Suit up, men!!!

Johnny Bravo will face several familiar opponents next weekend (Oct 27-30) in the 2011 USAU Club Championships in Sarasota, Florida.  First up is the Santa Barbara Condors, a young team Bravo faced at the Southwest Regional tournament.  Then, Bravo will go up against Toronto’s GOAT. Always an great matchup between those two teams!  Finally, Bravo will take on the 2010 defending national champions, San Francisco’s Revolver.  The superteam out of the Bay Area features four former Johnny Bravo stars as well as several JAM playmakers.  It’s going to be an exciting day of ultimate for Johnny Bravo fans!

Click here to follow the scores and be sure to subscribe to our twitter feed here for even more coverage.

Johnny Bravo qualified for the 2011 USA Ultimate Club Championships this past weekend, defeating Tucson Monsoon (15-1), the Santa Barbara Condors (15-5) and San Diego Streetgang (15-9). Bravo battled through inclement weather and injuries to claim the team’s 8th straight regional championship. Because of playing field cancellations, the tournament changed format to go right into bracket elimination play.

Game 1: Monsoon – Tucson, AZ
Bravo’s first game was against Tucson’s Monsoon. The temperatures were in the upper 30s with light rain throughout. Bravo came out with suffocating defense and two big layout D’s from Tucson native Jeff Grobe and Gabe Stump kept Bravo’s intensity high as Bravo rolled to a 8-0 halftime lead. Monsoon seemed unable to complete swing passes as players routinely dropped or turfed 20 yard throws, allowing Bravo to quickly capitalize on Monsoon’s own mistakes. Bravo kept up the stifling defense, allowing just one point to make the score 14-1. Bravo’s offensive unit took the field and worked it down to the goal line where Steven Rouisse’s pass down the sideline to lead to a perfect backhand greatest by Joe Durst to Craig Forshee for the 15-1 win.

Game 2: Condors – Santa Barbara, CA

With Bravo’s first game finishing so early, Bravo had the opportunity to watch the Santa Barbara Condors take on Phoenix Sprawl. The winner would be our opponent in semifinals. Sprawl built up a small two or three point lead and then gave it up at the end as they were simply unable to work the disc past the Condors’ junky zone.  The weather had actually warmed up to about 50 degrees with the sun shining through by game time. Condors showed their transition zone and broke for the first point to go up 1-0. Bravo then worked to pick the zone apart before connecting on big cuts to Jesse Roehm and Clark Bishop to tie the game up. Bravo then earned its own break as the defense was able to limit the Condors’ deep game. Bravo built up a quick lead before the Condors struck back and then broke Bravo’s offense again to pull within 2. Bravo would score again and break to take half 8-4. The second half was all Bravo as Bravo’s defensive line rolled with great defensive stops all around.  Bravo pulled away to a 15-5 victory over the Condors.

Game 3: Streetgang – San Diego, CA
The weather on Sunday was much improved. Temperatures climbed to 55 degrees and no rain or wind. Bravo started on offense and the teams traded 1-1 before Josh Ackley got Bravo’s first D of the game with an acrobatic catch block. Intensity on the field was high as both teams were issued TMFs for sideline encroachment and aggressive marking. Bravo extended their lead after Streetgang’s huck sailed too far. Bravo would get more defensive stops from layout blocks by Jeff Grobe and Justin Salvia as Bravo worked hard to prevent Streetgang’s breakmark looks to force throws to the strong side. This strategy seemed to work as Bravo took another large halftime lead. Bravo broke Streetgang after half but Streetgang earned a break of their own after forcing several miscues in Bravo’s own territory. Clark Bishop played well for Bravo’s offense with several skies in Streetgang’s endzone. Perhaps after watching too much UltiVillage, Clark attempted his best Bart Watson imitation with a crazy scoober into a pack of Streetgang defenders. Jeff Grobe skied the pack to bring the disc down for a goal which put Bravo within reach of winning the game. At 14-7, Bravo made a defensive error which allowed Streetgang to put up an easy goal. Bravo’s offensive line would get broken before grinding out the last point to finish with at 15-8 win and Bravo’s 13th trip to the club championships.

Johnny Bravo advanced to the Southwest Regionals tournament on Sunday. The weather was bright and sunny with temperatures in the upper 70s-lower 80s. The wind picked up in the afternoon to make the temperature more bearable. Bravo was playing without S. Rouisse, J. Grobe, E. Pollack and J. Juszak. K. Doege and A. Mangan both had limited playing time due to injuries.

Game 1 – Inception Red
Inception Red is Inception’s development team with some young college players and recent college graduates. Bravo jumped out to an early lead as Inception Red had difficulty maintaining possession under pressure. Bravo wins 15-3.

Game 2 – No Name
No Name is one of two Colorado masters teams that elected to attend the club open sectionals event. No Name had difficulty connecting on their deep shots as Bravo defenders quickly made up lost ground to force turns and generate conversions. Bravo wins 15-5.

Game 3 – Inception
Inception is another Denver based club team and they’ve quickly developed into a talented team. Bravo broke first to take an early lead but Inception broke right back and we traded points until Inception broke twice to take half 8-6. Inception’s attack was led by Mike Kapoor and Andy Priester, who both played exceptionally well under pressure. Both Peter Gee and Alex Sapunov had some great hucks for goals. Bravo made some halftime adjustments and rattled off four breaks in a row to retake the lead 10-8 before Inception scored again to make it 10-9 Bravo. Bravo broke again but Inception fought back towards the end and the game ended on soft cap 13-11 Bravo.

Game 4 – Air Force
The last game of Saturday was against Air Force. The young college team was coming off a universe point loss to No Name. Bravo and Air Force traded to 1s before Bravo rolled to a 15-2 victory. Air Force struggled to move the disc past half without turning it over and their defense could not seem to force any turnovers.

Game 5 – Bravo, John, Esq.
This team is comprised of many former Johnny Bravo players who are now competing in the masters division. (Many of them also played with Boulder Gun Club this summer, taking runner up in the Grand Master’s Championship.) Bravo, John, Esq used a combination of savvy veteran moves and hustle to keep the score close before Johnny Bravo eventually pulled away to a 15-9 win.

Game 6 – Colorado College
Colorado College brought a small squad up on the second day. Colorado College had lost to Air Force and all the other teams so it was to our surprise that they traded with us in the first half. Most of their goals came from long hucks to #21 (Dan Eppstein?). Bravo took half 8-4 and made some adjustments to put an end to CC’s huck game. CC would score just one point in the second half as Bravo rolled to a 15-5 victory.

FINALS v. Inception
The finals were a rematch from Saturday’s close 13-11 game. The mixed division finals had just wrapped up (exciting come from behind win for Musteno) and the men’s finals had a small crowd as players trickled in to watch Bravo and Inception duke it out again. Bravo came out with much more fire and intensity than on Saturday that seemed to catch Inception off guard. Inception’s hucks trailed away in the wind and Bravo was able to work it in to gain an 8-4 lead. Bravo continued to play tough defense out of the half and forced Inception to throw turnovers on sideline traps and redzone sets. Things just seemed to be going Bravo’s way after Inception failed to convert a dropped pull in the endzone. Bravo allowed just two points in the second half as the team finished on a break to win 15-6.

Weekend Highlights:
Berti(s)
Gloves (J. Ackley, D. Belsheim, C. Bishop, J. Cohee, R. Farrell, A. Gregerson, J. Kloor, E. Padget)
Bar Louie

Bravo‘s run to the national championship begins this weekend with the 2011 sectionals qualifying tournament at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado.  Scores will be posted here.  We’ll also be tweeting throughout the weekend.

Bravo looks forward to good matches against Denver based Inception and the Bravo master’s team Bravo, John, Esq. The top six teams qualify for the southwest regional tournament in two weeks.

Bravo returns from another successful camping trip…

Bravo rafting down the Colorado River

The storm is just beginning...

Wood up, stay high!

Top Row: Perl, Salvia, Kershner, Westbrook, Forshee, Krier, Richels, Juszak, Doege, Kloor, Mickle, Cohee, White, Rouisse, Gregersen, Padget Bottom Row: McShane, Mangan, Durst, Ackley, Grobe, Belsheim, Hughes, Pollack, Bishop

Game 1 – Doublewide (Austin)

We started out the day with a game against Doublewide. We came out with a lot of energy and we were able to get some defensive stops on Doublewide’s hucks, something we were unable to do at Colorado Cup.  Our offense played really well and didn’t have too many unforced errors. We pulled away at the end to win 13-8, but the win came with a bad loss.  An opposing player collided with Austin Gangel, which put him out for the season.

Game 2 – Sockeye (Seattle)

This was another high energy game which was very tight until the end.  Sockeye got the early break and kept a 1-2 point lead throughout.  Sockeye did a good job of controlling the tempo of the game (slowing the game down) and by bringing more energy on the sidelines.   Bravo was able to break back and was even on the verge of tying the game at 9s until Bravo forced a throw in the red zone and Sockeye converted to go up 10-8.  Hardcap sounded and Sockeye broke downwind to end the game 11-8.

Game 3 – Rhino (Portland)

Our last game of the day was against Rhino.  Rhino played a very conservative offense, different from what they’ve done in the past.  They also ran a pretty tight rotation with Seth Wiggins, Cody Bjorkland and Dylan Freechild  beating us on in-cuts consistently in the first half.  A timeout after the first couple of breaks did nothing to fire the team up, and Bravo went down 8-3 at halftime.   The second half saw some improvement with some actual defensive blocks and better positioning as we clawed back in the second half.  Rhino won 14-12 and would go on to take first in the pool by beating Sockeye.

Game 4 – PoNY (New York)

PoNY got the first two breaks of the game and both teams seemed to struggle on offense.  Bravo would score 2 breaks back only to get broken twice more as the lead seesawed back and forth.  PoNY took half and the teams continued to trade.  Bravo’s offense looked very stagnant as downfield receivers were looked off and handlers struggled to break the mark or dump and swing.  This gave PoNY the disc on Bravo’s own goal line about four times, which seemed to be the difference in the game.  PoNY definitely played as the better team and went on to win 13-11.

Game 5 – Cash Crop (Triangle Area)

Bravo hadn’t played Cash Crop before but we knew they beat Ring of Fire a week earlier so we were expecting another tight game.  Cash Crop seemed to favor a huck game, which didn’t work out for them as many of the throws were well under their target or out of bounds.   Our defense did a better job of converting on turns, but we still weren’t flowing on offense.  Bravo won 15-8.

Game 6 – Voodoo (Seattle)

Our last game of the tournament was against Voodoo.  We played down on the smaller lower fields which limited our ability to stretch the field.  Voodoo hung in the game until the end of the first half, where Bravo pulled away.  Voodoo didn’t give up though, fighting back from a 14-8 deficit to score three straight points before finally falling 15-11.  Not a good way to end the tournament.

Summary:

Bravo had flashes of brilliance but ultimately did not achieve success because the team lacked a consistent offense.  Bravo’s red zone offense in particular needs the most work.

Come out this evening (Friday, July 15th) to watch Johnny Bravo take on NexGen Ultimate

What: High level ultimate
Where: The bowl at Pleasantview Field Complex in Boulder
When: 6:30, July 15th
Who: Johnny Bravo vs. NexGen
Cost: $5 at the gate to support NexGen: The traveling troupe of College All-Stars (including Bravo’s own Matty Zemel and Jimmy Mickle)

Wait, what? For more info, check out this article in the Daily Camera

Boulder Gun Club took 2nd place at the USAU Grand Master Championship this weekend.  Gun Club was the predecessor to Johnny Bravo (see our History page) and includes many former Bravo players, including Bravo’s current coach, Bob Krier.   Congratulations to Bob Krier and the rest of Boulder Gun Club!

Thanks to everyone who tried out this year.  This was easily the deepest amount of talent we’ve seen over the past several years.  Johnny Bravo is proud to welcome the following players for the 2011 season:

Karl Doege (Arkansas)

Austin Gangel (Kansas/CLX)

Austin Gregerson (Arizona/Barrio)

Ryan Heffernan (Michigan State/BAT) *Practice Player

Jake Juszak (Cal Poly/Condors)

Joe Kershner (Arizona)

Evan Padget (Colorado)

Dan Perl (Hamilton)

Ethan Pollack (Cornell)

David Popiel (Wash U/Bravo)

Jesse Roehm (Indiana/Madcow)

Owen Westbrook (Williams/Bodhi)

Gabe Stump (Colorado) *Practice Player

*** Johnny Bravo 2K11 ***
#20 Ackley, Josh
#17 Belsheim, David
#30 Bishop, Clark
#15 Cohee, Jeff
#8 Doege, Karl
#0 Durst, Joe
#16 Farrell, Ryan
#14 Forshee, Craig
#35 Gangel, Austin
#91 Gregerson, Austin
#9 Hughes, James
#56 Juszak, Jake
#77 Kershner, Joe
#24 Kloor, Jackson
#4 Mangan, Andrew
#5 McShane, Jack
#23 Mickle, Jimmy
#21 Padget, Evan
#27 Perl, Dan
#19 Pollack, Ethan
#44 Popiel, David
#3 Roehm, Jesse
#25 Salvia, Justin
#26 Westbrook, Owen
#12 White, Jordan
#13 Zemel, Matty
Heffernan, Ryan *Practice player
Stump, Gabe *Practice player

Johnny Bravo’s final tryout will be next weekend, June 18 & 19.  Email Joshua Ackley (ackleyjosh at yahoo dot com) and Ryan Farrell (rmfarr at tmail dot com) if you are interested or have any questions.

Jimmy Hughes

Johnny Bravo Merchandise is now available. All jersey’s feature the Johnny Bravo logo on Patagonia’s Capilene fabric, and are available in long or short sleeve. Sizes include small, medium, large and XL.

Colors:
Black, Royal, Red and White

Pricing:
Short Sleeve: $28
Long Sleeve: $38

Also available:
Ultivillage Club Nationals 2010 DVDs: $25
Johnny Bravo Discs: $15

To place an order, please contact Clark Bishop at bishopce@gmail.com .

The Colorado Cup 2011 field is set.

Men’s Elite
DoubleWide
Truck Stop
Johnny Bravo
Furious George
GOAT
Madison Club
Sub Zero
Boost Mobile
LA Renegade

Men’s Open
Inception
Sprawl
Space City
Rawhide
Monsoon
YCC Cutthroat
Inception Red
Prairie Fire
Interesting Tummy Birds

Johnny Bravo and Mamabird play one more time under the lights!  The game will be at Franklin Field (near the CU Football stadium) next Tuesday, April 26th at 8:00pm.

Follow Johnny Bravo on UltiVillage this year!

Play defense like a club player!

Johnny Bravo and Molly Brown are teaming up again to put on another FREE clinic on April 2^nd at Colorado Academy from 9am to 12pm.  Learn advanced defensive skills from some of the best defenders in the country.  This session will focus on advanced pulling, marking and downfield defensive techniques.

Please bring a disc, a light and dark shirt and water.  We would like to start promptly at 9am.  We look forward to seeing you on the field!

Sign up here!

Thanks to everyone who came out tonight for the first Bravo v. Bird scrimmage!  Hopefully we put on a good show and helped prepare Mamabird for their big tournament in Wilmington, NC this weekend.

The scrimmage under the lights featured plenty of deep shots, hammers and more than a few jump balls. 12 Bravo veterans and 3 tryouts took on a very athletic and deep Mamabird team.  Bravo broke Bird early and built up a 7-5 halftime lead, but Mamabird stormed back in the second half, tying it up at 7′s.   The teams traded until the lights went out, with Bravo coming out on top 12-11.   The teams will meet again in two weeks (March 29th).

Thanks to everyone who came out for the first Johnny Bravo/Molly Brown Youth Skills Clinic.  We had over 60 participants with some coming from as far as Greeley and Ft. Collins!  With such a great turnout, we are excited to announce there will be another skills clinic next month.

The first clinic focused on offensive skills with lessons on advanced catching techniques, breaking the mark, give & go’s, hammers and scoobers.  Here are a few pictures from this past weekend:

Over 60 participants in the first skills clinic

Molly Brown's Anna Schott and Johhny Bravo's Josh "Richter" Ackley on Give & Go techniques

David Belsheim and Anne Pogoriler instructing on advanced catching techniques

Bravo's Adam Zwickl on Breaking the Mark

Johnny Bravo and the University of Colorado’s Mamabird meet for the first time next week in Boulder.  Colorado Mamabird is currently ranked #2 in the country USA Ultimate’s power ranking index.   The game will begin at 8:20pm next Tuesday (March 15) at Franklin Field by the football stadium.

VS  

Johnny Bravo is partnering up with Molly Brown for the first youth skills clinic on Saturday, March 12th.  The clinic is FREE and open to all high school players and developing college players. The clinic will take place from 9am-1pm at the Colorado Academy fields.

Click here to sign up today!

Click on the pictures below to learn more about your instructors!

UltiVillage now has Johnny Bravo discs for sale on their website.  You can check them out here.

Thanks to Jackson and his parents for putting together this wonderful video of Bravo’s surreal game in the clouds against ECU at Labor Day.

Johnny Bravo – Frisbee in the Fog

The championship schedule is set.  Bravo is in pool B and will face off Thursday morning against Madcow from Columbus, OH.  You can follow Bravo’s run at the championship here

USA Ultimate Southwest Regionals  Oct 9-10 (by David Belsheim)

Scores and reports from other divisions available at USAU’s website: http://www.usaultimate.org/default.aspx

Friday:
Our team arrived at LAX around 7:30pm local time and drove 1.5 hours to the team hotel just south of Santa Barbara.  I realized that this was the hotel I had stayed at for college regionals back in 2004.  Not much had changed except the floors were now synthetic wood and flatscreens had replaced the older vacuum tube televisions.  We stopped by the nearby Albertson’s to pick up food for the next day.  We settled down for sleep around 11:45pm which would give us about 6 hours of sleep before we had to leave for the fields.  Our first game on Saturday was scheduled for 8:00am and we needed to get breakfast and prepared to run by 7:15am.

Saturday:
I woke up amped and looked at my watch.  5:00am. I wasn’t falling back to sleep on the hard wood floor so I felt like taking a shower.  My brain finally caught up to me in the shower when I realized it was 4:00am local time and my teammates would be waking up in 2 more hours.  With nothing to do but wait and think about the coming weekend, I quietly put on my compression shorts and uniform in the darkness and slid back onto the floor.  Hours passed and Richter’s phone finally woke the rest of the room up to Joey Scarbury’s “Believe it or Not” classic from the 1980s.  Nice.  We piled into the Kia Sportage, hit McDonalds and then drove 20 minutes to a baseball field in Santa Barbara which would be our field all day.

The temperature was rising from the 60s and the grass was very wet.  We couldn’t see many clouds at all and it seemed like the weather would hold. The field was sandwiched in the outfield and had several valve control boxes and concrete holes to be wary of as well as a soft patch near the middle of the field, but it was regulation sized and lined with a port-a-field. Jeff Silverman and another Condor player set up the field while we (Bravo) started our standard warm-ups.  We started with 24 players as three of our players could not make the trip to Santa Barbara.

Game 1: Johnny Bravo v. La Jolla Bags – 8:00am
The Bags were the 5th seeded team in our pool of 5, but we weren’t going to let up on them.  It was quickly apparent that they were a young team with some brand new players.  The team seemed comprised of UCSD players, and I’m pretty sure this was the second tournament ever for some of the Bags players.  The Bags struggled to reset the disc on higher stall counts.  They also lacked fundamental skills like throwing and catching, so almost half of our turnovers were from misplaced throws or drops.  The highlights of the game was a Callahan goal caught by James Hughes and Andy Stringer’s errant upline line pass (Bravo’s only turnover of the game, for which we playfully ridiculed him).  Bravo rolled to a 13-0 victory and the game took less than 40 minutes. We’d have almost an hour and a half before our next scheduled game.

Game 2: Johnny Bravo v. Inception – 10:00am
Inception is the 2nd tier team based out of Denver/Boulder.  While the team lacks the experience that Sack Lunch used to have, they do have some talented players.  Their primary deep receiver was notably absent, however.  Inception rolled in while we were warming our muscles up again.  Arizona’s Sprawl and UCLA based Recess also arrived to scout out the competition.  From before the game even started, it seemed that Inception didn’t bring the energy and focus that they did at sectionals.  They are far more talented than the final score reflects.  We played hard man-to-man defense and we were able to generate blocks and high stall count turnovers to get the disc.  We utilized space off the turn and were able to work the disc downfield without having to take many high risk choices.  Inception scored twice to make the final score 13-2 Bravo.  This game took about 50 minutes so we had more than 3 hours until our next game.  Half the team left to find sandwiches and ESPN while others went sea kayaking in the nearby Pacific Ocean.

Game 3: Johnny Bravo v. Recess – 2:00pm
My car arrived in time to catch the end of the La Jolla Bags/Sprawl game.  A young Bags player made a huge greatest attempt from 5 yards out that was fun to watch.  By now, the sun was starting to beat down on us.  We started a little low on energy and Recess hung in the game as we traded to 2-2 before finally starting our run.  We beat them with better choices and disc control.  They had quite a few athletic receivers but they lacked a dominant deep cutter and a reliable dump reset.  They scored mostly on mid-range shots and break throws where they kept the disc moving and didn’t let our defense set up.   Our offense got more time on the field but they were never challenged and were able to hit under shots for large gains all game.  Bravo won 13-5.

Game 4: Johnny Bravo v. Sprawl – 4:00pm
Sprawl was the 2nd seeded team in our pool and from watching them warm up, it was clear they weren’t going to just hand us the game.  Like us, they came here to play.  Their roster includes a mix of older and younger players, some of whom are talented enough to play at the elite club level.  Bravo’s D-line came out fired up and never let Sprawl gain any confidence.  Sprawl’s deep looks were successfully defended by Jordan White (#12) and Steve Roberts (#27).  Jimmy Mickle’s (#23) pulls set Sprawl in their own endzone many times and Sprawl had difficulty swinging the disc because their handlers didn’t initiate much movement or clear space for someone to come in.  Bravo won in convincing fashion: 13-3.  The low scoring games meant that many players played less than 20 points all day.  The offensive unit had less than 14 opportunities to receive.  We hit up a Mexican restaurant on the way back, watched some college football and caught up on sleep, knowing tomorrow would provide us with greater challenges.

Sunday:

Game 5: Johnny Bravo v. Streetgang – 9:00am
Our games today were held at a junior high school in Santa Barbara.  We arrived about an hour before the game.  San Diego was already on the field throwing.  Our jerseys for today were Johnny Red jerseys on Silver shorts.   The fields were in poor condition. Holes, trenches and dirt mounds littered each field.   We started our standard warm-up and I could feel that this was going to be a hard match.  We’d somehow managed to avoid playing Streetgang all season, and their Labor Day results prove that they are a team on the rise.  We had a general idea on what San Diego likes to do, and a general idea about who we wanted to focus on, but without previous matches we didn’t know what personnel matchups we wanted on defense.  We have a lot of young guys on Bravo and many of them have never played San Diego.  We started off on defense and converted after Streetgang hucked out the back of the endzone.  Streetgang would get their own break just a few points later to regain the lead.  At this point, it was clear that San Diego’s Steve Prodan was hurting us with his lefty forehands and we’d have to make things more difficult for him if we wanted to slow down Streetgang’s quick-strike offense.
The turning point seemed to be a multi-turn point where Bravo’s starting D-line got 4 blocks but still couldn’t convert.  After that point, Coach Krier put in many of the Bravo rookies who were able to get an important break to put Bravo up 8-7 at half.  Bravo’s O-line capitalized on the opportunity by scoring out of half to get Bravo up 9-7.  Mitch Schminke (#89) and Timmy Paymaster (#86) in particular played well.  Schminke and Paymaster proved that they still have great speed downfield and Paymaster’s layout in the endzone for a score drew some marks of appreciation from his former Condors teammates.  Bravo finally got the matchup we wanted on Streetgang’s Prodan when we put big Jimmy Mickle (#23) up against him.  Mickle got a handblock and then capitalized on his speed and height advantages downfield.   Downfield, Bravo generated anther important block against Streetgang’s speedy Ross Lenta when David Belsheim (#17) got a layout D in the back of the endzone on a 50 yard flick.  Bravo lost an opportunity to win 15-10 when we coughed up the disc on our goal-line.  Streetgang got their only break of the second half in a backfield handler miscommunication. The offense stayed on the field to give Bravo the 15-12 victory.  We learned that the schedule had been wrong and we’d have to wait 2 more hours to play in the finals.

Game 6:  Johnny Bravo v. Condors – 1:00pm

#27 Steve "Rob" Roberts

Many people have written off the Condors as a competitive team after the core of the team left to play for JAM in 2006, but the Condors remained a very tough team until they broke off their strained relationship with LA area players.  Just 3 players remain from the 2008 Condors squad, the first year the Condors failed to qualify since 1997.  The Condors have elected to replace their team with home-grown talent.  Many of their key players are either recent UCSB grads or still in school.  With such a young roster, it’s easy to forget that the Condors are one of only 4 active clubs with a UPA championship.  It hurts that they don’t get invited to play at elite tournaments anymore.  Perhaps their win over Streetgang and DGP loss in the game to go will convince TDs to accept their bids.
So… finals time after a 2 hour break.  We warmed up on the poor fields and I immediately tweaked my ankle on one of the dirt mounds.  Not a happy start for me.  We finished our warm-up and mentally prepared ourselves for the championship match.  We knew that the Condors had beaten Streetgang in a sloppy but intense game yesterday and that we’d be playing the Condors on their home turf with Condor and UPA legend Tom Kennedy in attendance.
We came out loud, fiesty, and full of energy.  After a few breaks, the Condors called an early timeout to stop our momentum but it wouldn’t help.  We punished downfield hucks with great help-defense.  Our marks forced difficult resets.  Our transition offense was efficient. Steve Roberts (#27) got the highlight of the tournament with a huge layout catch-block 4 ft high in the endzone.  Awesome? Yes. Necessary?  Maybe.  Rookies Jeff Cohee (#15) and Jackson Kloor (#24) played great shutdown defense and displayed a veteran’s confidence with the disc.  Bravo took half 8-4 and never looked back, earning 6 breaks in the second half to win 15-5.  This was Bravo’s 7th consecutive regionals championship (current record) and 11th consecutive nationals qualification.  Bravo finished the tournament with a point differential of +55 in 6 games and great momentum moving into the championship tournament.