Hello all-

We're back from Yale Cup with a solid performance in hand and a little bit of sunburn to boot. We finished 6-2 overall, losing in the Finals against UMass. Our other loss was also to UMass (in the first round). While some teams in the New England Region may have looked at our record coming into the tournament and thought that we were going to be easily beaten, these same teams will now realize that we are, and will continue to be, a forced to be reckoned with. We have three weeks until Regionals (three weeks to get even stronger), as well as Sectionals in less than a week.

We started off against "ZooDisc" of UMass early on Saturday morning. We were looking to avenge our loss to them at our home tournament, HHBP, last fall. The UMass team is fast, strong, and pretty well organized. They have solid handlers who can bang the disc around and good downfield cutters who can cut in and out when need be. We managed to start out pretty well- as compared to our usual slow starts- and it was a tight game throughout the first and second halves. UMass managed a break or two early in the second half and was up 11-9 when the "hard cap" was put on. This meant that the game would be over after the next point scored- insuring that UMass would beat Brown in the first game of Yale Cup. UMass scored the goal and took the game, 12-9. Given that UMass was billed as our toughest competitor in the NE Region, we were at least confident that we could run with them- and in three weeks, beat them.

Our next game was against Tufts, known for their incessant chanting of "T...U...F-T-S". Tufts was given the #3 seed at Yale Cup after finishing 3rd at College Southerns, 2nd at Ultimax, and Semifinalists at UMassacre the weekend before Yale Cup. They lost their first game of the day to free-wheeling BU and so we were confident that we could break seed. They were a pretty good team with able handlers and some potentially threatening downfield cutters. Our disciplined approach, however, was too much for the Tufts EMen, who made too many forced and unforced errors. While we had some difficulty converting chances with our D-line, we were in control for most of the game and eventually won, 13-11.

We then played Boston University. BU features several players from Paideia School, the ripe tree of ultimate frisbee fruit that has produced many former, present, and future Brown players, not unlike Mike Vandenberg '08 and Jimmy Lowe '08. BU is a team that is principally reliant on its Paideia trained handlers, without much in the way of downfield cutters or defense. Despite this, BU was the spoiler of the weekend, however: by Sunday afternoon they had beaten #3 seed Tufts and eliminated #5 Dartmouth. In any case, Brown relied on hard marks and great downfield cutting to defeat BU. By halftime it was apparent that BU was not going to upset Brown, and Brown rolled to a 12-7 victory. This was especially gratifying because we have not won that many games with authority this season, so it was nice to see that we could come out strong and finish strong.

Our fourth game of the day came against the lowest seed in our pool, Connecticut College. Conn College is a pretty decent team (who also happens to be in our Section) and is a team that will always score more than you think they should against you. This is because they play different ultimate than us- they play a game that relies on trickery and strange throws that are not based upon rigidly structured offense. They also rely on quick handler resets followed by 60-yard hucks, which, in the right circumstances, can be fruitful for them and frustrating for us. Also cause for concern was that they came into our game fresh off of their defeat of UMass, 13-12. Needless to say, we were intent upon not falling prey to their game. [On a sidenote, Noel Fetting-Smith '09 was told by a friend from high school that a Conn College player had earlier this year bragged that this was their year to beat BMo].

Conn College began the game pretty much as expected. They made mistakes, but so did we. We couldn't convert on the chances we had, and they were having some luck with the deep game/swilly hammer game. Before we knew it, it was 5 to 4 Conn College, and by this time, Coaches Vandenberg, Ziperstein, and Matthews had seen enough, so we called a timeout (to the delight of the Conn College faithful). During this timeout, Coach Paul gave a classic (and terse) speech about how we were going to come out of the timeout with hard, hard marks. Sure enough, after we scored on an O point, we began to accrue break after break. It was 7-5 at half, and it would 12-5 before Conn College would score again. At one point, the Conn College captain called to the sidelines in despair for "seven players who actually wanted to play". Final score, Brown 13, Conn College 6.

Sunday is the day where good teams come to keep playing and bad teams beg to be sent home. We started the day with MIT. MIT had finished 3-1 in their pool on Saturday. They had several decent players and one quite talented player. With Colin on their go-to guy, and a Brown mark breathing down every thrower's neck, Brown came out to a 7-0 lead at halftime. A slight let-up on our part let MIT score a couple, but in the end, we were too much for MIT. The final score was something like 13-3.

Our next game was against Princeton. Princeton had just seven players which put them at a significant advantage. But, the seven players that they did have were decent, and they managed to score six against us. Final, Brown 13, Princeton 6.

The semifinal game against Harvard was "kind of a big deal" because Harvard is usually our main competitor in the New England Region. They are led by two very talented ultimate players (and good guys), Jack Marsh and Will Chen. In addition to those fellows, they have a solid cast of supporting role players who help them play a game very similar to our own. Harvard came into the tournament as the #1 seed, and indeed played like it against us. They took half at 8-6, and were very excited at halftime-- in stark contrast to our circle, which was more subdued but perhaps more focused. Even from early on, it looked like Will and Jack were tired, and we threw hard marks and great downfield D (especially in the Colin-Jack matchup) at them in the hopes of breaking down their offense. After the we traded a point followed by the longest point in the history of ultimate (or at least that's the way it seemed to me at the time), it was 10-7 Harvard. Our big guns were tired, we were! all exhausted, and Harvard looked well on its way to its 1st spring-time defeat of Brown in as long as anyone could remember. Again, we called a timeout for a little word from our coaches. "Hard marks" and "good decisions... win with your cuts, not your throws" were the calls from our coaches as the keys to success. We came out of the time out with a renewed pledge to our modus operandi. We scored to make it 10-8, followed by another break, 10-9. The "soft cap" was put on meaning that it would be a game to 12. Harvard received the pull and scored, putting us on the edge at 11-9. We followed with an O-line goal and a break, tying the game at 11. We pulled to Harvard and what follows was actually quite amazing. Ben Saper '07 had a huge D followed by Colin Mahoney's ridiculous grab in the endzone over Jack Marsh. With that grab, we established ourselves as a serious threat to make Nationals this year... but before we could worry about that, we had a game against UM! ass to play.

If you can imagine the scene: Brown winning an emotional (and lengthy) game against Harvard, while UMass had a relatively easy win over BU, 15-6, followed by nearly an hour break- then you can imagine how tired we were coming into a game against a team that had already beaten us once in this tournament. Nonetheless, we came out hard, scoring on our first O-point, and then almost securing a break (if it hadn't been for a drop in the endzone by me). We traded points with UMass for a bit, followed by two breaks for UMass, leaving the score at 8-6 for the first half. By this time, it was clear that our emotional victory against Harvard had taken its toll. We had subbed pretty tightly in the Harvard game, and our big guns were beginning to tire. UMass seemed to convert their chances while we could not and began to pull away little by little. It was 11-7 before we knew it, and 15-7 UMass when all was said and done.

A few things are evident from this past weekend:
1. We are a good ultimate team
2. We will represent at Regionals
3. Our handling corps of Mike V., Pozar, Jimmy Lowe, Dave, and Noel deserve a LOT of credit for playing a million points this weekend (and every other weekend)
4. Reid and Colin can get open at will- at times similar to a certain player who played for us last year who shall remain nameless
5. Colin has established himself as a great player in our Region and in the country
6. Our freshmen are GREAT.
7. We are only going to get better between now and Regionals- UMass better watch out

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Time for me to get some work done.

Best,
Jon #4

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