Johnny Bravo Ultimate

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.

Bravo defeated the Santa Barbara Condors 15-5 to win the Southwest Open Regional Tournament this past weekend.  Bravo has the longest active streak of Regionals championships in the country with 7 straight and will extend the team’s record of nationals appearances to 11 straight.

Bravo was missing veterans Steve Rouisse (#9), Andrew Mangan (#4) and Clark Bishop (#30), but the team was able fight off a determined Streetgang and a young Condors team for the win.    With 16 days until the team travels to Sarasota, Bravo has just two weeks to regroup and refocus for the national championship.

Johnny Bravo is headed to Santa Barbara, CA this weekend to qualify for the national championship.  Bravo will face stiff competition from San Diego’s Streetgang, who rolled through SoCal Sectionals a few weeks ago.

Tournament scores will be reported on the USAU Southwest Regionals score reporter: here