October 8, 2012 by Charlie Eisenhood in News, Recap with 2 comments
The only other major tournament this weekend was the Southwest Regionals, the final Club Championships qualifier. Teams battled in all divisions for a handful of bids to Sarasota. Here’s what happened.
Open
No surprises on Saturday, as all the top teams held seed. Palo Alto’s Boost Mobile notched an important early win against the Santa Barbara Condors to ensure they wouldn’t face San Francisco’s Revolver, the one seed, until finals.
Revolver took care of business against the Condors in semis as Boost easily beat Phoenix’s Sprawl. Revolver, as expected, cruised to a 15-10 victory in the finals, setting up a Boost/Condors rematch in the backdoor game.
The Condors, tired from long, close games against San Diego’s Streetgang and LA Renegade, had no chance against Boost and lost 15-7.
Mixed
This was always set to be a crazy division since the region earned five bids during the regular season. Saturday’s results were all over the place, with overall two seed American BBQ (San Francisco) falling to Los Angeles’ 7 Figures in pool play and only one pool going to seed.
The pool winners all advanced to the semifinals, where San Francisco’s Polar Bears eked out a universe point victory over crosstown rival Blackbird. The Bay Area’s Mischief knocked 7 Figures into the second place bracket with a 15-12 victory.
The Polar Bears won another close game over Mischief in the finals, 15-13, likely locking up the number one seed at the Club Championships after Minneapolis’ Draag’N Thrust — the top ranked team — lost in the finals of North Central Regionals last weekend.
7 Figures and Blackbird locked up bids by winning in the second place bracket to meet in placement games. 7 Figures beat Blackbird 15-8 before falling to Mischief 11-15.
In the backdoor game, American BBQ and GrasSFace — both of which earned bids for the region — would fight it out for the final spot in Sarasota. American BBQ won easily, 15-10.
Women’s
Everyone knew that San Francisco’s Fury, the country’s number one team and longstanding powerhouse, would cruise to a Regionals win. The drama in this region came down to the second bid. Three teams — San Francisco’s Nightlock, San Diego’s Safari, and late-forming San Francisco team Rally — were in the hunt.
On Saturday, pools went as seeded. Rally took down Safari 15-9 and Nightlock lost to Fury 15-11. Nightlock faced Rally in the semifinals and crushed them 14-6, probably expecting to see them again in the game to go.
Safari had different ideas. In the backdoor bracket semifinals, Safari got revenge on Rally with a 15-12 win and faced off against Nightlock, who didn’t put up much of a fight in finals against Fury, to decide who would be heading to Sarasota. Nightlock, ranked #10 in the country, definitively proved they are the second best team in this region with a strong 15-8 victory to punch their ticket.
Safari narrowly missed earning the region a third bid, finishing 17th in the USA Ultimate rankings at the end of the regular season. A top 16 finish was necessary.
