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Andrea Cardenas

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Women's Ultimate Comes Up One Win Short of Nationals

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The UCSD Women’s Ultimate team’s season ended last weekend at the Southwest Regionals with a loss to USC that eliminated them from continuing on to Nationals in Ohio. Out of 14 teams from Southern California, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, only four would earn a bid to Nationals and keep their hopes of winning a national title alive. UCSD finished fifth, one place away from a trip to Ohio.

They began pool play with an easy game against Cal Poly SLO. UCSD was able to get away with some sloppy play and still cruise to a 17-5 victory. Big plays came out of young and older players alike. Playing in the last tournament of her college career, Amy Chang was a huge mark, causing several turnovers through handblocks and eliciting bad throws by shutting down the thrower’s options. Chang was stunning on offense as well, keeping her composure as a thrower despite breezy conditions, and punching in score after score. This game gave them a chance to adjust to the cold Colorado weather and get warmed up to play UCSB.

UCSB is clearly the top team in the Southwest region and had a virtual lock to go to Nationals, despite a shocking second place finish in the Southern California Sectionals. This being their third matchup of the season, UCSD had a good idea of what would be required of them to contend with UCSB, and weren’t going down without a fight. They began the game up 2-0, but UCSB stayed composed and tied the game up at two points apiece. During the next point, UCSB was nearing the endzone when they threw a high swing pass and UCSD’s Molica Anderson jumped up to block it. She got tangled up in the UCSB player and fell to the ground in pain. The athletic trainers evaluated her and diagnosed a bad knee sprain with a possible partial LCL tear. Anderson would not return for the rest of the weekend. This was an enormous loss for UCSD, a team that relied a great deal on her to handle the disc, especially in unfavorable weather. As the game continued, UCSB ran UCSD to the ground, making deep cuts after deep cuts and moving the disc around with ease. As they tired out UCSD’s starters, they were able to substitute additional strong players and proved that they were the deeper team. The final score was 6-17, which placed UCSD second in their pool at the end of pool play.

UCSD spent their bye round scouting the game between USC and Claremont, knowing that they would face the loser of this game in the first round of bracket play. Claremont strategically rested their strongest players during this game, sacrificing a big loss to USC in order to be at their best when they faced UCSD. This proved to be a good tactic, since the game was indeed hard fought and came down to the wire. Katie Kessler was a force to be reckoned with on defense, letting nothing get past her and never looking tired. Jen Jacobsen had spectacular cuts all day and Chang’s long pulls gave UCSD solid field position time after time. In the end, UCSD showed up Claremont, a team that had beat them twice this year. This 12-10 win placed them in the second place bracket, and was their last game of the day.

In one of the semifinals games on Saturday, Colorado surprised UCLA with a one-point win and secured their bid to Nationals, which unfortunately meant that UCSD would be matched up against top-seeded UCLA on Sunday instead of Colorado as they expected. The teams seemed well matched as they traded points in the beginning of the game, but UCLA pulled away with five straight points and took half 8-4. UCSD surged back to bring the score to 10-11, but UCLA was able to find a weak link in UCSD’s man-on-man defense and scored on a pass to the open side in the back corner of the endzone on game point and won 12-10. This loss moved UCSD down into the fourth place bracket, which meant that one more loss would eliminate them from Nationals.

Long Beach State was the next hurdle UCSD needed to surmount on the road they hoped would lead them to Nationals. What had been a sunny morning turned into a gloomy, windy afternoon. Once again, sloppy play drew out the game longer than it had to be and tired out key players. The low point of the game was when Angela Wells layout D’d teammate Jane Griffin in the endzone, but UCSD pulled it together in the end and took a relatively easy victory.

In their ensuing game, UCSD faced off against Claremont for the fifth time of the season. Each team had beat the other twice, but both teams were thinking more about earning a spot in the “game to go” than their pride, as the winner of this game would have to win just one more game to make it to Nationals. The wind had picked up between games and played a huge factor in the game. UCSD broke out its 4-man cup zone defense and had great success with it. Sarahskye McNees frustrated even the most seasoned handlers by trapping them on the sideline and not allowing them to swing the disc back across the field, resulting in turnover after turnover. McNees also gained massive yards on offense with several deep cuts. Andrea Cardenas threw incredibly accurate hucks to McNees in the gusty wind and repeatedly shut down Claremont’s strongest cutter on defense. UCSD won the game 9-4, but long points with numerous turnovers wore their legs down before their last and most important game.

Everything UCSD had worked for this season came down to their final game against USC, who had just lost to UCLA worse than UCSD had earlier that day. The rain began to fall in an ominous manner as USC jumped out ahead, scoring the first couple points and making UCSD look confused and tired. UCSD wouldn’t give up that easy though. They scored a couple points, but didn’t cut too far into USC’s lead. Each team played a zone defense that cut off most upfield throws, but USC was able to rely on the athleticism of a few key players when they did get a longer throw off. Second year UCSD player Loryn Kanemaru was instrumental in working the disc around through USC’s zone and Cardenas made crazy grabs all over the field and in both endzones. UCSD never gave up and was able produce a minor comeback, but it wasn’t enough. USC ended the game with a score to the front left side of the endzone and their sidelines erupted onto the field as UCSD walked off drenched and crushed.

After the initial devastation of having their goal within grasp and then seeing it fall away, UCSD realized that they did accomplish a great deal this season. The most important thing they accomplished over the weekend was sticking together as a team. Chemistry on the field and support from the sidelines were both there, and there was never a point when players got down on each other. As remarkable as it would have been to go to Nationals a season after they didn’t even compete in the College Series would have been, it’s also impressive that they beat many of the Nationals contenders this year and finished fifth in all of the Southwest, a top-tier region without a doubt. It will be difficult to compensate for the loss of three of their best handlers next year in Chang, Anderson, and Jacobsen, but players like Kanemaru, Kessler, Melody Gaal, and Meg Gray seem like they are ready to step up into these leadership positions. UCSD Women’s Ultimate is a program that will continue to develop and be a competitor year after year.

More Headlines:
Apr 7 - Women's Ultimate Wins a Trip to Regionals
Mar 31 - Women's Ultimate Suffers Defeat in Texas
Mar 10 - Women's Ultimate Breaks Seed at Stanford Invite
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