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by Dylan Righi, DQ Capt'n, Tournament Director and All-around Nice Guy

Saturday was a great day for ultimate, and from what I saw (and heard about) some great ultimate was played. A quick shuffling and sorting of teams and players who showed up gave us pools that looked like:

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The B divs went off to various fields and, I'm told, played a full round robin, PLUS cross-over semis. The Frizbaterians (with a strong orange showing) came out on top of B1, but I'm not sure how the rest of the pool played out. In B2 I actually have details: Salamander went 3-0, ND/OT was 2-1, DPW 1-2 and Fresh 0-3 (but read on!! the Freshes shall not go home empty handed!!!).

Salamander and Frizbaterians showed up at Willamette ready to play the B final, but the A pools were still playing (slowly), and rather than wait through the A semis, they talked amongst themselves and then returned to PUFF to play the final there. A very close game resulted in a Salamander victory, allowing them to retain the fabulous B-League Trophy. This suggests they are sand-bagging...watch for them to be bumped into A league next year!!

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The A's stayed at Willamette. A2 went as seeded, with Luke showing o hint of why the Beavers should be fun to watch in the upcoming college season. The Fishheads played a tough game against Luke, coming back strongly, but too late. In A1, Disco turned it up and upset the wily vets of FunSquad to win the pool. Kamehameha, from what I saw, put up a good fight and should return a strong team next year. In the A cross-over semis, Luke beat FunSquad and Disquick toughed it out over the speedy Discos.

For the Final Luke suggested a boat race instead of playing because they "wanted to go hear the music" at the Folk Life festival. Turns out they were attempting a monumental bluff that would have gone down in Corvallis City Ultimate League lore if it had been successful, since they had lost their women and couldn't field a full team. DQ sensed something was fishy and called for them to play it. After some wheeling and dealing and aborted play, it was decided there should be a co-championship. Luke wins for having a good team (and trouncing us earlier in the day) and DQ wins for having a team strong enough to play the entire day.

(But really, the bottom line is that right now the A Championship Trophy is in the trunk of my car and Disquick is going to hold on to it. If Luke wants it they're going to have to put that boat racing team together (men AND women) and take it from us! )

I didn't get a chance to award the spirit trophy on the fields, because the recipients didn't return to Willamette after their games.

So here goes:

This years Spirit Award is compiled from the spirit grades from opposing teams after each game. Cumulative grades for the entire league ranged from C+ to A, hopefully reflecting the high value that Corvallis ultimate players put on playing with good spirit.

There were three teams that receive honorable mention for receiving cumulative grades of A- : Dinner Plate Wranglers (a rookie team!), Disquick (last year's winner), and FunSquad (truly fun). But the only team to put together a season worthy of a solid A and the Spirit Trophy is:

Congratulations to the Freshes and I hope to see them out there next summer with the same great spirit. (If their captain can get in touch with me or Naara or Doug, we can get them the Trophy so they can show it off and impress their friends and families.)

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Finally, thanks to all who played Saturday and capped off a great summer for Corvallis Ultimate! And I think a cheer (and/or a beer) is due to Doug and Naara and Rowdy and Jim for organizing and keeping this year's Summer League cooking along.

 See you on the field.

--Dylan (Disquick)