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Midwest Throwdown Tournament Results

Coachsiah - March 11th, 2013

On the cold, snowy weekend of March the second, Eauzone was perfectly in their element. The weather clearly took its toll on the other teams, as cries of “What does frost bite look like?!” “Hey man, are we gonna get frostbite?” and my personal favorite, “Bro, I think I have frostbite” were heard from team after team throughout the weekend. But the weather could not dampen the spirits of the frosty brethren from the north, the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire.

Led by a swarm of young talent as well as seasoned veterans, every handler on this Eauzone squad seemed to have one thing in common—this was their first real chance to shine as the spotlight of the offense shifted onto them. Gavin “Colin’s brother” Sunde was handed the keys to an offense that hadn’t practiced together this spring and certainly looked shaky at times. Nonetheless, Gavin led the offense through a big first half to go up on the first-seed at the tournament 7-5.

A furious comeback by Washington University led to a 10-8 final at soft cap. The game was characterized by errors from both sides, far from the clean, pretty ultimate you come to expect later in the year.

Eauzone looked dejected going into the second game against Notre Dame-B, going down 1-0 on the first point. After calling a timeout, Joey “Lungs” Quintana got the boys pumped up with a stirring motivational speech, flush with gesturing and butt-slapping to the point where it bordered on a misdemeanor. But that was just what the boys needed. Coming out of the timeout, the Breaus went on a big run, winning the game 12-3. I caught up with Loper “Mike” Loper after the game and he had this to say: “There was just enough touching. I was thoroughly pumped up, but I also felt a lot of love from Joey. I would go so far as to say there wasn’t enough touching.”

Next came Nebraska, and after working so hard to get the energy up against an easy opponent, Eauzone came out flat against Nebraska, going down 3-0. Nebraska would take half 7-4 as Eau Claire slowly figured out their zone. Joey continued to lead the team both on the field and in the huddle, refusing to drop the energy one bit despite the deficit. Eau Claire responded, taking the first 4 points out of half to go up 8-7. What we saw here was a patient offense, characterized by a refusal to give up the disc. Mistakes were still made, especially near the endzone, but the zone was starting to get figured out. Nick Gleason threw in the little bit of flair Eauzone would need to keep up their grand tradition of scoring style points with not one but two breaks through the mark’s legs to get the disc off the force sideline. Still, Nebraska was the more polished team and they were able to close out the game on universe 10-9.

After the disappointment of losing to a team as solid and fun to play as Nebraska, things got heated with another solid squad—Wisconsin B. This was the sort of team that does a lot of little things well. They break the mark, play tight man defense, and their main handler can send up some very pretty hucks. No breaks occurred until after half, when Eauzone was finally able to wear down the Pimpdags D-line into surrendering some breaks. The energy during this game was one of frustration, as the team consistently felt that they should be pulling away from this B squad. Keeping their heads in the game paid off eventually via two straight breaks to finish the Pimpdags off.

Day 2 started in the ninth place bracket. The one point loss to Nebraska had placed Eauzone here, where they would face off against a TCU squad that had a difficult first day. Eauzone was carrying one of the smallest teams at the tournament, and without the services of Brian Franson (illness) they were down to 12 players most of the day. Seeing them through it all was the continually consistent play of Joey Quintana. During his first tournament at the college level, Joey showed the sort of decision making abilities worthy of someone who plays big minutes at handler for Eauzone. Looks did not come easy on this athletic TCU team. Points were traded for most of the game, with Eau Claire coming up with the key break late to stay a step ahead and finish the game 15-13. Eau Claire struggled mightily with the other team’s designated ginger. Without the heckling prowess of Carl Koepke, this young man was left with his confidence in tact, as shown by his consistent break throws and especially his deep cuts. Eau Claire struggled to stop TCU’s one-throw offense, but eventually found some success bracketing the ho-stack.

Next up was a game against Marquette. The defense really ramped it up over the course of day 2, with Reese Mowbray and rookie super-senior Ben Macalalalalalad coming up with 5+ D’s apiece. As the defense increased, the offense faltered, recording double digit turns in the first half. All weekend flow was clogged after an under cut as the handlers failed to spread the field and the vert stack failed to shift back to account for the yardage gained. This continually led to forced throws and errors, especially in the first half against Marquette. The second half was much cleaner, as the team recorded only 7 turnovers, and Ben continued to rack up D’s left and right. The rookie finished off his coming out party with a nasty sky in the endzone over a helpless Marquette defender. Game. Set. Macalalad.

After an agonizing bye that saw over an hour of downtime, the ninth place game against bitter rival UW Steven’s Point was commenced. As always, UWSP brought a potent offense to the game via dominant physicality. This was not an offense suited for a windy day, but today wasn’t windy and things were flowing mighty well for Dirty Dan and his barely-relevant teammates. Eauzone never quite found the answer for Dirty on this day, falling 13-10 even after rallying. Eauzone had plenty of chances to capitalize on UWSP’s all-or-nothing offense, but through the fatigue and depleted numbers there was not enough left in the tank to consistently move the disc up the field.
The tournament was a unique one. Without the services of many veteran playmakers, Eauzone put their hopes in the more than capable hands of guys like Chance Boley, Derek Levin, and Logan Wilfong. What came out of it was a team that, although full of inexperience and lacking in practice time, came within points of beating the best teams at this tournament. The offense grew, the defense grew, and the sidelines grew. And when I spent the night sleeping with Ben in a dirty motel room, we each grew as well. Heck, Eauzone was even present on the women’s sidelines, something I haven’t experienced since coming to the team. All things considered, this was a heck of a way to set the tone for our season. Time to put on a show in Virginia boys.

One Knight Stand Tournament Results

Nick Gleason - February 4th, 2013

This past weekend, Eauzone headed to Waverly, IA to attend Wartburg College’s One Knight Stand. One Knight Stand (a 5 on 5 indoor tournament) looked to be a promising warm up for Eauzone’s spring season.  The tournament was set to start on Saturday at 10:00 P.M. Central Time (11:00 P.M. Eastern Time and for you English folk following us at home, that’s 4:00 A.M. England Standard Time) and to be played until the wee hours of Sunday Morning. 14 of Eauzone’s finest made the four hour trek, ready and willing to put every ounce of energy and liquid into the One Knight Stand.

Eager to prove how much depth and endurance it could find during this One Knight Stand, Eauzone decided to go split squad. Flying under the names of Thunder and Lightning, the split squad teams came into the tournament seeded at 3 and 4 respectively. Thunder and Lightning both proved to be top contenders as each went undefeated in pool play, and found themselves with a first round bye leading into bracket play. The Wartburg Alumni, and St. Mary’s University showed everyone this wasn’t their first One Knight Stand, and made their way to the semi-finals were they would face Thunder and Lightning.

The Wartburg Alumni came out throwing zone against Thunder in the semi-final matchup. Thunder’s seasoned handlers and strong cutters had no problems swinging the disc and breaking the two man cup to find the end zone. Knowing that the wily Alumni would have plenty of skill, Thunder sent their D-line in ready to play some tight man D. Thunder’s youth and athleticism proved to be enough to quiet the Alumni .The Wartburg Alumni tried throwing a combo of Zone and Man D throughout the rest of the game but couldn’t seem to stop the experienced Thunder O-line. Thunder was headed for the Championship game.

St. Mary’s came into the semi-final against Lightning looking to quiet the storm. Lightning went up to an early 3-0 lead with three full field hucks. St. Mary’s countered with a huck and score of their own, and got on the scoreboard making it 3-1. Lightning came back with a fierce offensive and defensive attack, and quickly gained a demanding lead at 14-7. In the end, Lightning’s skill and endurance couldn’t be matched, and the storm wouldn’t be quieted. Lightning looked to face down their counterpart Thunder, in the Championship game.

Thunder and Lighting were set to face off, when everyone realized it was 5:00 o’clock in the morning. A collective decision was made that we needed to get back to the fair state of Wisconsin. It was decided that we couldn’t have Thunder without Lightning.

MLK Tournament Results

Brian Franson - January 22nd, 2013

EauZone got a jump start to this Spring semester by visiting our friends in Duluth for a 10-team indoor tournament. Seeded dead last, Eau Claire's brave eight (Scott, Gleason, Schasse, Kyle, Chance, Derek, Carl, and myself) joined forces with a few Duluth alumni to form "The Dream Team". Against all odds and the biting cold, the Dream Team ended up in a tie for 3rd place., breaking seed by seven spots.