BUDA YCC 2009 Open Team Selected

With more than male 40 players in attendance at tryouts and the level of play higher than any previous years, the coaches had a tough job narrowing the group down to a final roster for the 2009 Youth Club Championships.

After some tough choices, the following players were selected for this year’s squad:

Spencer Diamond (Junior, Amherst Regional High School)
Ryan Rzepka (Freshman, University of Vermont)
Ryan Holmes (Freshman, University of Massachusetts)
Matt Jerry (Senior, Amherst Regional High School)
Tom Allen (Freshman, Penn State University)
David Lunetta (Junior, Needham High School)
Jonah Herscu (Junior, Amherst Regional High School)
Julian Summa (Senior, Amherst Regional High School)
Mike Parker (Freshman, Gettysburg College)
A.J. Hutchins (Longmeadow High School Alumni)
Misha Herscu (Senior, Amherst Regional High School)
Cody Ross (Sophomore, Four Rivers Charter School)
Tyler Kenney (Senior, Nipmuc Regional High School)
Jordy Diamond (Freshman, Amherst Regional High School)
Amos Adams (Sophomore, Amherst Regional High School)
John Narmontas (Sophomore, Longmeadow High School)
Eric Biggs (Sophomore, Amherst Regional High School)
Joel Fisher-Katz (Freshman, Pioneer Valley Performing Arts)

Spencer Diamond, Rzepka, Holmes, Jerry, Allen, Parker, Hutchins, and Adams all return from the 2008 team with Jonah and Misha Herscu and Julian Summa returning from the 2007 team.

BUDA YCC Open 2008 in Review

This past weekend, BUDA sent two teams to the Youth Club Championships (YCCs) in Blaine, MN.  Both teams played well and have lots of highlights, but I’ll focus on the Open team for obvious reasons (like, that I was the coach and saw everything from the sideline).

2008 USA Junior Worlds Team Selected

The Ultimate Players Association has announced their selections for players that will represent the United States this summer at the 2008 WFDF Junior World Championships in Vancouver. We’re very proud to see so many New England YCC players make the team and know they’ll do a great job of representing our country and hopefully bring home the gold. While we’ll be sad to see some of them not competing again for the BUDA squad, it’s a huge honor to be selected for the team and we’ll be rooting for them while we’re in Blaine.

The following YCC 2007 Vets have been selected for the 2008 Boys USA junior worlds team:

• Jonah Herscu (Amherst Regional High School)
• Andrew Kiefer (Amherst Regional High School)
• Tommy Li (Longmeadow High School)
• Andrew Lunetta (Needham High School)
• Patrick Roberts (Amherst Regional High School / Carleton College)
• Russell Wallack (Amherst Regional High School / Kenyon College)
• Misha Herscu (Amherst Regional High School) [ALTERNATE]
• Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow High School) [ALTERNATE]

Preparing to leave for Blaine

It’s been a very, very hectic schedule but the team finally is getting ready to head out to Blaine at the end of this week and spent the last two putting the finishing touches on the team and making final plans for the trip.

Two weeks ago, the team had it’s second practice together. Once again it was in Amherst, but this time the team was met by an oppressive heat that forced players to very closely monitor their health and pushed the lunch break later into the day to try and avoid the hottest parts of the afternoon. The practice itself was very similar to the session from a week before, the coaches reviewed some concepts and introduced some new ones and there was a large amount of scrimmaging to get all of it into practice. The day ended with another game against Amherst locals… this time however, the “ringers” took it to the young guys made the game a decidedly one-sided affair.

This past Friday, the team had originally planned to head down to New Jersey to participate in Nucci’s Cup, but after failing to secure a spot in the tournament Tiina Booth was kind enough to arrange a scrimmage under the lights at Amherst High School against the local club team, Club Team X. The YCC team was greeted with an early surprise as the uniforms from Breakmark arrived in time for the game and the squad finally took the field as a fully-formed and uniformed team. CTX was bolstered by a number of local players both home from college and pulled from other area teams, making the friday night squad deep and very, very talented. That talent showed early as CTX jumped out to an early 5-1 lead and took half 8-2. After a delay for lightning, the YCC team pulled it together a put a number of beautiful offensive points together and played a much better second half, with CTX winning the half 9-7. The final score was CTX 17-9.

With the schedule finally announced for the weekend, New England will see Colorado, New Jersey, and Madison on the first day. All three teams will offer tough challenges and hopefully the depth of the BUDA squad will pay dividends late into the day.

Practice #1

The BUDA Open YCC team held it’s first practice since the announcement of the team this past Friday in Amherst. 3 players were missing and one was sidelined with an injury, but it was good to see the squad together nearly in full.

The day started out with a warm-up followed by a long cutting and conditioning drill. Then the team spent some time talking about defensive positioning and running a few drills to focus on what the coaches had just demonstrated. The morning session was ended with a scrimmage that was close throughout and had no one team or player dominating the action.

After a break for lunch (most of the players headed to one of the Amherst guys’ house to raid the pantry), the coaches went over zone defense and some quick defensive play calls. The guys then scrimmaged for a second time with the opposite team winning than had during the morning session, and it was time for the main event of the day: a scrimmage with a team of local ringers who included 4 former junior worlds players and a number of NUTC counselors in town for the week. The ringers jumped out to a quick lead, but the YCC team answered back and was able to pull out a 7-5 win.

The team finished off with some group core strength exercises and sprints and headed to the swimming hole next to the fields to finish the day.

This upcoming Friday the team will be back in Amherst for another practice and scrimmage with more locals, but unfortunately will not be heading to any tournaments before going to Blaine as they were not offered a bid to the Nucci’s cup in New Jersey.