Twenty-five members of Revolver drove down to Ripon, CA for the always competitive Northwest Regional tournament this weekend. The only missing man is a proud new father, Joshua Greenough. Congratulations to him, his wife Margo, and the new addition Hannah!Saturday at Regionals was more like ReSectionals, as we would face four opponents from the Bay Area, three of which we met at Northern California Sectionals a couple of weeks ago. Our pool would play four games today while the other pools would only play three, so we especially wanted to win efficiently. Rain the previous night left the green fields coated in water and rather soft in certain parts, but hot sun would dry the grass soon on this hot day, if not the sod underneath.
Game 1 — Pool play, pool A — 8:30a vs Silver Bullet (Santa Clara, CA)
We started on defense against a slight wind and quickly earned our first of many breaks on the weekend with an around backhand toss from #40 Mac Taylor to #28 Martin Cochran, who didn’t seem too impeded by the cast on his throwing hand–a great sign. One of the team’s main goals for this weekend is to improve pulls, namely avoiding out of bounds, so the captains implemented a three-tier system. If either tier 1 puller is on the D-line, he pulls, otherwise the disc goes to tier 2, and then 3. First tier was #37 Jonny Hester and #32 Sam Kanner, second tier was #5 Taylor Cascino and #14 Mark Sherwood, and third tier was #13 Tyler Grant and Taylor. Pullers would then be promoted or demoted based on performance factors including whether pulls were in/out of bounds and whether they were fielded inside or outside the endzone. This game only saw one OB pull by Cascino and we played quickly, allowing one score each half for a 13-2 victory.
Game 2 — Pool play, pool A — 10:20a vs Boost Mobile (Palo Alto, CA)
Boost had a first-round bye and didn’t start warming up for our game until after we had finished our first match. At Sectionals they had given us our toughest challenge, a 15-10 score in our favor, by opening up a deep game with very athletic receivers. Today at ReSectionals they appeared ready early to battle again as we traded to 2-2 before our D-line shifted gears. Deep Ds on consecutive points by Cascino and Cochran brought us to a 4-2 lead. A goal line block by #12 Nick Chapman and a deep help D by #27 Ashlin Joye made it 6-2. A layout block on a dump pass by #11 Nick Handler set up a flick huck from Hester to Taylor with nice positioning on a hanger for the fifth break in a row to take half. One section near the middle of the field is very soft and almost seems to have been laid down recently. Neale Mahoney on Boost slid for a catch at one point and somehow dug his foot under the sod, driving a piece of earth vertically up to his knee! He replaced his divot. The second half echoed the first as Boost could only muster two more goals, and we won 13-4.
During the bye we ate sandwiches from Brian Garcia’s cooler and some went back to the hotels to cool off while others stuck around to watch other games and/or play Liars’ Dice in the shade.
Game 3 — Pool play, pool A — 2:00p vs Journeymen (Bay Area, CA)
We had managed to avoid the J-Men at Sectionals, but they caught up with us at last for a game today. We peppered them with a medley of man, zone, and transition defenses as our O-line played the minimum one point en route to a 13-0 victory.
Game 4 — Pool play, pool A — 3:50 vs Wolf (Bay Area, CA)
In the rematch of the Sectionals final from a couple of weeks ago, the end result would be much the same. First half highlights included a battle of the 200+ pounders as Wolf captain Nick Slovan couldn’t come down with a hanging deep shot against #13 Tyler Grant. Another Wolf popped up an around lefty flick swing pass that Kanner brought down in an awkward sky; he immediately jetted toward the endzone for a curling 40-yard flick from #8 Eric Halverson and bookends. The halftime score was 7-2 and our O-line took care of business in the second half, including nice hucks by #29 Bart Watson and #9 Cassidy Rasmussen to finish 13-6.
Everyone attended a team dinner at Kelley Brothers Brewery in Manteca to watch the first half of the Stanford-Oregon football game before people dispersed to watch The Social Network or head back to the Best Western to unwind.