Buzzer Beater: Division Championships [UFA Playoffs 2024]

DC makes their long awaited Championship Weekend debut

August 13, 2024 by Alex Rubin in Rankings, Recap with 1 comments

Welcome to Buzzer Beater, Ultiworld’s weekly Ultimate Frisbee Association article rounding up the biggest stories from the weekend in men’s semi-pro ultimate.

Wow! What a weekend. I couldn’t decide which game to make the main focus of my column this week, so instead I wrote a mini essay on each game.

Finally! DC Breeze to Championship Weekend

This moment has been years in the making. The DC Breeze felt destined to make their first Championship Weekend in 2021, when it was hosted in DC. That season they fell to the eventual champion Carolina Flyers in a tight playoff game. Subsequent years saw losses to the eventual champion New York Empire, also in tight playoff games. It’s hard to believe the Breeze, who have been by all accounts a top-five team in the league’s post-COVID era, have not made it this far before, but DC is flying into uncharted territory.

The game itself was fairly straightforward, but the moment still felt astronomical. Jasper Tom’s pair of first quarter blocks set the stage for two early breaks, and DC earned a 5-3 lead that represented the final margin pretty quickly. Boston played tight defense, but their efforts were not quite enough to push the Glory into winning positions.

David Bloodgood finished with three blocks and spent most of the game pestering Boston’s handlers and making their jobs significantly more difficult. He played one of the best games of his career. Jonny Malks led the way offensively with four assists and three goals.

The Breeze advance to face the Wind Chill, who just last season overcame their own playoff drought. DC will be favored, but Minnesota’s experience playing at this stage is nothing to scoff at. Last season the Wind Chill were also heavy underdogs, but they brought the Shred to overtime in an all-time classic semifinal.

Keep Away is Good

Nobody scored in the final 5:44 of the Carolina Flyers upset of the Atlanta Hustle. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The Flyers were on the road with a slim one point lead, and they chose to lean on their advantage of possession over the value of one additional point. Early on in the final point, Jakeen Polk laid out for a block. Christian Belus blocked Atlanta’s break opportunity and Carolina didn’t give Atlanta another chance. The Flyers worked the disc into the Hustle red zone before essentially calling off the attack and retreating all the way back into their own end zone while burning over two minutes of clock.

With about three minutes left it was clear that Ben Snell started signaling with his body language for the Flyers offense to slow down, conserve clock, and value possession over scoring. The entire Flyers offense changed; Carolina threw long backwards resets, held the disc for a few seconds before looking to move it, and looked for the closest player rather than one that might gain yards. Atlanta started throwing their bodies around hunting for a block, but they were not able to make a stylistic change to their defense that could match the different pace of the Carolina offense at the end of the game.

With 11 seconds left, Snell lofted an arching flick over to Ethan Bloodworth on his own goal line; Christian Olsen lept to block it, but Bloodworth came down with the nervy pass and the Flyers held on to win. That kind of high-stakes, tension-filled moment made the three minutes of keepaway entertaining television despite the lack of action aimed at the end zone.

After the game there was a lot of chatter online and in the Ultiworld Discord about the Flyers’ strategy to burn the clock. Some called it boring, but I think every pass still held tension and excitement. Atlanta just needed one block to have a chance to tie the game, and they already earned one that point. Burning the clock is a skill unique to the semi-pro style of play, and just because it is different from the ultimate many of us grew up playing does not make it bad. I expect teams to play with whatever strategy gives them the best chance to win. It’s possible Carolina could have won by continuing to score, but they increased their chances by turning a run-of-the-mill defensive point into the vital last point of the game. Clearly the Flyers were ready to execute at that moment, but the Hustle seemed unprepared for the game to end as quickly as it did.

“That last five minute stretch really proved it to them,” Anders Juengst said after the game, “that no one can hang with us, and no one can take it off our hands.” The Flyers return to their third Championship Weekend in the last four seasons, while the Hustle head home with heartbreak once again.

Chalk in the Central

The Wind Chill followed up on their pre-season promise by beating the Madison Radicals. They’ll be the only team returning from 2023’s Championship Weekend to this seasons’. Minnesota closed the game on a 7-2 run, not letting any hope creep into the Radicals sideline. The Wind Chill took the game into their own hands defensively by earning blocks on two-thirds of Madison’s turnovers. That’s the kind of defensive effort Minnesota will need to knock off strong offensive teams like DC and Carolina.

Salty in Salt Lake

Well, we know the UFA is not rigged. Surely the Association would have preferred Salt Lake to advance to the Championship Weekend tournament they are hosting. But there will be plenty of time to debrief the Shred’s disappointing moment. Today is for the Cascades to celebrate. This win is a few years in the making for Seattle.

“Our biggest goal in 2023 was to build a culture of buy-in and commitment to the team and not let the Cascades be an afterthought program anymore,” Seattle’s Garrett Martin said. “We had a lot of big pieces come (or return) to the team as well…Our 4-8 record last year might not look like a huge step in the right direction, but that team walked so we could run. That was the definition of our rebuilding year. We built a culture of a playoff team a year before we became one. When we got our influx of talent this season, there was already a winning culture in place and now we had the pieces to actually see the results. Last night’s win was just a lot of validation that we are who we thought we were and that we are doing things right over here.”

The Cascades benefited from strong buy-in up and down their roster, but especially from players who have been in their system for a few years. Spencer Lofink threw seven assists, Marc Munoz tallied 415 total yards with a single turnover in a high-usage role, and Martin himself finished with three assists and four goals. Seattle moves on to face Carolina at Championship Weekend. The Cascades have not been to the UFA’s premier event since their legendary run to the final in 2016. What they lack in experience, they make up for with moxie, buy-in, and experience playing at altitude. They’ve played twice already in Salt Lake in the past month; one close loss and of course this weekend’s win.

Championship Weekend

Championship Weekend is now set, with semifinals set for August 23. Minnesota will play DC before Carolina faces off with Seattle. Games will take place in Salt Lake City, and we’ll have a fuller preview for you next week.

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