early season thoughts on the NE region
With veterans Lakshmi Narayan, Liz Middleton, and Sarah Markus as well as top freshman Rohre Titcomb, all the talk is about Dartmouth as the pre-season favorite from the New England region, however, i wouldn't so quickly overlook other regional programs, including Tufts, Brown, and MIT.
Tufts did not look challenged by any of the competition they faced at ultimax this past weekend and had a solid showing at Vegas. they have a core of juniors and seniors who have been building a team together for a few years. led by the throws of Bernie Diaz and downfield motion of Meghan Cain, they are fundamentally sound, play an efficient offense, and run hard on both sides of the disc. a heartbreaking loss to Brown at regionals last year sent them out of the tournament early, but i suspect that will be different this year.
even after graduating a slew of players last year, Brown has refueled for the 2005 season. it is early in the season and their offense is still coming together, but they are coached by the collective brainpower of Ted Munter, Mo McCamley, and Mike Kafka, and are capable of throwing a number of defensive sets at you to get the disc back.
after being hit hard by some early season injuries, MIT lost in the semifinals of Ultimax. experience is not in question, as their top players this year have been playing significant roles at Nationals the past few years. however, depth has been a trademark weakness of MIT, and this year may be no different.
after a relatively mild winter, the northeast is starting to thaw, and teams are kicking off their seasons. in preparing for the UPA series, regional teams will get chances to face off at UMassacre (if it isn't rained out for the 4th year in a row) and Yale Cup, and it will be exciting to see which teams emerge as the favorites entering into Regionals.
some other teams in the mix that i cannot write about because i haven't seen them play this season yet: Wellesley, Northeastern, and Yale.
Tufts did not look challenged by any of the competition they faced at ultimax this past weekend and had a solid showing at Vegas. they have a core of juniors and seniors who have been building a team together for a few years. led by the throws of Bernie Diaz and downfield motion of Meghan Cain, they are fundamentally sound, play an efficient offense, and run hard on both sides of the disc. a heartbreaking loss to Brown at regionals last year sent them out of the tournament early, but i suspect that will be different this year.
even after graduating a slew of players last year, Brown has refueled for the 2005 season. it is early in the season and their offense is still coming together, but they are coached by the collective brainpower of Ted Munter, Mo McCamley, and Mike Kafka, and are capable of throwing a number of defensive sets at you to get the disc back.
after being hit hard by some early season injuries, MIT lost in the semifinals of Ultimax. experience is not in question, as their top players this year have been playing significant roles at Nationals the past few years. however, depth has been a trademark weakness of MIT, and this year may be no different.
after a relatively mild winter, the northeast is starting to thaw, and teams are kicking off their seasons. in preparing for the UPA series, regional teams will get chances to face off at UMassacre (if it isn't rained out for the 4th year in a row) and Yale Cup, and it will be exciting to see which teams emerge as the favorites entering into Regionals.
some other teams in the mix that i cannot write about because i haven't seen them play this season yet: Wellesley, Northeastern, and Yale.
posted by nancy at 8:38 AM
4 Comments:
are the ultimax results posted somewhere?
thanks,
aj
i have been waiting, but i haven't seen them yet. i'll drop the TD an email. i have to say though, that i wasn't thrilled with the tournament organization, so i would not be surprised if no official results were available. when i tried to report a quarterfinals score, the tent said that they were not recording them.
I haven't seen results anywhere. From what I remember...
Tufts over Oberlin in finals.
Oberlin over MIT; Tufts over GW in semis.
Brown won their pool with MIT second, but got knocked out in pre-q's. They played ... W&M (? my memory could be failing on that) in consolation finals.
Harvard and Cornell got knocked out in quarters by Tufts and GW respectively. Not sure about the rest.
just a minor correction....Boston University beat Tufts in the last game on Saturday at Regionals....then they went on to beat Yale in the first round on Sunday morning....
i do agree, though, tufts looks very solid this year. regionals will be exciting.
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