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After a long morning sleeping, eating, getting ready to go, watching the Fury women take on Japan, killing time, and eagerly awaiting the chance to take on GB in the final – we finally hit the warm-up field and the team vibe is a very focused excitement.  This is a world championship final, in front of a big crowd and a live audience on NGN – overall we know this is a great opportunity for us to showcase our team and to avenge the last two WFDF finals for the USA.

Finals: Great Britain, 17-5 (stats)
Finals finally start and we are ready.  GB is not, possibly jitters from this being their first final or a bit of a tricky wind that came up late in the warm-up, either way they give us 3 easy breaks in the first three points, starting off with several first pass drops or throw-aways.  We punch in all three before GB finally get on the board.  The wind has shifted to be relatively up-wind/down-wind, and we trade a few down-winders before a great huck catch by Zach Travis triggers the defense – the D gets on a roll and we never look back.  The game features a difficult and changing wind causing lots of unforced turnovers, but the USA continues to punch in goals after multiple turnover points while the GB squad struggles to get consistent offense.  Ryo throws two monster upwind flick hucks, Martin catches three deep goals, and Robbie leads us with steady handler movement and all-around dominance over the field.  The game concludes with a 7 point run for the USA and a nifty footwork goal by Beau Kittredge to bring home the first WFDF Open Gold medals in 12 years.   We congratulate GB for their impressive run to the finals, and we know that this experience will make them stronger in tournaments to come.  After a closing ceremony and frantic jersey swapping/ photograph taking, we start our trip home with a raucous bus and subsequent train car ride featuring singing, dancing, and other spectacles.  We skip the express and take the slow train home, with a dance party train car to ourselves, not minding that the ride will last a while.  We are happy, after a tough tournament and surviving difficult tests from Australia and Canada, we’ve played well on the big finals stage and triumphantly achieved our goal.  Congratulations and thanks to Kurt for joining us from Houston and being such a great teammate in the short season we had, to Bart who we’ll miss dearly in the coming club season, to the parents and fans that came all the way to Japan to support us, and to the Revolver founders and alumni whose support and direction we wouldn’t be the same without.  Now we head home to the U.S. via various routes and stops, reveling all the while in this:

USA, WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Semifinals brought the matchup we had been looking forward to since last October – Team Canada, two-time reigning WUGC world champions.  With a large Furious George contingent (along with GOAT players and others making it through tryouts) featuring some well known faces, we had no doubts about what we were going up against.  There was some strategizing to be done and matchups to be set, but for the most part we were focused on our mental and emotional preparations ahead of the semi.


Team USA vs. Canada, 17-16 (stats)
    Like several of our earlier games, we started off a little soft against TC.  Our D was unable to get more than a hand on the disc against their O line over their first few points.  Meanwhile, the Canadians capitalized quickly on two turns from Adam “Chicken” Simon, one off a big open side foot block by Andy Collins, to grab an early lead.
At 7-5 Canada, however, suffocating pressure on their handlers from  Mark Sherwood, Tom James,  and Sam Kanner started to pay off, forcing turns and tight throws.  Martin Cochran got a nice layout D under and a missed huck from Oscar Pottinger led to two USA breaks and brought us back on serve.  Our offense really started to click here, with a great Cahill-Wiseman deep shot to tie it at 7.  We couldn’t punch in the break for half, but at 8-8 Robbie Cahill gave a lesson in boxing out with a great catch on a blading huck, and we took half a few throws later.
    We knew it wasn’t enough – we were back to even but had much more work to do.  Out of half we kept up the pressure, shutting down their cutters and working hard to break up their handler motion.  Short field turns led to two more breaks and some momentum for Team USA.
On an unfortunate note, a full-speed collision between Zach Travis and Brendan Wong after the pull at 9-8 knocked the Canadian cutter out for the remainder of the game.  Two shots from Cahill to Kittredge got us two more O points and set us up to get a third break and the 15-12 lead.  After a Canada timeout, the D line worked a long point with chances for both teams, but a deep D by John Hassell got the disc back and the Canadians finally got the goal.
    Team Canada was down late, but far from out of it.  Coming back down in their zone, USA was able to gain yardage but not finish off their points – an end zone turf and a mis-timed jump on an upline cut to the end zone and Canada was able to strike deep for two quick goals and bring it to 15-14.  Our offense finally punched it in to come within one goal of finals but our defense failed to finish it off – leaving us with two chances to win on offense.  Again we worked it patiently to twenty yards out, but a dump miscommunication led to yet another quick deep strike for a Canada break.  Double game point – seven on the line, everyone else pacing the sidelines with nerves on edge.  Again we marched it up the field, and again our O was held up just outside the goal.  A discussion over a contested stall/fast count was tense, but good spirit prevailed, and Beau worked the throw and go dump swing with Cahill for the clinching goal.
    Like our game against the Aussies, this was a well fought game that lived up to our highest expectations for world-class play  We were somewhat drained after the tight finish that perhaps we thought we were going to avoid, but still happy to celebrate our berth in the finals:
Great Britain, tomorrow, 11pm PST. Big thanks to all our supporters and fans, both local and online – see you there!

Also if you haven’t seen it a preview training video from them.

Immediately apparent to us as soon as we arrive at the fields this morning is:  wind.  There is a lot.  Much heavier than in past days, it has a serious intensity and makes a loud whistling noise as it passes through all the netting and fencing at the field complex.  The orientation is much more up-wind/down-wind than in previous days, making the games ugly and much more position oriented than normal ultimate.  Frankly, this weather makes for terrible ultimate and teams just have to abandon the clean games of good weather and get dirty with the turnovers.  Before we get started, two major upsets with huge wind factors have completed – with favorites Australia and Japan both losing to underdogs and we are hoping not to be next.  On to play Finland.

Finland, 17-7 [Stats]
We know in advance we must play a field position game, and we do so trading yardage for possession for the first several points.  At 3-2 we earn an upwind break only to have Finland hold coming right back (a great speed possession for them, punctuated by a strong backhand huck to a laying out cutter).  We finally break upwind again at 7-5, following a fantastic pull from Russel Wynne that leads to a short field going up wind, which Russel converts for the score.  Now we’ve figured out how to work the disc against this wind, and we use the backhand hucking game (and Beaufort Kittredge in the deep position) to gain 3 more upwind goals before Finland stop the bleeding at 12-6.  Their heart is a bit out of it and we continue to play well, picking up more than our fair share of 50-50 discs until we get to 17-7.   The Finland team up to 5-5 played very well, but we gained momentum with some upwind breaks and we never gave it back.  On to semi-finals against Canada.  No better word for it than: big.