced a tough field of teams at the Emerald City Classic. The tournament was a round robin format with the top two teams facing each other at the end of the day on Sunday for the finals. Saturday saw games against Condors, Johnny Bravo, Furious George, and Sockeye. While some of the games were close, with Metal even holding breaks for leads late none would fall the team’s way and Saturday ended with the team at 0-4.
Sunday opened with a bye, a matchup with Rhino from Portland, and then a final game against the new team formed out of San Francisco. Both games seemed similar to Saturday’s action with Metal holding a multiple break lead late against San Francisco, but ended up dropping both and finishing the weekend with an 0-6 record.
The second of two weekends in a row with tournaments, the team went into the Chesapeake Open hoping to pull out of the inconsistent play that had plagued them in Seattle. Round 1 started with PoNY and ended with a bit of controversy and misunderstanding on both team’s parts about the tournament’s cap rules, Metal ended up taking the win 11-10. Round 2 featured the team’s second game of the season against Potomac, a team that has changed a considerable amount of personnel since last year’s Club Championships appearance. Both teams played strongly with neither teams giving up many breaks until Metal went on a late run for a 13-11 win. The rest of the day would not finish well however as the team would drop losses to both Vicious Cycle and Doublewide.Sunday started in the pre-quarters against Truck Stop who’ve gained a number of the players leaving Potomac and are much stronger than this team has ever been in the past. This was another well played game with neither teams giving up breaks early, but Metal went on another late run to clinch a 13-9 victory. After earning a second place finish in their pool, GOAT had earned a bye into the quarters and stood in the way of Metal making a trip to the semi-finals. Games between Toronto and Cambridge are always close and well contested and this one was no exception. Both defenses forced a number of turns, but breaks did not come in bunches for either side. Unfortunately for Metal a few mental mistakes late in the game allowed GOAT to finish out with a 13-10 win and end the long two weekends for Metal.