With the first weekend of Regional play complete, several teams expected to walk away with tickets to Boulder came home empty handed in both the Open and Women’s divisions. Here are some of the notables:
Open
Though not an upset exactly, the Atlantic Coast region saw Virginia place over UNC-W and Virginia Tech to claim the one bid to the Championships. UNC-W was a quarterfinal team at last year’s Championships, losing 8-15 to eventual champions Florida.
The Great Lakes region provided potentially the biggest surprise of the weekend with both top ranked Michigan and Conference Champion Michigan State failing to qualify under Illinois. Illinois had played a relatively quiet season, coming into Regional as the 3-seed. Though they had put up good games against top teams like Wisconsin, the Illini were not the favorite. This considering MagnUM’s quarterfinal finish at last year’s Championships and their strong performance at Easterns which saw Michigan into the semis after a wins against Oregon and Colorado. Michigan State, as well proved they could run with MagnUM, winning the Michigan DI Conference Championship 9-7. But Illinois triumphed over both, taking the final over Michigan State 15-11 after beating Michigan 15-9 in the semis.
The CUT/Hodag rivalry saw new life in yet another North Central Regional final. This year saw the Hodags beat out #1 ranked CUT 14-11 to claim the title and potentially the #1 seed going into the Championships. CUT would continue to free fall, losing to Iowa 6-14 in a 2nd place game with no risk of missing a bid to the show. Minnesota Grey Duck found themselves as the odd team out, having to fight through a gauntlet of hungry squads in an attempt to snag the last bid. They would be upset by Luther 9-12 after beating Lufda 13-10 on Saturday, thus failing to qualify for the Championships. The nation had high expectations for Grey Duck after a quarterfinal appearance at the 2010 College Championships, but unfortunately this season didn’t offer much of last year’s spark with Minnesota unable to win when it counts.
Women’s
Saturday’s pool play in the North Central Region went perfectly to seed putting Wisconsin Bella Donna in a must win situation after a loss to Iowa on the first day of Sunday game play. For the first time in a long time Bella Donna would fail to qualify for Nationals after losing to a strong Iowa State team in the game to go, after the Women Scorned lost to Carleton in the semis. Wisconsin tied for 3rd at last year’s Championships, losing to runner-up Santa Barbara 14-16.
Photo by Adam Rummelhart
Comments Policy: At Skyd, we value all legitimate contributions to the discussion of ultimate. However, please ensure your input is respectful. Hateful, slanderous, or disrespectful comments will be deleted. For grammatical, factual, and typographic errors, instead of leaving a comment, please e-mail our editors directly at editors [at] skydmagazine.com.