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The Toughest Day In Sport
Pool Play At The 2001 UPA College Championships
May 25th 2001
Charles Kerr

 

The Format

Over 300 college teams have worked the last seven months to be one of the 16 men’s and women’s teams to qualify for these championships. Seven months of practices, weekend tournaments and ever downward sliding GPAs and by today’s end each division will have had four teams eliminated, eight facing a do or die elimination round ("lingering death") and four teams sitting on the top of the world.

Sport reporters talk about how "such and such college basketball team has a difficult schedule" because they have to play two games in three days -- well how about three games in one day!

Pressure. Fatigue. Exhaustion. That’s why this is the toughest day in sport.

Round One (8:30-10:30)

Every single round this year has at least one 5 star, can’t miss game, so load up on Red Bull and plan on making a day of it.

This round has two interesting (call them 3 star games « « « ) in the women’s division that will be of special interest to local fans: Tufts (the 8th seed) vs. Illinois (#13) and Brown vs. MIT. Tufts features last year’s Callahan Award winner and current member of the US World Games team, Johanna Neumann. Johanna (senior, #13 -- 5’11), recovering from late season shin splints, is probably college ultimate’s most dominating female player and the Tuft’s offense revolves around her and co-captain, senior Neva Cherniavsky (#3 -- 5’4).

Two other teams local to the Boston area square off out on field 10, Brown (#6) and MIT (#14). Brown lost its top player, Addie Egan to an ACL injury early in the season, but has enough seasoned talent to still have a realistic shot at the Final Four. MIT has a young squad and their goal is to avoid being eliminated on the first day and make Saturday’s pre-quarter round.

The three best men’s games in Round One all have a common theme: jet lag. For many teams this game is really starting two (or three) hours earlier – a big deal for college students that flew in the previous day.

Without a doubt, the five star (« « « « « ) game of this round should be the men’s game between UCSB (#1) and UNC-Chapel Hill (#12). This game is a rematch of their quarter-final game from the 2000 Championships that UCSB won by a point. Last year’s game was an unbelievable defensive struggle filled with athletic blocks that left plenty of bad blood on both sides. Chapel Hill features two of the country’s best players in (the frequently injured) Rhett Nichols and big man Ray Parrish. UCSB sports an equally athletic team captained by Nick Fiske and Dwight Hines and since the late 80’s the Tide has won 6 national titles, including ‘96-‘98! Ernie Aubin of the Tide is a monster of a player and UCSB enters the tournament as the #1 seed. But should a sleepy UCSB lose here they’ll instantly be in huge trouble – that’s the cold beauty of this format.

Two other men’s game should go to the wire and could (even likely?) feature upsets: (« « « ) Colorado (#2) vs. Michigan (#11) and (« « « « ) Oregon (#3) vs. Duke (#10). Michigan is a strong team featuring one of the leading Callahan Award candidates, Tim Murray, and gets the bonus of playing in its own time zone. Michigan is a very solid team (runner up at the Classic City Classic in Athens) that is stronger than its seeding. Colorado has been one of the favorites for each of the past 3 years and they’re one of college ultimate’s most entertaining teams to watch. Led by grad students Mark Driver and Steven Rouisse (who attended high school in Amherst, MA) Colorado has an experienced team filled with athletes.

Duke defeated Oregon earlier in the year and features two top players in their co-captains Caner Cooperrider (#55) and Paul Klenk (#4). None of the players on the Oregon or Duke teams have ever played at the championship tournament, but both teams played very demanding regular season schedules and qualified from tough regions. Ben Wiggins and Doug McKenzie (#12) are probably Oregon’s top players and if either gets off to a slow start look for an "upset."

Finally, the other "homer" game of this round (« « ) will be Brown (#8) vs. Harvard (#13). Ivy league teams actually win championships in ultimate (OK, it’s rare, but Brown won the title last year) and these two teams split their regular season match-up. This should be an entertaining, hard fought game.