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.

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).

*Saturday Game 1 vs. MAST (Madison, WI)*
Our team had played these guys last year so we knee going into the contest what to expect from them… hucks, hucks, and more hucks.  In particular, they looked to put it up to one player in particular and after the first few
points it was clear that we needed to do a better job of making the long throws harder and pay more attention to where their main guy was at all times.

Although we made a number of adjustments to our defense to limit the amount of looks downfield Madison got they did a great job converting what seemed like every opportunity and had a big lead late in the game.  We mounted a
furious comeback but ended up losing on double game point at the hard cap.

In general, we all knew we’d just laid a bit of a stinker on our first game out of the blocks but as a testament to how tough the team was nobody pointed any fingers, complained, or got down on the team.  We all knew the
road to a pool win would be harder now but we’d focus, put our heads down, and work our butts off for it anyway.

A number of players had good games this round, but the play of the game was made by #81 Max Gillett (Lexington HS) who made a shoulder high bid to maintain possession early in the first half.

*Saturday Game 2 vs. Superior (Minneapolis, MN)*
The guys from the Twin Cities were the only team that BUDA did not play during the 2007 tournament, so it was nice to get matched up with them in our pool for Saturday.  However, we didn’t know what to expect from them other than they had a HUGE sideline (like 35 guys) and were very fired up to get a win over us.

The first half of this game was unfortunately familiar to the first half of the Madison one, we went down early because of a couple mistakes with discs around the opponents endzone and because we were unable to stop their main handler from getting good looks at downfield throws.  However, unlike the Madison game we started our rally a little bit earlier and this time pulled out the win on double game point.

Both #27 Amos Adams (ARHS) and #6 Ryan Holmes (Needham HS) proved to be dominant cutters downfield during this game.

*Saturday Game 3 vs. DEVYL (New Jersey / Philadelphia, PA)*
The last round matched us up with the pool’s top seed from the Delaware Valley Youth League that featured players from both Pennsbury High School (3rd place at Easterns) and Columbia High School (Easterns Champions).  Prior to our game, DEVYL had rolled through the first two rounds with 15-7 wins over both Madison and Minnesota.

Right from the start, the team was playing on a much better level than during the previous two contests.  You could see the guys getting fired up as the team really began to play at the level that we all knew was possible and expected.  Both teams got break early, but we took half on a break when #2 Spencer Diamond (ARHS) made a great catch on the sideline to make it 8-6 BUDA.

The second half was an absolute war.  Both sides were playing with a lot of energy on defense and at times making some big mistakes with the disc on offense.  DEVYL got two breaks back and pushed the game to double game point (making it all three game to end that way on the day for us).  The final point saw DEVYL get the disc 2 feet from our endzone and call a timeout.  After some inspired defense, we forced a throw away and worked downfield for
our own game winning chance.  Unfortunately, they made a big play in the endzone to get the disc back on their own goal-line.  On the first pass attempt however, Gillett made a huge play with a point block which was picked up and converted for the game winning score.

Lots of guys really came to play during this round, but in particular two of our captains #20 Tom Bassett (Needham HS / Penn State) and #16 A.J. Hutchins (Longmeadow HS) both played particularly well.  Tom was a rock behind the
disc on offense and A.J. sparked both sides of the disc with some phenomenal marking in the 1-3-3 zone as well as a number of great offensive efforts.

After beating the NJ/PA team, we ended in a tie for first at 2-1 with them and grabbed the top spot out of the pool with the head to head tiebreaker.

*Sunday Game 1 vs. Flying Pig (Cincinnati, OH)*
Similar to last year, we opened up Sunday’s bracket play in the Quarter-Finals against Cincinnati.  It was apparent however from both their scores on Saturday and how they looked during warm-ups that they had improved tremendously since that time.

We started the game on offense heading down wind and scored with some nice and patient offense.  Then the defense was on the field and put a good amount of pressure on the Cincy offense but we were unable to convert turnovers into a goal for the break.  Little did we know this would end up being the story of the game.  Our offense continued to roll through the whole contest without giving up a break and in fact only turning the disc over TWICE.  Although we did get a couple of breaks from our defense, the Flying Pigs did a good job of playing their own patient offense and the
result was maybe the most cleanly played and efficient youth game you will ever see.  Both teams combined for only 15 turnovers and did a great job of mixing up offensive looks and strategies to keep their goals coming.  In the
end, we pulled out the win 15-11.

Captains Tom Bassett and #3 Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow HS) both ran the show behind the disc and #15 Mike Parker (Andover HS) provided some great defensive energy off the bench.

*Sunday Game 2 vs. Overcast (Seattle, WA)*
In a rematch of last year’s finals we met up with the team from DiscNW’s youth league, this year dubbed “Overcast” in the semi-finals.  Seattle is one of the few areas of the country that can match the depth and talent that New England has in juniors ultimate and our two programs at this point have played each other in YCC finals twice (‘05 and ‘07) with both games going to Seattle in close contests.

If it were not for the exciting come-from-behind double game point win that Seattle would go on to pull off in the finals over Pittsburgh, this game would have been the best one of the tournament.  Both teams were flying around on defense and nearly every possession for both sides had at least one lay out block attempt.  This game alone also provided more highlight reel plays than all of BUDA’s other games combined, three in particular that stand out:

1. On the first point, Max Gillett grabbed a disc over two defenders (and one teammate) to which he was giving up at least three inches to all of them.

2. Late in the second half A.J. Hutchins throws a high-release backhand for what looks to be a goal, but Seattle’s defender jumps up and swats it out of the air.  But, flying out of nowhere, Longmeadow teammate Rzepka lays out to
save the possession and throws the goal himself.

3. Facing the hard cap and needing a break, Rzepka makes another huge play with a full extension lay-out block 2 yards outside the Seattle endzone.  He quickly gets up and throws the score.

Additionally, the play of the tournament was made by one of Seattle’s receivers during the first half of this contest.  Marked up against BUDA’s strongest downfield defender Ryan Holmes, Seattle’s receiver manages to layout over Ryan’s shoulder for one of the best grabs I have ever seen.  And, in a testament to the sportsmanship of the New England team, a number of our defenders (including Ryan) jogged over to congratulate the Overcast player before heading back to the line for another point.

Seattle ends up winning 14-11 and advancing to the finals.

So, we fell short of a return trip to the finals, but the team represented the BUDA youth league and New England juniors ultimate with great class and skill.  I think all of the guys were proud of our efforts and have already
begun looking forward to next year and making a run to the title.

After a great day of tryouts, the coaches have selected the following players for this summer’s YCC team:

• Amos Adams (Amherst Regional High School)
• Tom Allen (Needham High School)
• Tom Basset (Penn State University / Needham High School)
• Spencer Diamond (Amherst Regional High School)
• Evan Doucett (Andover High School)
• Ben Feng (Georgetown University / Phillips-Andover Academy)
• Max Gillett (Lexington High School)
• Conor Hickey (Andover High School)
• Ryan Holmes (Needham High School)
• A.J. Hutchins (Longmeadow High School)
• Matt Jerry (Amherst Regional High School)
• Jeffery Kelly (Longmeadow High School)
• Peter Login (Longmeadow High School)
• Corey Mindlin (Hofstra University / Needham High School)
• Evan Ponchick (Amity Regional High School)
• Gain Robinson (Greely High School)
• Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow High School)

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]

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…

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.

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.

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.

Even though a number of players were out of town on family vacations, the second day of tryouts for BUDA’s Open YCC team went very well with 17 players in attendance at the Mitre fields in Burlington, MA.

After arriving early and throwing around (it was nice as a coach to get to the fields 15 minutes early and be the last one to arrive out of the whole group), the team got together to talk over how the horizontal stack will work. Almost none of the players have any experience with the H-stack offense and it was certainly a challenge at first. After a few scrimmages and a couple of marking/throwing drills to get a final look at individual player’s skills, the final tryout was over and the coaches had a bunch of tough decisions to make in getting the roster finalized.

In the end, the following 19 players were offered a spot on the 2007 YCC Open roster:

David Baecher (Amherst)
Andrew Hollingworth (Tufts University)
Corey Mindlin (Needham)
Andrew Lunetta (Needham)
Branden Steinberg (Needham)
Tom Bassett (Needham)
Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow)
Alex Kapinos (Longmeadow)
Matt Guild (Amherst)
Julian Summa (Amherst)
Jonah Herscu (Amherst)
Tommy Li (Longmeadow)
Misha Herscu (Amherst)
Patrick Roberts (Amherst)
Kellen Corkill (Amherst)
Russel Wallack (Amherst)
Andrew Kiefer (Amherst)
Ben Nelson (Andover)
Max Gillett (Lexington)

The schedule will be tight as the team will only come together for 3, maybe 4 practices before leaving for Blaine in August.

In the month since we opened applications for BUDA’s Open YCC team the first big date in the team’s calendar had been June 16th, the”Open Tryout” day. Interest had been great, 40 players signed up online knowing that only 18 will make the final cut and trip with the team to Blaine in August.

Applications had come in from all over Massachusetts and even from a few players in other New England states but two schools are strongly represented by the tryouts: Amherst Regional High School (2nd place finisher at Easterns, Massachusetts State Champion) and Needham High School (3rd place finisher at Easterns, runner-up at Mass State Championships).

Players arrived at 9:30 on the morning of the 16th at Groff Park in Amherst to fill out paperwork and to start meeting the other players in attendance. After everything was in order, the group came together to go over the schedule for the day an outline some of the goals. Shortly thereafter, players split up into their teams for the day (there would be three), met their coaches, and took off on a jog to start the warmup.

It was a full day with each team playing 6 scrimmages to 5 or 7; while each scrimmage was happening the team that was off the field was either learning a new skill the coaches wanted to see implemented, running a drill, or measuring quickness with a timed shuttle run.

The end of the day was cut a bit short by a thunderstorm looming over the horizon so the players missed out on a timed distance run, but nobody seemed to mind! The team brought it in for one last cheer, coaches fielded questions, and the group was told what to expect before the next tryout (on June 30th).

Players at Open Tryout:

Amos Adams (Amherst Regional)
Kellen Corkill (Amherst Regional)
Rafer Dannenhauer (Amherst Regional)
Kyle Deaver (Four Rivers Charter School)
Thomas Georgevits (Needham High School)
Max Gillett (Lexington High School)
Matt Guild (Amherst Regional)
Misha Herscu (Amherst Regional)
Jonah Herscu (Amherst Regional)
Andrew Hollingworth (Amherst Regional/Tufts University)
Alex Kapinos (The Gow School)
Andrew Kiefer (Amherst Regional)
Michael Lawlor (Amherst Regional)
Tommy Li (Longmeadow High School)
Andrew Lunetta (Needham High School)
Corey Mindlin (Needham High School)
Matthew Mitchell (UMass)
Ben Nelson (Andover High School)
Kevin Norton (Amherst Regional)
Pat Roberts (Amherst Regional)
Gain Robinson (The Greely School)
Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow High School)
Alex Soper (The Greely School)
Jeffery Steeves (Needham High School)
Branden Steinberg (Needham High School)
Julian Summa (Amherst Regional)
Mike Virginio (Needham High School)
Russel Wallack (Amherst Regional)