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Not much movement has gone down recently since we’re still waiting for many of these teams to battle it out at Labor Day, but here are the key recent happenings:
Heist comes off a weekend at Cooler Classic where their split teams got first and second, though the competition wasn’t the greatest. With both teams in the finals, Heist did a good job of giving run to all of their players. It’s worth noting that their Cooler appearance does not factor into Heist’s USAU ranking.
Additionally, Heist dominated the competition at Heavyweights with the 15 – 9 win against Nemesis in the semis and 11 – 5 against Bent in the finals. We’re gonna move them up a spot – it’s hard to move them higher simply because the teams above them have had tougher schedules, and we’re not sure they break into the tiers of Phoenix and Scandal just yet. Heist is probably the most intimidating team of the season because they are an unknown to the likely top four seeds in Sarasota.
The other big mover here is Safari. Getting dropped out of the top 16 in the USAU rankings (they’re currently at 17) costs the Southwest a bid. They have got to perform this upcoming weekend and would do well to spend some free time watching regional rival Nightlock, who has beaten them every matchup this season. At this point, we’re not confident that we’ll be seeing Safari in Sarasota. Schwa is going to move in and take their spot with a solid win against Underground (Safari lost to Underground 6-13 at ECC).
We’re also going to take this time to clear up a bit of news about Nemesis. Rumors might be circulating around their forfeit to Bent in Chicago, especially following the Oakland forfeit to Madcow. Unlike the Open game, Nemesis worked it out with Bent before hand, and in the interest of preserving healthy players, decided to take the loss. Nemesis captain Christine Dube filled us in:
We forfeited because in our third and fourth games players were starting to go down with injuries. We already had played 4 games back to back (3 of 4 played to cap) before the showcase game. I felt it was in the best interest of the team to forfeit the showcase game, which did not affect CHC standings, and rest up for the next morning when we would be playing in the quarterfinals. It was not a decision I made lightly, but I didn’t feel the risk of injury was worth it. The Bent captains were great about the whole situation and I really appreciate their understanding of our position.
Though it would be easy to drop them a spot or two for a forfeit at this point in the season, we’re keeping Nemesis at ten. Hopefully this tough call proves to be the right one and Chicago shows up in full force when it really counts.
Tournaments we are looking forward to:
Labor Day: Labor Day will have lots of the top teams there – Fury, Riot, Phoenix, Molly Brown, and Traffic. The rest of the teams there all have serious shots at the 9-16 spots in the USAU rankings, so there should be some great battles and important games. Lots of fun story lines there, so make sure to check out the Labor Day preview!
Virginia Fusion: Though this won’t count towards bid allocation it could affect seeding at Nationals. Plus, it’s fun to have a competitive non-series tournament that late in the season. Phoenix, Brute Squad, Ozone, Nemesis, Hot Metal and Scandal will all be in attendance. And Without Limits is awesome.
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