Youth Club Championships - Day 1

After spending Friday traveling out to Minnesota and visiting the sights (Mall of America, the water park in our hotel), it was nice to finally arrive at the fields on Saturday morning and finally get to take the field in a game that meant something.

It'd been a whirlwind two months for the team... in that time 40 players had applied for a spot on the squad, two weeks of tryouts narrowed down the candidates, and the final roster had been able to get together for practice only twice before heading west. Of course, we had the added pressure of everyone getting to know each other and learning to play together against some of the best juniors players in the country. So, when warmups started for our round one match up against New Jersey there was a lot of nervous energy as nobody (including the coaches) really had any idea how we'd look but any nerves certainly were overcome by excitement to finally get started.

Seeing the New Jersey team was a nice way to start as many of the players on both teams have played each other a number of times with Columbia, Needham, and Amherst sending many players to their respective YCC teams. We came out with a few points of man defense and forced a couple turns but the defense's offense was entirely too excited to be effective and would quickly return the disc to Garden State. Later in the first half, we came out with a 1-3-3 zone and it seemed to pressure them into more turns, a number of which came on stalls or high stall turnovers. The highlight of the first half came when Andrew Hollingworth jumped over a New Jersey handler and intercepted a floating pass in the endzone for a callahan goal. At the beginning of the second half and not to be outdone by his junior worlds teammate, Alex Kapinos nabbed a callahan for himself with a point-block followed by a catch for the team's second callahan of the game. The second half was similar to the first and BUDA was able to open up the subbing and get the entire roster a good amount of playing time and all members of the team contributed to the win. Final score was 15-9, New England over New Jersey.

Round two was a matchup with the fourth seed in Pool B, Madison. The team from Wisconsin had a couple of players they looked to isolate as receivers and throwers but had a difficult time gaining separation from our defenders. Also, in a similar storyline as round 1, we played a number of defensive points during the first half in a 1-3-3 zone. While a number of players stood out with strong defensive play, the zones were anchored by aggressive marking by Misha Herscu, Matt Guild, Russel Wallack, and Andrew Kiefer. Max Gillett continued the team's callahan streak by grabbing a swing pass during the first half against Madison and Andrew Lunetta provided the game's offensive highlight with a huge endzone to endzone backhand to David Baecher for the goal. Madison did begin to connect on some of their deep looks late into the second half, but at that point the game was heavily in favor of New England and ended with a 15-7 score.

In the last round, New England matched up with the Colorado open team - "Cutthroat". Featuring a number of tall and athletic receivers, BUDA knew that our offense would have to limit turnovers and not force the disc downfield and into the Denver athletes. Once again, New England played a number of defensive points in 1-3-3 and were able to cause quick turns, setting up easy scoring chances. It was evident that the team was beginning to gel together as BUDA held Cutthroat to the lowest opponent score total of the day and really pushed the opponent out of their gameplans. Final score: 15-5, New England.

Finishing the pool 3-0, BUDA secured the second seed into quarter finals and would play the 4th place team from pool A to start the day on Sunday.

Preparing to leave for Blaine

It's been a very, very hectic schedule but the team finally is getting ready to head out to Blaine at the end of this week and spent the last two putting the finishing touches on the team and making final plans for the trip.

Two weeks ago, the team had it's second practice together. Once again it was in Amherst, but this time the team was met by an oppressive heat that forced players to very closely monitor their health and pushed the lunch break later into the day to try and avoid the hottest parts of the afternoon. The practice itself was very similar to the session from a week before, the coaches reviewed some concepts and introduced some new ones and there was a large amount of scrimmaging to get all of it into practice. The day ended with another game against Amherst locals... this time however, the "ringers" took it to the young guys made the game a decidedly one-sided affair.

This past Friday, the team had originally planned to head down to New Jersey to participate in Nucci's Cup, but after failing to secure a spot in the tournament Tiina Booth was kind enough to arrange a scrimmage under the lights at Amherst High School against the local club team, Club Team X. The YCC team was greeted with an early surprise as the uniforms from Breakmark arrived in time for the game and the squad finally took the field as a fully-formed and uniformed team. CTX was bolstered by a number of local players both home from college and pulled from other area teams, making the friday night squad deep and very, very talented. That talent showed early as CTX jumped out to an early 5-1 lead and took half 8-2. After a delay for lightning, the YCC team pulled it together a put a number of beautiful offensive points together and played a much better second half, with CTX winning the half 9-7. The final score was CTX 17-9.

With the schedule finally announced for the weekend, New England will see Colorado, New Jersey, and Madison on the first day. All three teams will offer tough challenges and hopefully the depth of the BUDA squad will pay dividends late into the day.