Masters Regionals, Formats, Small Town Pride

Apologies in advance for the brevity of this update. NE Masters Regionals, five teams, two bids. DoG (Boston), Tombstone (Toronto), and Above and Beyond (us, NY) look pretty well matched on paper. We have a rocky Saturday. Very hot. We beat Mt. Crushmore handily (15-4), but Not Dead Yet gives us a game (15-10), and we lose the big games to DoG (15-11) and Tombstone (14-10). Our D looked good, our O not so much. Lots of chances, few conversions. So that sets up the DoG/Tombstone final, with us playing Not Dead Yet in the backdoor bracket.

Sunday, cool and drizzly. DoG handles Tombstone. As expected, decent first half, but then Tombstone (I hear) starts looking towards seeing us in the backdoor game-to-go, and conserves. DoG rolls, 15-7. They look good. I'm always amazed at how they create space, both as individuals and as a team. We do a much better job with Not Dead Yet, winning 15-3. The offense starts to click, and we're running a pretty deep rotation with hard running D. We carry that energy and improved offensive efficiency into the back door game-to-go and take it! 15-11. Tough game, pretty contentious, but we're heading to FL, woo-hoo!

(There is an interesting discussion happening on RSD right now concerning the fairness of the five-team, two-advance format. Pretty common format in masters this year, and quite a few of the 2-3 matchups went one way in pool play, and then the other way in elimination play.)

Big bonus: after we qualified, we got to watch Jenn (one of our Berkshire locals) qualify with Bashing Pinatas! This got me all mushy over all the Nationals qualifiers who have played at least a season with our long-standing little hole-in-the-wall pickup game. Here's the list:

  • Alec E.
  • Blake H.
  • Chris M. 2
  • Christine L. 1
  • Derk P. 1,2
  • Jenn F. 2
  • Jim B. 1
  • Jon B.
  • Josh B. 1,2
  • Josh M. 1,2
  • Lester B. 1,2
  • Sam R. 2
  • Steve H. 1,2
  • Xavier L. 1,2

1 First contact with the game was with Berkshire.

2 Bulk of/most significant experience was with Berkshire.

Also, Rachel D. is knocking on the door with Nemesis (women's midwest team). They had two games-to-go this year, and lost a close one in the finals, and then the backdoor game in crappy weather to a team they'd beaten the day before. Damn! Next year, she promises.

Not bad, especially considering there are only something like 130,000 people in the entire county!

Mon, Oct 8, 2007