April 21, 2014 by Charlie Eisenhood in News, Recap with 9 comments
Here’s a look around the semi-professional leagues from this weekend, where upsets were the big story and the home opener for the Montreal Royal continued to show that Canadians love their ultimate.
Here are this week’s Major League Ultimate and AUDL Power Rankings. Game recaps are below..
Major League Ultimate
DC Current 18-17 Boston Whitecaps
The DC Current handed the Whitecaps their first loss in franchise history on a beautiful evening in Washington. Read the game story.
New York Rumble 24-23 Philadelphia Spinners (2OT)
The Rumble gave a boisterous crowd a great send-off with a double overtime thriller victory over the Spinners in New Jersey. 2013 MLU Eastern Conference MVP Chris Mazur caught the game winning score amidst some uncertainty about the call on the field from the Spinners defenders, who thought the whistle initiating play was actually in response to an injury.
Philly nearly stole the victory in the Rumble’s home opener. New Spinner Matt Esser, who came over from the AUDL’s Philadelphia Phoenix, caught big scores at both the end of regulation and the first overtime to extend the game. The Spinners couldn’t find a way to capitalize, but will have another shot at the Rumble next week in Philadelphia.
Seattle Rainmakers 21-20 San Francisco Dogfish (OT)
Despite a big game from the Dogfish’s Evan Boucher (3G, 4A), the Rainmakers pulled out a victory in their home opener in Seattle in overtime.
The Dogfish rallied back in the fourth quarter in a game that Seattle led until right at the end of regulation. The Dogfish went on a 5-1 run in the final quarter to force overtime, but couldn’t get anything going offensively, scoring just once in the extra period.
The Rainmakers were able to take advantage by going up 21-19 and the lone overtime Dogfish goal was too little, too late with just seconds left on the clock. Adam Simon and Matty Zemel had strong games for the Rainmakers to lead them to victory.
Vancouver Nighthawks 26-15 San Francisco Dogfish
Facing the second game of a back-to-back, the Dogfish didn’t have much in the tank for a game against Western Conference powerhouse, the Vancouver Nighthawks. Vancouver took it to San Francisco and delivered an easy victory, 26-15.
American Ultimate Disc League
Toronto Rush 22-14 Montreal Royal
It may not have been a great scoresheet for the Montreal Royal in their home (and franchise) opener, but they have to be happy with their home crowd, estimated at over 2500 people, making it the biggest in pro ultimate history.
Their matchup against the 2013 AUDL Champion Toronto Rush was close in the early part of the game. However, the depth of the Rush began to shine through late as they pulled away for what was ultimately a big win.
Toronto, who was coming off of a bit of a shaky start against Washington and New York, was closer to home and looking more polished against a Montreal team that was expected to lose. How will the Royal stack up against the rest of the East? We’ll have to wait to find out.
Cincinnati Revolution 23-22 Chicago Wildfire
Indianapolis Alleycats 25-19 Chicago Wildfire
Chicago got off to a dreadful start to their road games this season, going 0-2 against teams they never lost to last season. They opened up their trip with a one point loss to Cincinnati before getting handily beaten by Indianapolis on Sunday.
The losses opened a big door for the Madison Radicals, the early favorite in the Midwest, to climb into the driver’s seat for a regular season Midwest Conference title.
Rochester Dragons 13-10 Philadelphia Phoenix
Rochester opened their season with a victory over the Phoenix in a low scoring contest in Philadelphia. Dave Ferraro had four goals and one assist to lead the Rochester offense to the big road win.
Philadelphia certainly missed the offensive firepower of Matt Esser and David Brandolph, who both left the team in the offseason to join the team’s MLU counterpart in Philly, the Spinners.
Rochester has a big game coming up this weekend against the New York Empire in Brooklyn.
Madison Radicals 34-9 Detroit Mechanix
Detroit, the bottom ranked team in the league, didn’t get anything going at home against Madison, where they were blown out by 25 points.
Madison moved to 3-0 and stand alone atop the Midwest as the only undefeated team.
San Jose Spiders 37-18 Salt Lake Lions
San Francisco Flamethrowers 31-9 Salt Lake Lions
Both Bay Area teams throttled the visiting Salt Lake Lions, who have a lot of work to do to compete with the rest of the Western Conference teams.
San Jose and San Francisco, as the score lines may reflect, are starting to look like offensive and defensive juggernauts, respectively. Considering that many of the Spiders players are Revolver offensive line starters, and the Flamethrowers are comprised of much of the defensive line, that may not be much of a surprise. It does bode well for exciting future matchups.
Vancouver Riptide 24-19 Seattle Raptors
Vancouver moved to 3-0 this week after beating the Seattle Raptors 24-19 in the Riptide’s home opener. Vancouver’s first real test will come next Sunday against the SF Flamethrowers. Vancouver’s victories thus far have come against two of the bottom ranked teams in the league, Seattle and Salt Lake.
Seattle hosts their home opener next Saturday against San Francisco.
