Hi Everyone,

B-Mo and P-Funk attended Regionals this weekend in Portsmouth, RI and both played well and had a grand old time.

Despite rainy and muddy conditions, B-Mo played their patient ‘smart’ game and ran away with the championship, giving up a total of 13 points in the process (the same as last year). P-Funk showed that they were a force to be reckoned with as well, upsetting #9 seed Dalhousie and finishing tied for 7th – a spectacular feat for a B team. Brown Ultimate is looking strong!

B-Mo started off with #16 seed Maine-Farmington, and played crisply in the misty morning fog and won 13-1. Freshman Jimmy Lowe led the way here, making speedy defensive blocks and then burning his man for the score. After a short bye, we then faced P-Funk, who’d just narrowly defeated Dalhousie. Despite a 13-2 score in favor of B-Mo this game was very competitive. Both teams ran hard and fought for every point. Personally, it was exciting to have fellow Brown Ultimate players D me up in a manner I’d hope to play (nice work Sonshine and Kareem!) and the game assured me that the future of the program is in great hands. In the semis, we squared off against Tufts, who we’d beaten in last year’s finals and were looking to cause a big upset. B-Mo came out strong; our O-team scored easily and our D-team – while it sometimes got a bit stagnant and struggled to score near the end zone – dominated their cutters and got tons of blocks and forced Tufts to just punt the disc downfield as they had nowhere else to go. We took half 8-2. Of note at this point were multiple smothering Ds by Mike Buff and Michael Pozar, as well as a shutdown defense on Tufts’ main cutter by Colin Mahoney. Then we were told that we couldn’t play anymore as the fields were getting damaged, so we trundled back to Providence knowing that we’d have to finish the game really early Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we came out and dominated just as we had the previous afternoon. A 70 yard Neale-to-Colin Mahoney huck on the first defensive point set the tone as won the half 7-1 and the game 15-3. We didn’t turn the disc over in the half – it was sweet. Ben Saper made a spectacular grab to preserve the perfection on one of the points, laying out and dragging his toes in the end zone on a throw that seemed lost out of bounds.

And then… more field problems. The finals were delayed by three hours or so as we waited for the sun to come out and dry the standing water. Thank goodness it did – nobody wanted to return the following weekend. Our opponent, Dartmouth, has been our main competitor in the Region for most of the season and were the #2 seed so it was appropriate that we should play them. They came out strong, but couldn’t match B-Mo’s speed and execution. Fueled by the phenomenal play of Josh Ziperstein (including a seventy yard run and layout catch that had to be seen to believed as the disc was thrown so far ahead of him) and the piloting of Paul Vandenberg the offense scored at will. The defense, while not on top form, still managed to force Dartmouth into many turnovers and scored many goals. In the end we won 15-7 and are very, very excited to be Regional Champions for the third consecutive year.

So on to Nationals. We will be training hard for the next couple weeks as we hope to give our all and make a run at the championship in Corvallis, OR. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us this weekend (including Bruno the Brown Bear!), your presence and cheering was a tremendous help.

Best wishes,
Colin