The new roundup for the ultimate week that was.
September 30, 2019 by in News with 0 comments
Welcome to Opening Pull, your weekly wrap-up of the previous week in ultimate. We’ve gathered the news you need to know and highlights you need to see, and we’ll let you know what’s coming up in the next week.
Bologna Clubs Win EUCF in Men’s and Women’s; Latvia’s Salaspils Takes Mixed
Contributed by Ravi Vasudevan.
The fields have been cleared on the Caorle airstrip and the European club champions have been crowned at the EUCF 2019.
In the men’s division, CUSB La Fotta (Bologna, Italy) made history by winning their first EUCF title in club history. They defeated Clapham (London, UK) 15-7 in a game where the Italians played an almost perfect offense and incredibly stifling defense. This ended Clapham’s streak of seven straight EUCF titles. Flying Angels Bern (Bern, Switzerland) won spirit in the men’s division.
For more on the EUCF’s men’s division, check out our tournament coverage and the full results.
In the women’s final, Bologna continued their to show their excellence as CUSB Shout (Bologna, Italy) defeated Cosmic Girls (St. Petersburg, Russia) 15-11. Cosmic Girls were up 11-10 before Shout took over the game on defense and scored five in a row to take their second straight EUCF title. Dublin Gravity (Dublin, Ireland) took the spirit award for women’s.
For more on the EUCF’s women’s division, check out our tournament coverage and the full results.
The mixed division saw Salaspils (Salaspils, Latvia) win their first EUCF title against GRUT (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) 15-12. This was a pool play rematch and GRUT certainly improved on their 15-7 defeat in the first matchup. In the final, the Latvians had a few more legs and though GRUT were able to equalize as late as 10-10, the young Dutch side never had the lead. Hässliche Erdferkel (Marburg, Germany) won spirit.
For more on the EUCF’s women’s division, check out our tournament coverage and the full results.
Club Division Athletes Council Adds Three Elected Players
The election process completed to fill out the vacancies on USA Ultimate’s Club Division Athletes Council, and USAU announced the winners.
In the women’s division, Amber Sinicrope of Boston Brute Squad ran unopposed. She’ll begin her second term with the council, and will work with Aki Younge from Scandal to represent the division.
The men’s division’s second representative will be Chris Novielli, a player on Westchester Magma Bears. Like Sinicrope, this will be his second term. Along with Andrew Francis of Barefoot, he’ll represent club men’s.
In the mixed division, Madison Olesen, the coach of Milwaukee Northern Comfort, was chosen. Olesen is the lone newcomer to the group and will join Minneapolis’s Sarah Meckstroth is representing club mixed.
The Club Division Athletes Council will meet in December as part of USAU’s Competition Working Group meetings. With the potential for changes to the Triple Crown Tour, they could play a pivotal role in shaping what the next era of club ultimate looks like.
AUDL Awards Ben Jagt MVP, Announces Other Award Winners
The New York Empire’s Ben Jagt was announced as the American Ultimate Disc League’s 2019 MVP on Monday. His selection was unanimous after helping lead New York to an undefeated title while compiling over 50 goals and 50 assists in the regular season. He’s the fifth player in league history to accomplish that feat and the sixth MVP. Jagt beat out, in order, Max Sheppard, Rowan McDonnell, Travis Dunn, and Travis Carpenter for the award.
Along with the MVP, the league presented the Empire’s Bryan Jones with inaugural Coach of the Year award and released the 2019 All-Rookie selections.
Assistant Coach Selections Fill Out USA WUGC Staffs
The women’s national team staff gained Angela Lin and Andy Lovseth. The pair joins Matty Tsang to form the team’s full coaching staff. Lin has been a long time elite competitor and active leader, including helping found the Premier Ultimate League. She’ll be in her first stint coaching for the US internationally. Lovseth, best known for his work with Seattle Riot, rejoins Tsang after assisting during the last cycle’s gold medal winning campaign.
Rohre Titcomb and Nancy Sun were added to the mixed national team’s coaching staff, joining head coach Martin Aguilera. Titcomb coaches Seattle Riot along with Lovseth, and while she hasn’t coached a national team before, she was on the 2016 women’s national team, among many other exploits as an elite player. Sun is back with the coaching staff after coaching in 2016, and most recently with the U24 women’s National Team.
The men’s national team added Miranda Knowles and Alex Ghesquiere to the staff, assisting Ben Van Huevelen. Knowles coaches Atlanta Chain Lightning, as well as the AUDL’s Atlanta Hustle, and has coached across multiple levels, including three stints as a U20 assistant coach. Ghesquiere has been the coached of Washington DC Scandal in the women’s division for several years now, but was the men’s National Team head coach in 2016 at WUGC, as well as the coach of the World Games team in 2013 and 2016.
The event will take place in Leeuwarden, Netherlands next July. The application process for potential players is said to be opening early next month.
USAU Finalizes College Mixed Regionals Locations
After releasing information in August about three College Mixed Regionals, USAU announced the dates and locations for the rest of the schedule. East (College Park, MD), Northwest (Parkland, WA), and Southwest (Santa Barbara, CA) events rejoin the existing Northeast, South, and North tournaments. This is the third year USA Ultimate has hosted collegiate mixed ultimate in the fall, expanding from five events to six in 2018.
Coming Up
The seeding for the US Club National Championships should be announced shortly. Our own Charlie Eisenhood post his predictions for the men’s, mixed, and women‘s divisions.