Northwoods Open Sectionals

I had the chance this past weekend to get out and watch the second day of Northwoods Sectionals. A steady wind held throughout the day, and from what I heard, was only a slight breeze compared to Saturday's weather. CUT cruised through their semifinal matchup against GOP while Minnesota did struggle initially against St. John's in their match. At one point, Minnesota was down 5-8 to the Johnnies before running a 7-1 stretch to 12-9 before pulling away. St. John's was only running about 12 players deep in their rotation and were clearly more fatigued down the stretch.

CUT v. Minnesota turned out to be a very entertaining game. It wasn't nearly as chippy a game as the sectional finals in 2005. U of MN ran mostly man, trying several different people in order to contain Jacon Goldstein. Carleton mixed up more man and zone looks to take advantage of the windy conditions.

Teams traded points through to 5-5 or so. Kyle Gill threw 4 of the first 5 MN scores. Carleton gained a break, and then Minnesota went on a 3 break run. CUT failed to connect on a couple deep shots to Goldstein and Jerome. MN found a good matchup against Goldstein and shut him down well enough to cause CUT's offense to misfire. Also, one the funnier moments of the weekend involved CK from CUT trying to catch a Minnesota pull by Colin McIntyre. It was a backhand with the wind behind it that was coming in very fast and promptly ate CK alive, giving Minnesota the disc on the goal line.

After half, CUT refocused and started generating D's and converting turns. Minnesota just came out too tenatively after realizing how much they were up. CUT gains back 4 scores in a row to retake the lead. I give lots of credit to CUT for knowing when to stack their D line (Baylis, Goldstein, Jerome, CK) in order to generate breaks and turn the tide without wearing down all their stars. They did it at the start of the game and coming out of half to great advantage.

After CUT went up 12-11, they collected another break and finished the game off at 15-13. Minnesota definitely takes their momentum and runs with it, much like Madison. When they play up to their competition, they can be very dangerous. CUT's fate lies with Goldstein. In the middle part of the finals when CUT started to fade, it seemed mainly to be due to Minnesota doing a good job of locking Jacob down.

The beauty of this tough game? The winner was getting the 2 seed and the loser the 3 seed for Regionals, so they'll be doing this all over again the last round on Saturday anyways. The format sets up the finals as the first game on Sunday, which, if CUT makes it through to play the Hodags, plays well to their strengths.

CUT reminds me a lot of Rhino during last year's club season. They can pick a game to get up for and be very dangerous, as evidenced by their victories over (early-season)Colorado, Oregon and Florida. Now, do I think CUT can do the same to the Hodags? Probably not. But as always, people will underestimate them at Nationals.