San Francisco stymie Denver in streaky semifinal
October 27, 2024 by Jenna Weiner in Recap with 0 comments
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2024 Club Championships is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
On a still evening in San Diego, #1 San Francisco Fury made it back to the national final for the first time since 2022 by beating the team that bested them there in a 15-12 semifinal win over #5 Denver Molly Brown. Although Molly Brown did claim the game’s first break on the opening point, Fury quickly responded and didn’t look back as they led from the third point to the last.
Even though Fury never trailed after the first point, they still gave up a total of seven breaks to Molly Brown as the Coloradans refused to go away despite Fury building and rebuilding multiple four-goal leads over the course of the game. “I think we all believed that at any point we could surmount the unsurmountable,” said Molly Brown’s Cassie Swafford. “And, you know, not really giving up in the face of a lot of adversity.”
Molly Brown ran into their first spot of adversity on that third point of the game as Fury broke, courtesy of a show-stopping layout catch from Anna Thompson. It was one of several spectacular plays the 2019 Mixed POTY made against Molly Brown, and gave Fury a 2-1 lead as they put the game back on serve.
ANNA! THOMPSON! Massive layout, @furyultimate goal in the @USAUltimate national semifinal! pic.twitter.com/bNw8Szm9Bo
— Ultiworld (@Ultiworld) October 27, 2024
Fury then added to their advantage as Kirstin Johnson threw her second assist of the game, and suddenly it was 3-1 Fury, San Francisco up a break.
Neither team’s offense was especially clean in the early going. Molly Brown notably threw high and wide of their intended targets several points in a row to give Fury multiple break chances, and while the San Franciscans didn’t always convert on their initial opportunities, they were offered enough of them to build a 6-2 lead. As part of that run, Thompson (2G/1A/3D) continued her outstanding start to the game with a visionary around backhand to Irene Scazzieri to make it a three-goal Fury advantage.
“It’s easy when you just have to run with all these players that can just throw the frisbee wherever they want,” said Scazzieri, who through the semifinal round piled up a team-high 11 goals. “It’s easy once you understand the system, it’s just running.”
However, just as they did against Phoenix in quarters, Molly Brown put together a run to close the first-half gap, reeling off three straight points of their own to reduce the deficit to one as they trailed 6-5. Nhi Nguyen, who had already had her share of highlight plays heading into the semifinal, elevated above Dena Elimelech for Molly’s second break in a row, and Fury were, at least momentarily, on the back foot.
It’s a monster grab from Nhi Nguyen, skying for the @MollyBrownTown break!! We got a one-point semifinal!#USAUltimate | #USAUNats pic.twitter.com/L4BZY5f6wr
— USA Ultimate (@USAUltimate) October 27, 2024
Then again, this is Fury that we’re talking about, and they broke back to lead 8-5 going into halftime, Shayla Harris picking up one of her four assists on a quick give-and-go motion with Johnson.
Many an ultimate game has been called a game of runs, though whether they actually have the signature multiple multi-score streaks that tend to lead to that moniker isn’t always clear. This semifinal, though, did live up to the label. Fury and Molly Brown combined for 16 breaks, and each team had a trio of three-plus point runs as the energy ebbed and flowed freely between the two squads.
Out of the halftime break, Denver’s offense held on a sliding Cassie Swafford catch and Fury responded in kind, though not cleanly as Molly Brown rookie Blaise Sevier went horizontal to get a layout block against long-time Fury veteran Maggie Ruden. A mistake in the Denver backfield, though, gave San Francisco the disc back, and a line-drive Han Chen forehand opened up the Fury offense and she cut hard up the line for Carolyn Finney for the score. Harris then paired a high-point block over Nguyen with a smooth backhand huck to Kanari Imanishi and just like that, Fury were once again up four, leading Molly Brown 10-6.
“Our system works so that we don’t have to be making crazy grabs and impossibly tight window throws because we work together and create spaces that aren’t hard to hit and we throw throws that aren’t hard to catch,” said Harris after the game.
Still, Molly Brown weren’t done, and they made their second surging push to bring the margin back down to one. They did have some help from Fury in the process, though, as Thompson seemingly blocked Sarah VonDoepp on an Elimelech deep throw in a stunning display of tunnel-vision from Thompson. Saioa Lostra finished off the ensuing Denver break to make it 10-8, and added one more to make it back-to-back breaks and a 10-9 Fury lead.
One constant for Fury over the years is their ability to put their foot on the gas when they need to, their oppressive defensive pressure getting to teams and their offensive system converting the subsequent chances. Fury did it against Flipside in pool play, rolling off six straight scores to go from an 8-7 halftime deficit to a decisive 13-8 lead. Fury did it against 6ixers in quarters, turning a 5-3 first half Toronto lead into a 9-6 second half score line. And, in much the same way, Fury did it against Molly Brown in the semifinal, scoring four consecutive goals to nearly put the game away.
“Our defensive pressure, it builds, so it just took us a few points to get there,” said Ruden after Fury’s quarterfinal win over 6ixers, and throughout the final San Francisco run Fury did apply plenty of pressure. Thompson in particular threw her body around for block after block, with a perfectly synced layout block on Valeria Cárdenas the most notable among them.
Anna Thompson is a PLAYMAKER. Double layout to get the reset block for @furyultimate! pic.twitter.com/aUgdz03xbZ
— Ultiworld (@Ultiworld) October 27, 2024
Many of Fury’s key contributors stepped up during this sequence alongside Thompson, including Johnson, who set up Fury’s third score in a row with a touchy deep backhand to Sharon Lin. Harris and Elimelech also combined to finish off a long back-and-forth point to put San Francisco on the verge of victory, up 14-9.
Even on the brink of elimination, Molly Brown held their nerve and reeled off one last three-goal surge that set Fury’s nerves on edge, but couldn’t complete the comeback. Manuela Cárdenas was able to come up with an incredible toe-the-line catch for Molly Brown’s final goal of the game that took video review to confirm, though that was the last of Denver’s joy this evening.
Nguyen dropped an under as Molly Brown attempted to narrow the margin to one, and then couldn’t prevent Elimelech from securing the game’s final score. Fury were through to the final as 15-12 winners, while Molly Brown were left wanting in the semifinals for a second straight season.
Dena Elimelech skies for the game-winning goal to send @furyultimate to the national final and the @SpinUltimate play of the day! pic.twitter.com/o145Z4RQFY
— Ultiworld (@Ultiworld) October 27, 2024
While this version of Fury was always going to be difficult to overcome, Molly Brown’s offense never truly got going in the semifinal, and the impact of their superstar players including the Cárdenas sisters and Claire Chastain was muted at best.
“It’s hard to not play at your best in the games that matter, and [to] not show your best selves offensively,” shared Swafford. “But I’m really proud of our defense and I know our leadership is really proud of our defense.”
Fury, meanwhile, maintained their poise from effectively start to finish, even though they weren’t able to close out the game as cleanly as they may have wanted.
“We like to work with catchphrases; one of our catchphrases this season has been ‘Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.’ We were cheering that towards the end of the game,” said Harris. “To me that just means no matter what happens, where we’re at right now we have perfect love and perfect trust as we step onto the line together, and in whoever those seven players are that are stepping out onto the line.
“It doesn’t matter whether we’ve just been scored on twice in a row or whether we’re up three or four,” she continued. “We’re in the moment in that point with perfect love and perfect trust for our teammates all the time.”
Fury will face off against Scandal in the final on Sunday in a rematch of the US Open final earlier this season, which San Francisco won 15-11.
