San Francisco deny DC in wire-to-wire win
November 6, 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.
It seemed almost inevitable at times. After a one-loss regular season, #1 San Francisco Fury went undefeated at Nationals en route to their record-extending 13th title, dispatching #4 Washington DC Scandal in the final 15-12. That three-point margin was the closest any team got to knocking Fury off their perch in San Diego,1 and even then Scandal never held a lead in the final as Fury’s depth and a peerless Carolyn Finney led them to victory.
One of the storylines around Fury in 2024 was whether their new class of rookies, as large as it had been in years and less experienced than ever, was going to be able to step up to the plate. In short: they did, and in arguably the biggest moments of their careers.
On the game’s opening point, first-year-Fury Margot Stert found first-year-Fury (and club rookie) Sarah VonDoepp for the score, and two points later it was first-year-Fury McKinley McQuaide coming up with a back-of-the-endzone layout catch for Fury’s second goal of the game. There aren’t many teams that would put that much trust in their rookies in those crucial early moments, but then again, no other team has the Fury system that always seems to integrate new players into the mold without issue.
“I don’t think any team has a system like ours, I know that for a fact,” stated Shayla Harris after Fury’s semifinal win over Molly Brown, and that system certainly paid dividends early and often in the final.
Following an initial clean hold of their own that evened the score at 1-1, Scandal brought their zone look which gave Brute Squad so much trouble the day before to try and stymie that vaunted Fury system offense. Although it worked well enough to start, pushing San Francisco back to their own goal line, DC couldn’t find a block as Fury worked the length of the field before Han Chen found McQuaide for the goal.
The give-and-take between the Scandal zone and the Fury offense remained a consistent dynamic throughout the matchup, as DC applied it intermittently to try and disrupt San Francisco’s flow.
“We still liked [the zone] in terms of a higher variance,” said Scandal coach Ty Aderhold. “I think in the first half we got a couple turns out of it and sometimes against a Fury team that has very good offense, you just want to throw a higher variance thing out there and see if it works.”
While the zone did give Scandal their fair share of chances,2 it was actually their person defense that delivered the game’s first turnover. Scandal’s Ashleigh Jentilet applied a smothering mark on Fury’s Maggie Ruden and forced a high-stall throw that Lisa Dang was able to knock down, and DC’s defense then went on the attack. It came up empty though, and after an extended point that saw both teams pick up blocks, Fury were able to hold, as Finney — with one of her six assists in the final — found a bidding Cree Howard for the score.
Cree Howard sacrifices the body to move @furyultimate one step closer to their 13th national title and our @SpinUltimate play of the day! pic.twitter.com/EXWp1RXb9P
— Ultiworld (@Ultiworld) October 28, 2024
“There’s nothing quite like watching veteran Fury go to work,” said VonDoepp when asked about getting to play with the likes of Finney and Howard in her first club season. “It’s just incredible to see these people still out here on the field, still the best in the game, still the best in the world, and still giving it their all on every single thing. They’ve been playing on the team for literally as long as I’ve had a concept of what Fury is, so that’s pretty wild.”
With the ice finally broken on blocks and break chances after the extended point to take the score to 3-2, the game was primed to open up. It did just that over the next five points, Fury breaking Scandal on back-to-back points to open up a 5-2 lead, only for Scandal to respond in kind with three straight points of their own to tie the game back up at 5-5.
DC’s 3-0 run, led by another do-everything performance from Claire Trop (4G/3A) and former Georgia Athena star Marie Perivier (4A/3D), and fueled by cheers of “When I root, I root for the District” from the DC faithful in attendance, demonstrated why Scandal were able to reach their second-straight national final in the first place.
The addition of Perivier to the Scandal attack this season has made DC’s offense more efficient than last season’s iteration, her throwing prowess shining through within the structure of the Scandal system. It was on full display on a quick three-throw hold that made the score 5-3, Perivier airing out a perfect backhand huck over the heads of three Fury defenders for the assist to Trop.
Speaking of Trop, she remains one of the best players in the division, and even against the dogged defense of Fury’s Kirstin Johnson, stepped up time and again as she attempted to lead Scandal to their first title in a decade. High-point grabs, big layout bids, and towering assists, Trop had it all against Fury. With the backing of the DC defense that showed its teeth as it forced the Fury offense into giving up multiple break opportunities, the pieces were there for Scandal to reach the summit this season.
“Getting back to this game was our goal from the beginning of the season,” said Scandal’s Allie Wallace, “and so [making it again] felt awesome even though we didn’t pull it through in the end.”
This is Fury we’re talking about, though, and they stabilized soon enough, Finney dancing with Julianna Werffeli in the San Francisco endzone set as the Fury offense cleanly held to stem the Scandal surge. On the ensuing point, Fury threw out their own poachy defensive look to try and slow Scandal down, and it paid off as Raha Mozaffari, marked by former Philadelphia AMP teammate Anna Thompson, threw low and wide of Trop.
That was the only opening Fury needed: five short throws later it was Thompson laying out for goal on a threaded backhand from Johnson, and suddenly it was back to a two-goal margin, Fury up 7-5. Scandal trailed the rest of the way.
The rest of the way, the teams combined for only a single break as Fury took a 14-11 lead on a pass from Harris to Irene Scazzieri. That’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of action, though, with Harris and Perivier notably each picking up a pair of blocks on a single point with the score at 12-10. However, even the Georgia transplant’s efforts only helped Scandal hold off the second-half Fury break for another point, and Fury’s victory soon seemed all but inevitable.
For a team with as much veteran talent as Fury, with so many players who have put in a decade-plus of service for the San Francisco squad, the scary thing is their future might well be as bright as their past. On the game’s final point, it was Dena Elimelech (1A/2D) putting a flick out for VonDoepp to chase down for the title-sealing goal, and they, alongside the likes of Harris, Thompson, and McQuaide, are leading the next wave of Fury superstars. All five of those players are under 30 years old, and if the track record of their teammates is anything to go off of, they’ll be contributing to many more Fury titles in the years to come.
Relive the final score that brought @furyultimate their 13th national title! pic.twitter.com/6iVlQLYCI1
— Ultiworld (@Ultiworld) October 28, 2024
“I feel like if I stick around here I’ll probably get a few more,” quipped VonDoepp after the final, and while it may sound arrogant, that is simply the Fury way. In the last two decades, Fury’s longest title drought stands at a mere four seasons3, and their ability to reload and go again and again is unparalleled.
“I was talking to Anna [Thompson] at the beginning of the season and was like, if you replace one plank of wood in the boat is it still Fury,” said now nine-time club champion Howard. “And yes it is, but also it’s a new variation of it, and even though we have had connections in the past with all of these wonderful players that I’ve played with for a long time, there’s still new puzzle pieces coming in and that we need to learn to play with.
“So yeah, familiarity is great and exciting, but the new team is definitely so different than the year before and definitely from 17 years ago,” Howard continued.
As for Scandal, they were left to rue another missed opportunity to add a third club championship to their trophy case, but a second-straight final appearance is nothing to sniff at. The core is there for success in the seasons to come, and as long as they have Trop, Groom, and Perivier leading the way, Scandal will continue to have chances at another title.
“This is just a team of gritty, awesome players. It’s really fun to practice with them and get better with them, and I’m excited to take this into the off-season and come back next year,” said Scandal’s Tyler Smith.
Whether or not Scandal can make it three straight finals will remain an open question until next year, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of belief in the DC camp that their title window is still wide open. Scandal’s coach Ty Aderhold put it simply: “I think we’ll be back.”
