Youth Club Championships – Sunday

After the end of the day on Saturday, the team was very happy with it’s level of play and knew that we’d be able to give every team at the tournament a handful. With both offense and defense now playing well, the team rolled up for Sunday morning’s quarters match up with Cincinnati confident but eager to continue improving our overall level of play.

Cincinnati had yet to get a win at the tournament, but they came out on the first point playing some very aggressive defense and taking shots downfield to a couple tall receivers. After the first couple points, BUDA came out in the 1-3-3 zone that had been successful on day one and used it to push the Cincy handlers into a number of mistakes near there own endzone and the score very quickly pushed more and more in New England’s favor, halftime came quickly with the score 8-0. The second half was similar to the first, and BUDA grabbed it’s 4th callahan of the weekend when Patrick Roberts layed out for an interception in the Cincy endzone. While the final score was 15-0, the Cincinnati team had a number of nice offensive points that ended just short of the endzone. In particular, #23 Zack Kaufman made a number of nice grabs in the air and was by far the focal point of their attack.

Semi-finals brought one of the strongest entrants into the tournament, Pittsburgh Impulse. Impulse had lost a close semi-final game to eventual champs Philadelphia last year and throughout this year’s tournament it was apparent they were on a mission to improve on that finish. Impulse was also another team that BUDA didn’t have a whole lot of familiarity with, but knew (from watching a couple games during the tournament) that they wanted to put it downfield early and often. Once again, the 1-3-3 zone was effective in forcing turnovers and a lack of decent looks downfield for Pittsburgh. Both Patrick Roberts and Alex Kapinos had huge games and seemed to give Pittsburgh trouble on both sides of the disc. Jonah Herscu, Russel Wallack, and Andrew Lunetta all played huge roles in constructing what was by far the most smooth and effective game for the offense. While the score ended up 15-7 in favor of New England, this game was a battle from beginning to end.

With the win over Pittsburgh, BUDA advanced to the finals and would face the only other undefeated team at the tournament, Seattle’s Juggernaut. Seattle had beaten Minnesota in the other semi-final and had looked nothing other than dominant in the both of the day’s game for the squad.

…finals recap coming soon…

Youth Club Championships – Day 1

After spending Friday traveling out to Minnesota and visiting the sights (Mall of America, the water park in our hotel), it was nice to finally arrive at the fields on Saturday morning and finally get to take the field in a game that meant something.

It’d been a whirlwind two months for the team… in that time 40 players had applied for a spot on the squad, two weeks of tryouts narrowed down the candidates, and the final roster had been able to get together for practice only twice before heading west. Of course, we had the added pressure of everyone getting to know each other and learning to play together against some of the best juniors players in the country. So, when warmups started for our round one match up against New Jersey there was a lot of nervous energy as nobody (including the coaches) really had any idea how we’d look but any nerves certainly were overcome by excitement to finally get started.

Seeing the New Jersey team was a nice way to start as many of the players on both teams have played each other a number of times with Columbia, Needham, and Amherst sending many players to their respective YCC teams. We came out with a few points of man defense and forced a couple turns but the defense’s offense was entirely too excited to be effective and would quickly return the disc to Garden State. Later in the first half, we came out with a 1-3-3 zone and it seemed to pressure them into more turns, a number of which came on stalls or high stall turnovers. The highlight of the first half came when Andrew Hollingworth jumped over a New Jersey handler and intercepted a floating pass in the endzone for a callahan goal. At the beginning of the second half and not to be outdone by his junior worlds teammate, Alex Kapinos nabbed a callahan for himself with a point-block followed by a catch for the team’s second callahan of the game. The second half was similar to the first and BUDA was able to open up the subbing and get the entire roster a good amount of playing time and all members of the team contributed to the win. Final score was 15-9, New England over New Jersey.

Round two was a matchup with the fourth seed in Pool B, Madison. The team from Wisconsin had a couple of players they looked to isolate as receivers and throwers but had a difficult time gaining separation from our defenders. Also, in a similar storyline as round 1, we played a number of defensive points during the first half in a 1-3-3 zone. While a number of players stood out with strong defensive play, the zones were anchored by aggressive marking by Misha Herscu, Matt Guild, Russel Wallack, and Andrew Kiefer. Max Gillett continued the team’s callahan streak by grabbing a swing pass during the first half against Madison and Andrew Lunetta provided the game’s offensive highlight with a huge endzone to endzone backhand to David Baecher for the goal. Madison did begin to connect on some of their deep looks late into the second half, but at that point the game was heavily in favor of New England and ended with a 15-7 score.

In the last round, New England matched up with the Colorado open team – “Cutthroat”. Featuring a number of tall and athletic receivers, BUDA knew that our offense would have to limit turnovers and not force the disc downfield and into the Denver athletes. Once again, New England played a number of defensive points in 1-3-3 and were able to cause quick turns, setting up easy scoring chances. It was evident that the team was beginning to gel together as BUDA held Cutthroat to the lowest opponent score total of the day and really pushed the opponent out of their gameplans. Final score: 15-5, New England.

Finishing the pool 3-0, BUDA secured the second seed into quarter finals and would play the 4th place team from pool A to start the day on Sunday.