Over the course of the year I’ve been to quite a few tournaments. Starting out with Joint Summit Classic and ending with Western NY Conference Championships last weekend, I saw great plays by great players. Here are the list of players I feel like are worth recognizing, and while some may not be all region caliber, they were someone I liked watching. There are certainly many others deserving, but these are only people I got the pleasure of seeing play.
Atlantic Coast
Virginia: Matt King, the man has handles. Andrew Wilkes, Tom Licitra.
Virginia Tech: Evan Klein-Scott Forrester-length and hucks and Alex Krull (with his ridiculous layout at ACC’s)
North Carolina: Tristan Green-keep juking in the lane, Christian Johnson-would have been FOTY, Thomas Sayre-Mccord-just put it up
Clemson: James Cox, Christian Gaeta-keep showing off those moves, Zach Shuba, Miller Yoho
NCSU-The entire scrappy team
East Carolina – Joey Cretella- The man deserves at least consideration for all region, beautiful backhand. Mark Saba
South Carolina – Chris Van Thiel – and he goes deep again
Maryland – Freddie Tsai
Metro East
Cornell:Alex Kadesch- great isolation moves, Neil Butler, Brian Grundy and the man who was placing perfect pulls into a 30 mph wind.
Buffalo: David Ferraro-seriously, haven’t seen someone who can keep up with him this year. Zack Smith-gritty, hard working, competitor. Jon Bain- Left Backhand? Check. Stifling D? Check. Break Hucks? Check. Stephen Glauser level achieved? ehhhh. Mitch Wheeler- Pretty puts.
Syracuse: Sean “Duece” Sweeney, Sean Gallagher- awesome puts
Don’t worry Metro East, we got more to come this week.
New England
George Stubbs: This is my pick for the Callahan, as he is just plain dominating. He works incredibly well with his teammates, and is found making plays at critical points during games.
Great Lakes
Michigan: Yonni Rafael – the spin move against Ohio was awesome. Jeff Pape- always looks like he’s going to mess someone up. Seth Collins, Ollie Honderd, Alex Fegert, Brandon Beeler- Love seeing the smalls making big plays
Ohio Valley
Pittsburgh: Alex Thorne-best break throws in the nation?, Chris Brendenborg, Eddie Peters, Tyler Degirolamo and many more
Ohio: Danny Olson, Mitch Cihon, Nick Wetzel
Ohio State: Phil Cherosky- when he’s playing his best, reminds me of Stephen Presley
Penn State: Brian Nevison, Rob Baker
South East
Florida: Cole Sullivan-very hard to guard, good puts, great ups. Alex Hill- sweet flick, Nathan Sage – underrated, Alton Gains
Florida State: Nick Fletcher, Randy Barcelo- one of the more intense men in ultimate, Elijah Grady
Alabama: Tim Brady- definition of gritty. Zack Moore, sweet puts
Georgia Southern: Ryan Randall- play maker for his team
Georgia Tech: Nick Lance- All Region nuff said, Andrew Fish, Sean Balla, Gabe Miranda, Hogan McHugh
South Central
Colorado: Matty Zemel- defensive play of the year below? Jimmy Mickle-nuff said, Timmy Beatty with sick moves from the handler spot
Southwest
Sorry guys, didn’t get to see much of you this year.
Northwest
Oregon: Cody Bjorkland, and Dylan Freechild-Incredible in the air
NorthCentral
Carleton: Alex Evangelides, Grant Lindsley, and many more
Wisconsin: Ben Feldman with sick defense, Dayu Liu with nice flat hucks into the wind
Photo by Andrew Davis
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