Riot Wins Labor Day

Stringing together back-to-back tournament victories, Riot was undefeated at the Labor Day Ultimate Championships in Santa Cruz, CA last weekend. The full tournament results are posted on the Score Reporter, but here's a recap of how the weekend went down for Riot.

Our first game was against Ozone in the thick fog. The wet disc and slippery conditions lead to more drops and execution errors than we would like (a lot more), but good D allowed us to work out the kinks. At 4-1, Riot we had what may go down as the worst point of the season with 9 Riot turnovers (6 of them in the redzone). After scoring that point, we only had one more turnover that half, earning an 8-2 cushion. The second half was cleaner on our part and we finished it out 15-3. It was very weird to play against Riot legend Liz Duffy, but she looked good in Ozone's neon pink basketball jerseys and definitely took it to us deep a few times more than we'd want!

Next up was Zeitgeist--still in foggy conditions. A casual throw on the second pass of the game gave ZG a short field to work with and an easy break. The next point, a Riot deep huck went incomplete as Kawai and Maggie Ruden got tangled up. Unfortunately, Maggie sustained a neck injury on the play and the game was suspended while the trainer and then the paramedics were called. Although quite shaken up, reports were that she recovered and was able to play later on in the tournament. Once play resumed, Zeitgeist marched the disc in to take a 2-0 lead. Riot quickly answered and then strung together 7 defensive breaks in a row to take half 8-2. Riot continued its momentum in the second half, scoring 5 in a row before ZG put another point on the board to make it 13-3. We traded out the next few points to a final score of 15-4.

After a bye, we moved to the upper fields to play Further for our last game of the day. The fog had burned off and was replaced with a crosswind--the first substantial wind we'd faced this season. Further's aggressive deep game worked well for them going downwind and rarely gave Riot a short field to work with, but playing a lot of junk and zone allowed us to generate the turnovers we needed to get our defensive breaks. Gwen's stats were padded quite heavily as she got 4 deep Ds in one point of junk, but all around it was a great game for the team to work on a variety of our defensive looks. Our offense also got a taste for working the high side of the field in the crosswind. Keely might have been the only player to fully master the touch needed for the downwind hucks, and she connected on three deep shots this game, throwing the game winner to a diving KK for a spectacular grab. 15-5.

Sunday morning we faced off against Molly Brown for the number one spot in our pool. A misfired pass in the endzone allowed Molly Brown to earn the first break of the game, but Riot got back on serve a few points later when Surge and Caitlin chased down the pull and generated a turnover on the first pass. Riot earned two more breaks that half, off of a deep Ds by Keely and Rohre. 8-5. Riot capitalized on MB throw-aways to quickly earn two breaks right out of half time, 10-5. Riot had four chances to convert the next point as well, but couldn't connect deep and allowed Molly Brown to sneak one in. The teams then settled down into a holding pattern of trading points and Riot let an amazing lay-out D by Smalls go to waste. Then, at 13-9, Molly Brown took advantage of a Riot huck turnover to bring the game to 13-10, but that was as close as it got and Val finished the game off a few points later on a huck to Calise for the 15-11 win. Molly Brown presented Surge with a pair of feather earrings after the game as a sprit winner.

Our last pool play game of the weekend was against Knock Out. This was an efficient game for us, as we only turned it over in four points all match. Saving those legs for later! The highlight of this game was a spectacular skying grab by Keely in the endzone off of a Rohre huck that floated a bit more than she intended. In fact, we had a few misfires on hucks in this game, but they were perfect examples of what a difference good hucking decisions make because in each case the receiver was able to adjust her read and still make the play. After a half time score of 8-3, the game finished out 15-4.

In the other pool, there was a three-way tie for second with Phoenix beating Showdown, but losing to Nemesis and Showdown upsetting Nemesis. Phoenix won the point differential tie breaker and a spot in semis against us. The wind was definitely a factor in our game and was the same mainly crosswind breeze we'd seen the day before against Further. The first three points Riot and Phoenix traded down-winders, then Riot was able to get an upwind break as Kreilkamp threw a beautiful backhand to Bermi for the goal. The next three points Phoenix turned it over at roughly mid-field, and each time Riot worked it in with no turnovers to take a 6-1 lead. Phoenix scored their downwinder, but Riot answered when Gags found Kawai deep in the endzone on a monster huck. One more break pushed the game to half, 8-2. Out of half, the two teams traded for a few points to 10-4, when Phoenix called a time-out. Talking to Phoenix coach, Tully Beatty, after the game, he explained that at this time-out their goal was to really make Riot work for our next five points. Mission accomplished as we ended up with more turnovers in the next six points than we had in the 14 prior points. The final score was 15-5 and while we gave ourselves lots of practice playing in the wind, we all knew we could be more efficient.

Finals against Fury. This was a rematch of the finals at ECC and the game both teams had been looking forward to all weekend. Riot got the first break of the game to go up 2-0, but two points later Fury got the break back. The game stayed on serve till 4-4, with both teams mixing it up with a combination of zone and person Ds. Then, Fury's zone generated two unforced errors on Riot's O point, giving Fury the lead. Riot answered and then got its own zone break when Fury turned it over near Riot's goalline. A great upwind pull allowed Surge to run the length of the field and get a block on the first pass of the subsequent point, setting up and easy goal from Shannon to Caitlin. Surge got another D the next point, this time by chasing down a huck, and KK threw one of her 4 assists from the game to take half 8-5. After trading for the first few points out of half, Riot earned two more breaks back-to-back to go up 12-7. At this point in the game, Fury started playing almost exclusively zone D. Riot worked it in against the zone after KK made a fantastic grab on a blade around the cup, but at 13-9 a series of errors (including a dropped pull) gave Fury a short field to work with. Both Riot's lead and the time cap were whittling down as Riot gave up 4 points in a row to bring Fury within one, 13-12. With the hard cap on, Riot finally pulled it together and the handler trio of Claire, Drew, and Rohre patiently worked it against Fury's zone. An arching forehand by Rohre to Surge in the goal was called back on a travel call and the cup pushed us back out of the redzone before Rohre bust open the cup to Surge who placed a perfect leading backhand to Kawai for the game winner, 14-12.

Sticking with the team philosophy of giving everyone shots at PT in big games at this point in the season, the finals was certainly a team effort displaying our depth. Our young rookies Callie and Lindsey weren't able to join us on the field, and Maddy was still all the way out in Atlanta, but the team chemistry and unity were palpable as we all rushed the field to celebrate winning Labor Day for the first time since 2007. Just in time for the Series to start this weekend!

• Record: 7-0
• Scores for: 104
• Scores against: 44
• Team D blocks: 69
• Team completion percentage: 92%
• Team hucking percentage: 49/75 (65%)
• D block leaders: Gwen (15), Kawai (7), Rohre (6)
• Goal thrown leaders: Surge (10), Rohre (9), Shannon (8), Kawai (8)
• Goal caught leaders: Calise (12), Nora (10), Kawai (10)

[Photos from Saturday by Danica Blanca Iglopas. Photos from finals by Ben Beehner. Other pictures from the finals by Rodney Chen available on Flickr]