Smoky Mountain Invite has once again roiled the picture of the men's division
March 6, 2024 by Matt Fazzalaro in Recap with 0 comments
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Like clockwork, the 2024 edition of Smoky Mountain Invite has once again roiled the picture of the men’s division with intrigue and excitement. The biggest story is that the defending champs have absorbed their first body blow at the hands of the defending runners-up. Down the line, though, from surprising semifinal runs to statements of purpose to massive inroads (and setbacks) in the scrap for valuable bids, SMI has turned the division on its head. Read on for details and all-tournament lines.
Zoodisc Take Down Darkside to Reach Final
To say that #4 UMass Zoodisc had the hardest route to the final would be an outrageous understatement. #5 Colorado Mamabird, #10 Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur, #6 Carleton CUT, #1 UNC Darkside, and #3 Georgia Jojah are (as those power rankings number next to their names would suggest) easily five of the best teams in the country, and UMass took them all on en route to defending their Smoky Mountain Invite title.
“Our goal is always just to play as many points as possible together and enjoy our time together,” said UMass veteran Griffin Yas after winning the tournament. If that really was the mission, then it’s safe to say that they accomplished it. UMass didn’t beat a single team by a margin of more than three points and had to win two games on double game point on their way back to the final. That’s how you max out the ‘Points Played Together’ metric.
No doubt their greatest achievement was beating UNC – who downed them on Memorial Day last season – in a tight semifinal. In a game that quickly became an O-line dominated slugfest, Wyatt Kellman rose above the rest, turning in quite the body of work with eight assists and one goal.
“I usually don’t throw that many goals,” said Kellman. “I was lucky to have so many incredible receivers who got open so consistently and they made the throws easy. I am just so proud of our offense, of that entire line for running so hard every single point, we never got tired and it made everything easy.”
With Darkside beaten, only one team stood in the way of UMass defending their title. After the dust settled on the adjacent semifinal field, it was none other than Florida Warm Up champions, the Georgia Jojah, who had won on double game point to punch their ticket to the final.
These two teams had met just a few weeks ago in the semifinals of Florida Warm Up, in a game that Georgia won rather handily. But with UMass already 1-0 in revenge tour stops this weekend, things were looking like they might be different this time around.
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