North Carolina takes home the YCC title 13-8 over Cincinnati.
August 11, 2014 by Tanner Jurek in News, Recap with 28 comments
BLAINE — North Carolina TriForce defeated Cincinnati Flying Pig in an exciting 13-8 game to win the Youth Club Championships in the U19 Open Division. Both teams played with high intensity and spirit, making it truly a great showing for youth ultimate.
The first point of the game was a good example of how the rest was going to play out. TriForce forced a turnover and, in one throw, Sol Yanuck broke his defender’s mark to put his team up 1-0. TriForce stayed in control for the rest of the game, guided by Yanuck on the offensive line and Raleigh Ring of Fire rookie Terrence Mitchell on the defensive line.
Despite the early break, the game started slow; both teams looked a bit nervous. The crowd for was by far the biggest of the tournament. After some early trading, TriForce took control. Flying Pig did its best to stop TriForce’s high-powered offense, but had the same result as every other team the North Carolina squad faced.
TriForce built a small early lead and never relinquished it. As the game wore on, Cincinnati started to slow down and TriForce took advantage, building a more comfortable lead while also getting its bench players onto the field.
Cincinnati had a much harder road to the championship than TriForce. They had a close game with Pittsburgh in prequarters, they beat powerhouse Seattle on double game point in the quarterfinals, and played a close, hard fought game against Boston in the semifinals. While TriForce also played close games, they were entirely in control against Texas, giving them the ability to rest players.
Dominic Schuster, the star of the Flying Pig offense, led Cincinnati as both a handler and a cutter. He generally was matched up against TriForce’s best defender and was never shut down. Schuster played nearly every point of the game, giving the offense outstanding production and slowed down Yanuck on defense. By no means did Schuster shut him down, but without Schuster, TriForce would have pulled away much quicker. Schuster will be attending Franciscan University — a DIII school — in the fall.
Yanuck, one of this year’s top college recruits (he is headed to Carleton College), was the quarterback of the TriForce offensive line. Not only did he make a lot of great throws and catches, but also he communicated with his teammates well; his leadership showed. At times Yanuck was a bit of a gunslinger, throwing hucks that weren’t open, but more often than not he was making quality plays. He was all over the field; the TriForce offensive allowed him to play as a handler but also make deeper cuts when available.
As a handler on the defensive line, Mitchell seemed to always be around the disc. His quickness and acceleration allowed him to get easy resets seemingly at will. His ability to cut as a handler often put him in position to be open to throw big uncontested hucks to streaking teammates. His teammates did a good job of predicting when he was going to make the strike cut by cutting deep while he was in the power position ready to throw.
Those two star players — Yanuck and Mitchell — generated a large percentage of TriForce’s points. Whether it was them actually making the assist, catching the goal, or putting a teammate in a great position to make an assist, this game had there fingerprints all over it.
Both teams played good offense. TriForce simply had a few more breaks than Flying Pig. Both teams played very efficiently as well, but when it came down to crunch time Yanuck, Mitchell, and rising high school sophomore Liam Searles-Bohs were too much for Cincinnati to handle.
Nathan Kwon was another standout for North Carolina. Kwon, listed as 5’6″ (but really 5’2″), scored multiple times on defenders much taller than him. His quickness and cutting ability will translate well to the college game. He starts at UNC in the fall.
