Cape Town Ultimate

Last Monday we saw the final games of the 7 week long 2009 Spring League being battled out at Wynberg Sports Club.

The 6 teams were formed with an even split of experience across the board and the usual teams from summer league were split up as much as possible. Plenty of new faces joined the league which is really encouraging for Ultimate in Cape Town, and each of the teams then brought their own unique edge to the league. All the games were very well matched and closely fought which added even more excitement and tension to the league.

The last games of the league were the 3rd place playoff between Wasabi and Firestarter, and the final between Goldmember and Blue Steel.
The 3rd place game was a good match with Wasabi taking an early lead and Firestarter fighting back into the game in the second half. Although Wasabi prevailed to claim 3rd place in the final standings with a final score of 15-11.
The final looked like it was a great game with both teams really coming out with guns blazing. Blue Steel had the daunting task of bringing down the unbeaten Goldmember who in turn were there to prove that they did not need their superstar players to keep their winning streak in tact. In the end the Gold team lived up to their name and took first place with a final score of 15-10.

Congratulations to John Davidge and his team for playing so well and dominating the league.

Final standings:
1st – Goldmember
2nd – Blue Steel
3rd – Wasabi
4th – Firestarter
5th – Purple Haze
6th – Smashing Pumpkins

Thank you to all who joined us for the league, especially the new players who I hope we will continue to see on the field regularly. Summer League will start in mid January and until then there will be pickup games on Monday nights to keep those legs fresh and work off all the Christmas indulgence…

Have an excellent festive season!

The final round of the Spring League ‘pool’ games was completed last night in a typically gusty Cape Town wind. I noticed a lot of nervous glances between players that showed a lack of confidence playing in the wind. However, once the games were underway everyone seemed to get into the groove of the conditions and there were some epic battles being played out.

Gold Member continued their unbeaten run of domination and have claimed the first seed going into the playoffs. Wasabi had to work hard against a fired up Smashing Pumpkins to take the win and claim 2nd seed in the semi finals next week. Blue Steel have held their own and slide neatly into 3rd seed. Firestarter and Purple Haze faced off in what was effectively their playoff match to snag the last spot in the playoffs. Firestarter got off to an early lead, but soon Haze caught up and the lead changed hands a few times until the game was tied at 13. Firestarter then managed to find the endzone in the next 2 points and secured the 4th seed in the semi’s.

Next week’s lineup is as follows:
Semi 1: Gold Member vs Firestarter
Semi 2: Wasabi vs Blue Steel
5th Place: Purple Haze vs Smashing Pumkins

Check the league stats file here: Spring League 2009 Teams and Schedule

The 3rd round of Spring league was held last night with a gusty wind adding some spice to the games.

Gold Member (formerly known as Gold Rush) have streaked ahead with 3 wins, yet they still have a couple of tough games lined up. With only 2 more round robin games left, the battle for placement in the playoffs will be hotly contested. As it stands there is a chance that 4th seed into the semis will be determined by only points difference, it should be really exciting…

Check the league stats and schedule here: Spring League 2009 Teams and Schedule

The second round of Spring League was awarded with perfect Ultimate weather after plenty wet and miserable winter weather that got lost on its way to the Northern Hemisphere… We were very lucky to get enough of a break in the rain to be allowed to use the field.

The league standings remain very even so far with 4 teams seperated by just points difference, and only team Gold Rush stepping ahead with 2 wins under their belt.

Check the tables here: Spring League 2009 Teams and Schedule

See you next week!

The Spring League got off to a great start on Monday night will all three games being closely fought and from what I could tell, highly spirited. The turnout was incredible and I saw tons of new faces which is so encouraging. I don’t think I have ever seen that many people playing Ultimate on a Monday night in CT and I hope all the new players are feeling encouraged and excited about figuring out the game.

It took a bit of adjustment playing on the smaller field sizes with plenty hucks and pulls disappearing out the back of the endzone (mind the fence Nicola). I personally was practicing a new Face-to-Elbow D block technique on Stu and have since had to rethink its effectiveness or at least re-read the article on that Shaolin Temple Ultimate Blog I found. Other new (and hopefully more effective) strategies will surely develop to use the limited space wisely and find those tiny little endzones.

Well done to teams B, D and F for their wins, I hear that the game between D and C was an epic battle with points traded for most of the game. Hopefully I will receive an email from the various teams with a name for their team based on their theme colour so that I can update the list.

I have attached a link to the excel file which has the team lists, schedule and the results. I will try keep this updated throughout the league so keep checking back>>>  Spring League 2009 Teams and Schedule

See you next Monday!

Jmo

There is a Spring League in the planning for the period of 2nd November until 14th December and we want you to register!

The Spring League focus will be on introducing new players to the amazing game of Ultimate. How will we do this?

The league is going to be a 5-a-side league formed with hat drawn teams aimed at mixing up both player experience and the existing league teams.
The mix of new players with intermediate and veteran players in each team will provide a great platform for everyone to share ideas and game knowledge in order to grow the game here in Cape Town.
The idea is to have more teams in smaller groups of around 10 players to create a fun league dynamic with 3 games happening simultaneously each Monday night.
The games will obviously be co-ed so women are very much encouraged to sign up.

What we need is for everyone that would like to play in the league to email me directly (wildcard.enterprises (at) gmail (dot) com) with a name and experience level so that we can make up evenly weighted teams and the league schedule. Guidelines below:

Experienced: More than 4 years of regular Ultimate. You know who you are, or perhaps more importantly, I know who you are…
Intermediate: 1 to 4 years regular Ultimate: You know the game rules and basic strategy, and have played the game at some sort of competitive level.
Novice: You’re anything from a total beginner to someone who has played a casual/pickup version of the game without rules and strategy for a few years.

Bring your friends/girlfriends/boyfriends and help introduce them to the game. You will be placed into a team and the roster will be emailed out by the start of the league.

Please get back to me asap so we can estimate how many players and teams will be involved.

Its going to be a fantastic league and I’m looking forward to seeing lots of new faces on the pitch!

James

The 2009 South African Ultimate National Championships has come and gone and left us with tired bodies and amazing memories. The 2 teams that travelled up to Johannesburg to represent Cape Town were Zebru and Chilli, and here we have a recollection of the weekend performances from the respective captains. Some great new photos have been added to the gallery, thanks to the various contributors…

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Anyone that has great photos they would like to add to the gallery can email them to me: wildcard.enterprises (at) gmail.com

Steve: Zebru
What a fantastic weekend! Zebru went 2-3 (wins-losses) with close losses to Mozambique and Prawn Bunnies. We were slow starters in both games, but I’m definitely blaming our Sunday morning loss on the fact that we won the PARTY! It may have something to do with the fact that Zebru won the… err… ‘late night’ game of Ultimate. But then again, in games like that doesn’t everyone win?

A quick recap of the Zebru games: We started our Saturday morning out in the ‘Pool of Death’ with Dabique (Mozambique), Long Donkeys (PMB), and Disco (J’burg). Dabique was a first game of the morning, and after a quick breakfast from Spar, we were a little slow to start. Dabique featured a mix of highly, skilled, Ex-pat experience players and new local players. We let them get up 3-0, and then 4-1 on the dry, dusty, hard grounds of J’burg. However, we started to click and played great Ultimate the rest of the way. Finally with the time cap going off, the game was tied at 6-6. We pulled to them and managed to get a D, but then I gave it back to them with a bad swing to Sam on the goal line. They were able to stuff it in for the score. This ended up being the deciding game for going to the semi-finals for our pool since the Long Donkeys were very impressive and hungry. The played a flat cup with three guys an average of 6 inches taller than me, and it ended up frustrating us to no end. We ended the day playing Disco, in which we found our rhythm and let off lots of big hucks. The next morning we played a very muddy game with Prawn Bunnies. They definitely took advantage of the fact that we were collectively hung over from the party and got off to an early lead. Being a brand new team from Durban, they are a great addition to the South African Ultimate scene with athletic play and great Spirit. Plus they had Neal playing for them, so how could they lose? We are definitely looking forward to playing them again and out cheering them – which won’t be easy. Nonetheless, it was a super fun game where everyone got their white Zebru shirts covered with plenty of mud from the rain the night before. We finished up our tournament with a win against a strong yet fun Swaziland team. Everyone was a bit tired, but we played some of our best ultimate of the weekend with great flow and passes and defense from everyone.

There was great play from everyone, but where Zebru really shined this weekend was with our Spirit. Sam and Zak, our king and queen of cheer, had a great tournament, and Zak was giving it his all when he broke his hand on defense. Gig-a-lo, I think now is a Zebru staple cheers and we’re going to have to teach everyone else the words. With the help of the whole team, Sam came up with one great song after another to cheer the other teams with. I think we made a lot of new friends and had a great time. And then of course, we rocked the party out. The girls looked amazing in grass skirts and bikini’s and they definitely put the sexy into Ultimate. The guys also looked great, all in Hawaiian shirts and lei’s. Once again, a fantastic and fun tournament! I don’t think I laughed so much in a 48 hour span as I did then. It was great staying in a house with so many Zebru players and so much fun to be hosted by Lionel. A number of players on other teams did mention to me that they were jealous of just how much fun we were having. So without a doubt, we had great Spirit, great Ultimate, and a great time! It was a fantastic tournament and I can’t wait until the next one!

Ant: Chilli
For Chilli, Nationals 2009 was always going to be about defending the title we won in 2008. In the history of the tournament no team had ever managed to claim the prize two years in a row and when we won in Cape Town in 2008 we made it our goal to become the first team to defend the title.

Months of fitness and skills training, analysis and hard work all culminated in Johannesburg on the weekend, in a tournament, that in truth, could not have panned out better for us.
We opened with a repeat of 2008’s final against Ultitude – a game that was clearly the toughest we would experience in our pool. Both teams showed early nerves in the near perfect weather conditions, but despite some bad options early on we came through comfortable winners 9-5. The game saw us reduced to just two women with Jenna ruled out due to illness. Our second game, against Swaziland, which began less than 15 minutes after the first was really fun, with some great skills on show. A stunning layout grab from Dave Needleman set the tone and although a couple of points dragged on for longer than they should have we ran out comfortable 13-2 winners. Durban was our final game of the day, a match-up that saw us face several former Chilli’s in Neal, Bern, Rebecca and Alix. For those who say Chilli are too serious: our six man cup-a-saurus hopefully went some way towards dispelling the myth. The Durban crew had lost earlier to Swaziland but they upped their game against us to score some classy points against our Junk defence that was becoming more effective with each game. We eventually ran out 13-4 winners.

Nerves were present again on Sunday for the semi’s where we faced the much improved Mozambique who boasted a real international flavour with GB and Dutch internationals on their line-up as well as well as a host of lightning quick locals. We had heard all about their long game and the strength of their women and we were prepared. We knew that shutting down their long game would be the key to success. We varied our defence in the semi mixing the tight man-on-man we had been practicing with several junk points. It worked well, but in truth we won the game with our offence, only turning the disc once as we took the half 7-0. We then traded to 9-2 before we reached the cap, in a game where the score did not reflect the close nature of the battle or the effort that went into winning. Lolly, Jenna and Keren featured in some huge plays with our girls showing that perhaps they were in fact the strongest female line-up in the tournament.

The final saw us face up to Long Donkeys for our fifth encounter in three tournaments. A fantastic rivalry has developed between the two teams and we always enjoy playing them. The Donkey’s always give as good as they get and we knew they were desperate to win. A tricky breeze came up shortly before the final and we after receiving the first pull we were turned and they opened the scoring with an upwind point. We countered immediately with consecutive scores and we traded to the half. Both sides played zone defence. PMB broke us by repeatedly hammering over the top while we got them shifting with some patient dumping and swinging.
We took the half 7-6 and scored a crucial upwind point immediately after the break with Chris sprinting the full length of the field to grab a floater at the back of the zone. We bagged the follow-up downwind point and suddenly we were leading 9-6. Subtle adjustments to our junk meant hammers over the top were no longer an option, while our relentless moving of the disc saw a tiring Donkey’s go to man meaning we could play our favoured direct style.
To be honest, I cannot recall the final score, I think it was 12-8. The final point and the win signaled the completion of our mission, to defend the title and keep the trophy in Cape Town and we were all elated. SA Nationals has now been held on 7 occasions and it has always been won by a Cape-based side. It was also a triumph for high quality, competitive yet spirited Ultimate. I think the final demonstrated how well conflict can be resolved between two competitive sides who are both hungry to win.

A big thanks to all the sides who participated. Those who were there to play hard, those who wanted to party and those who were about learning and building and experiencing all the different facets Ultimate has to offer. For those that fall into the latter category, hopefully, on some level Chilli can be an inspiration. When we put the team together in 2006 we had three experienced players, a vision and a host of beginners. We came last. But the team stayed together and grew and the following year we reached the semi’s. Then came 2008 and 2009 and the wins we had set our sites on back in 2006. The bulk of those new folk that played their first competitive Ultimate back in 2006 are still with us and the core of the team has remained unchanged for several years – it makes a big difference.

Cape Town is sending 2 teams up to the 2009 South African National Championships being held in Johannesburg on the weekend of 3-4 October. Those 2 teams are defending National champions Chilli and CT Winter League winners Zebru, and with both teams having recruited a few extra players to bulk out their line up, they should both be very competitive. If the info I have is correct, the opposing teams will be:
From JHB – Ultitude & Disco
From KZN – Long Donkeys & Prawn Bunny
From across the border – Mozambique & Swaziland

Rumours floating along the Ultimate grapevine suggest that the Cape Town teams will have their work cut out for them in Joburg and so both teams have been putting in some hard training to fight the inevitable altitude burn…

Does anyone have any predictions on the performance of our CT teams at Nationals? Lets hear your comments below…

The 2009 Winter Series ended off yesterday with the league playoffs. The UCT Tigers were looking to knock Chilli from their 3^rd place seeding while the Ambassadors were defending their 1^st place seeding against Zebru in the final.

Finally the Winter Series tried to live up to its name with some ominous clouds and strong, gusty winds. Rain was predicted for later in the day, but luckily the torrential conditions held off until today.

The first game got off to an exciting start with UCT going point for point with Chilli and giving them something to worry about. Chilli secured another few points to take the half time score at 7-4. After the halftime break, Chilli dipped into their deep, dark well of Ultimate experience and controlled the game to the end. Huge credit is due to the UCT Tigers for sticking it out in the league and facing up to the more experienced teams, we hope to see you back for more in the Spring League!

The Ambassadors – Zebru final was a nail biting affair with the gusty wind really hooking around the pitch in a mad frenzy. Zebru started the first point playing downwind and it began a point for point exchange all the way to half time. It became clear that scoring an upwind point would be the key to taking home the trophy. Both teams were trying to get the tactical territorial advantage with some crazy hucks going up, some working and some not! Crazy huck award should go to Wes for a hammer the full length of the field that was almost caught for a score. Zebru employed a zone defence the entire game which the Ambassadors were forced to work around with some slick handling skills. Ambassadors calmly worked the disc around and found safe hands in the end zone to keep the game tightly locked down.

The small group of spectators got themselves into a minor frenzy early in the second half when Ambassadors nearly scored the first upwind point that was taken back for a foul call. Zebru then put their heads down and cleaned up their offense enough to take the first upwind point. With spirits lifted the Zebru defence clamped down and managed to control the game from there ending the game at 12 – 6. The Final was an excellent and competitive end to a very enjoyable League.

The prizegiving was a short and sweet close off to the league. The following awards were presented: Spirit Award - using a new points system, Player of the Series – the total score of assists, scores and awards as voted by other teams over the series, Mud Award – as voted by other teams for commitment, MVP – Most valuable player as voted by other teams, Best Female – using Player of the Series points. And finally awards for the top assists and scores for each team. The results and photos are below, and a spreadsheet of stats is here.

Thanks to everyone that took part and stayed to support the teams in the final. I think the Winter Series was a great success and hopefully next year will be bigger and better.

Winners: Zebru
Spirit: Zebru
Player of the Series: Tim Porter – Ambassadors
Best New Player: So many standouts meant we collectively gave this to the UCT Tigers
Best Female Player: Lauren ‘Lolly’ Bluck – Chilli
Most Mud Awards: Aiden Biccard – UCT
Most MVP Awards: James Moolenschot – Zebru
Team awards
Ambassadors: Assists – Matt Grant & Mike Harber, Scores – Tim Porter
Chilli: Assists – Ant Pascoe, Scores – Leor Williams
UCT: Assists – Nick, Scores – Frank
Zebru: Assists – James Moolenschot, Scores – Darren ‘Pinky’ Rennie