Co-written by Adam Lerman and Ryan Thompson and presented by Spin Ultimate
- Several times over the weekend Michigan displayed a zone with a 5-woman cup – essentially the front four of a 1-3-3, another person in the cup pressuring the open side swing, and two wings/deeps responsible for everything behind the cup. It had varying degrees of success, but it was incredibly vulnerable to teams willing to go over the top.
- A lot of teams successfully used straight-up marks to defend great throwers, often times also sagging off of her dumps and into the throwing lanes. UNC did it to UCLA’s Sabrina Fong during prequarters, and then Tufts did it to UNC’s Shellie Cohen and Lindsay Lang in quarterfinals. It’s particularly effective against a ho-stack, and while UNC did eventually switch to a sidestack, it was too late in the game to be effective.
- UBC’s pool play success was based on tight handler defense, which forced a lot of turnovers from Florida, Michigan, and Stanford. A lot of quick defenders like Laurel Jay, Kristen Cheung, Victoria Lam, and Amanda Ho played extremely tight defense and didn’t let handlers like Jackie Fane, Lili Morris, Vicki Chang, or Marisa Mead any space going upline or going backwards. They also like to face up handlers on the open side and force teams to throw tight IO passes.
- Tufts lined up in a 6 person stack quite often when Claudia Tajima had the disc, clearing all poachers out of the handler space and allowing her to use her break throws, hucks, and give and go’s to initiate the offense. This is something that Boston open teams such as DoG have historically run.
- Oregon missed Bailey Zahniser during the finals. Zahniser has the experience and touch on her throws to make even her punts catchable, and with tall, physical receivers like Ashley Young, Anna Almy, and Liz Jones threatening deep, Washington would have had to respect that more, potentially allowing Oregon to actually develop an underneath game.
- Washington played fantastic defense in the finals, pressuring the throwers with great marks and the resets with tight defense, then taking away the underneaths with tight downfield defense. All Oregon had left against Washington’s man defense was hucking, and Element’s marks combined with the wind made their hucks look more like punts.
- We saw several teams successfully abandon their zone defenses in high wind. In their prequarter against UBC, Washington shut down everything by forcing middle and fronting downfield. Michigan had some success working against Oregon’s zone in the semifinal. Once Oregon switched to man, Michigan had no answer.
- Both Texas (Diana Charrier) and Tufts (Hannah Garfield) scored Callahans against Washington in bracket play. Both teams ended up losing.
- If Oregon had not lost to Texas or if Washington had not lost to Iowa, Oregon and Washington would have met in the quarterfinals.
- Besides Oregon, several teams could make a case for being the second-best team at the tournament. Texas (who beat Oregon) and Tufts both won their pools and were knocked out by Washington in bracket play. Iowa lost to Oregon, but was the only team to beat Washington.
USA Ultimate and Leaguevine gave us plenty of statistics to look at. Here are some things we noticed:
- Triple-doubles (10+ Goals, Assists, & D’s): Catherine Hui (UBC), Shellie Cohen (UNC), Claire Desmond (Cal), Rebecca Miller (Iowa State), Hailey Alm (Tufts), Kathryn Pohran (Ottawa). Cohen, Alm, and Pohran did it in six games.
- UCLA’s Sabrina Fong had 35 assists and 30 turnovers. Among the 28 players with over 15 assists, Camille Nelson of Iowa State (21 A, 20 TO’s) was the only other player with more assists than turnovers.
- In the windy Oregon-Michigan semifinal, Paula Seville had 15 turnovers (14 total in her other games), Marisa Mead had 24 (13 in other games), Sophie Darch had 35 (29 in other games), Vicki Chang had 21 (9 in other games).
- Washington had 80 more attempted passes than Tufts in semis (242 vs 162) and 76 more attempted passes than Oregon in finals (205 vs 129)
- In semifinals against Michigan, Sophie Darch had 38% of Oregon’s touches, followed by 20% for Bailey Zahniser, with nobody else above 10%. Zahniser played 8/18 points while Darch played 17/18.
- Total completion percentage by game: Washington-Tufts, 88%; Oregon-Michigan, 63%; Washington-Oregon, 80%
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