April 15, 2015 by Jared Dimascio in Livewire, News with 2 comments
New England Conferences have largely been solely for seeding to Regionals; especially this year with only 2 of 16 teams competing did not make Regionals (possibly 3 if Boston University’s DQ stands). Brown hosted Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Rhode Island College on Sunday afternoon for the South New England Conferences.
Another strong team from the Conference, Williams, went the D3 route this year, but RIC decided to play for once, leaving the Conference with 4 teams again. With 3 bids to New England Regionals, bracket games went straight to semis where UMass played RIC in an uncontested game, and Brown played Rhode Island to a 14-12 game which featured a lot of drops and throwaways with the wind.
Brown and UMass met in the finals and Massachusetts’ playmakers made big plays throughout the game; Babbitt and Kline in the air and in the endzone, while Londish and Sadok threw score after score and worked the disc around the field. Gramamn did not play, and walked the sideline de-cleated.
Despite the wind and Massachusetts’ smothering zone, Brown did a great job of moving the disc down the field. Though Brown’s players don’t have the name recognition that Massachusetts has, they stepped up and gave Massachusetts a much closer game than the final score shows.
Sawyer Thompson and Ezra Lichtman came through with some big defensive plays and Eli Motycka and Nick Goelz looked confident with the disc in their hands, especially Goelz who opened up the UMass zone with a handful of scoobers, despite the wind and UMass’ tall cup.
Even with two Brown breaks out of half to make it 8-7 Massachusetts, Brown couldn’t muster enough pressure to force and convert turns, while UMass could. Brown did not score again and Massachusetts took the game in soft cap 13-7.
With the win, Massachusetts should be the 1 seed at Regionals, with Tufts, Harvard and New Hampshire following as first in their pools.
