Chess Club: Fall Season Review

2007

Our last update let everyone know that we were not going to be attending nationals in Vancouver but instead heading to a tournament known as Skylander in Edinboro, PA. The team we sent down was small and filled with rookies, but we went into the tournament with some heart and determination and came out with a 6-2 record and a 9th place finish out of 30 teams. We played games against Lehigh, Penn St, SUNY Buffalo and Rochester in the first day with the only blemish being a loss to Lehigh that was well deserved because we weren't playing very chilly O. That led to us earning a spot in the championship bracket on Sunday. Our first game was against the host alumni team. They were pretty good and we weren't able to adjust our man defense to the hucking offense that they ran. The end result was pretty lopsided and left the team with a few scores to settle. Our next game was a matchup from the previous day against Penn St. We followed our typical MO and went down big early. Went went into half down 7-2, but came together as a team to post a huge 11-10 win. We then played another tight game against an old foe from Huck of the Irish, Towson. We came out of that with an 11-9 win. Our last game we won by forfeit and thus ended the day with a 9th place finish and a long drive back to Ottawa.

An exciting piece of news for our team was that one of our captains Andy Corey earned the opportunity to play in the UPA Championships in Sarasota with GOAT his Toronto club team. We were all cheering him and the team on via score reporter and we are happy to report that GOAT finished in 3rd place for the tournament. Andy was able to bring some of that great experience back to Carleton and continues to pass it on to the team.

Another exciting event for Chess Club was the decision to play in a third fall tournament, once again in the US, this time heading for Delaware. This was an important step for the team as our season is generally over after the second weekend in October, but this year we played for an additional month. Although it was cold for our weekly practice, there was good practice attendance and we sent a full squad to compete at Showdown in Delaware. Despite terrible fields and some of the worst organization we have ever seen (who only gives out 4 L of water for an entire weekend?) we manged to post a 6th place finish out of 18 teams. It was a bit disappointing and we are sure we can improve upon this come spring. We had a chance to play a few more high level teams including Delaware and the Delaware alumni team. We learned a lot about our team from this weekend and everyone is looking forward to bringing all of our experience forward and improving upon every aspect of our game.

Thus ended our most successful fall season since the Chess Club began.

This winter we will be upping the ante and practicing twice a week in anticipation of several tournaments this spring.

We will post updates as they happen. We hope everyone had a great holidays and that your 2008 looks as promising as ours.

See the Fire. Keep the Focus.

Mid-Season Update

For all the followers and fans of Carleton Chess Club ultimate, this is our long overdue update on how things are progressing in our fall season.

The season started off well, with decent numbers at tryouts. A lot of young talent entered the Carleton program this year. However, numbers were not enough to have two teams this year and the braintrust decided to go with a single team and a small practice roster.

Our tournament schedule has been a bit up and down this fall. Chess Club was scheduled to attend the Upstate NY sectionals to gain valuable playing experience with a young team and a high level of competition. Unfortunately, with a large number of Carleton players committed to playing with local club teams there were not enough bodies to attend. However, our captain Andy Corey was able to attend with GOAT and they were able to come away with a bid for regionals (coincidentally taking place this weekend, with a chance at punching a ticket to Sarasota).

With sectionals off the schedule, the team settled in for a quick two weeks of practice together before the Canadian Eastern University Ultimate Championships (CEUUC) being held here in Ottawa. What happened next is the stuff of movies starring Kurt Russell (probably in the roll of Luke Phelan). Carleton was ranked 6th entering the tournament and that out us into a pool of McGill A, Sherbrooke, Queen's B and Ottawa B. Our schedule had us playing four straight games on what turned out to be an amazing day with both the weather (a bit windy) and the results. Our first game together was great, we came out and played together as a team and fired on all cylinders early in the morning (which has been something Carleton hasn't been able to accomplish in the past few years). We won the game 15-2. We then played Sherbrooke and despite trading some breaks early, we were able to grind out a victory 13-8. The next game was looming on our schedules as we had never been able to defeat McGill. They always beat us in important games and we were determined to turn that around. The winds really started to pick up at this point and we were playing in 30 km/h winds with stronger gusts at times. It made it very much a possession game. A bit of bad luck led to early break for McGill and despite us allowing no others in the game, we couldn't get one ourselves and lost 13-10. It was important for us to come back and secure the 2nd spot in our pool with a strong game which we did beating Ottawa B 14-8. So we finished day 1 3-1, but we were full of confidence with our great team play on both O and D lines. Everyone was looking forward to the next day.

Arriving the next morning we knew that the first game of the day was going to define our tournament. We were scheduled to play Queen's A, the powerhouse of all powerhouse university ultimate teams, first thing. A similar problem faced us. We had never defeated Queen's in the the Chess Club era of Carleton Ultimate. We knew that Queen's had lost some people from previous seasons, but with the talent they seem to attract we were sure it would be a tough game. The game started on a great note with the D line scoring two breaks. It was a good sign for us. We battled through the game and despite breaks in both directions, we pulled out the W 14-11. A huge win for Carleton and setting us up for a semi-final matchup with Torontula. We realized we were behind the eight-ball going in (seeing as Toronto is the reigning national champions and they did not have all that much turnover from last year), but we played valiantly. We went down in defeat 13-6 but it also gave us a shot at playing McGill A again for 3rd place. This time our game went a bit differently. We were more comfortable with their defensive scheme and we were able to break it seemingly at will. We rolled in this game and it was one of the better games that we have played in Carleton Chess Club history. We ended up victorious 14-4 to seal our highest finish in Easterns in four years. 3rd place!!! It was a great tournament and we came together well as a team. At this point, we were looking forward to Nationals.

Unfortunately then the bad news hit. We had to pull out of Nationals (which is taking place in Vancouver next weekend) because the costs of the tournament were becoming a bit too high. It was too bad because we were informed that we would have gone into the tournament ranked #3. However, expect to see Chess Club out west come next year.

Instead Chess Club will be heading down to an old stomping ground in Edinboro, Pennslyvania for a little tournament called Skylander. It will give us a chance to have another fall tourney and get some experience against some US squads in preparation for our spring season. Our practices have amped up in anticipation and the entire squad is looking forward to heading south to greener pastures...

One Week to Go. Are you ready?

First tryout is next Monday (September 3rd) from 5-7 PM. It will be located at Raven Road Field (between the Athletics Complex/Ice House and Bronson Ave). Closest parking lot is P3. Here's a map for anybody not familiar with campus: http://www2.carleton.ca/campus/

Please be ready to go at 5.

Make sure to bring lots of water and a dark and light shirt (please note grey does not fall within either of those two categories, bring a black and a white).

See you on the field.

Carleton Ultimate Tryouts

Carleton ChessClub: Fall 2007 Schedule

Tryouts:

September 3, 5-7 PM
September 6, 3-5 PM
September 10, 5-7 PM

Practices will be Monday evenings 5-7 PM, Wednesday mornings 7-8 AM, and Thursday afternoon 3-5 PM, on non-tournament weekends there will be a Saturday practice from 4-6 PM.

Tournaments:

September 15-16, Upstate NY Club Sectionals - Rochester, NY
September 22-23, CEUUC - TBA
October 12-14, CUUC - Vancouver, BC

Players are expected to arrive at tryouts in game shape, if you aren't already training then start now. Feel free to email Luke (lukedphlan at hotmail dot com) if you're unsure of what game shape means, or how you can do your best to get there in a little over a month. We most definitely aren't experts, but we certainly can pretend to be.

Good luck to everyone playing at Nationals next week, and start/keep training hard to everyone else. Look forward to seeing you all shortly.

Carleton Ultimate: Fall 2007

Men,

Carleton Ultimate is gearing up for it's fourth season, we expect this fall to be our most successful yet. Tryouts will begin in early September, details on dates and times are coming soon so check here frequently for updates.

If you know anyone coming to Carleton who you think might be interested in playing for the Open team this fall, please encourage them to contact us.

If you are planning on tryout out/returning in September 2007 please email Andy Corey and/or Luke Phelan at:

carleton.ultimate@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you, and seeing you in September.

Andy and Luke

Just registered

We have officially registered in the blog system, plans are to start using this full time starting in January 2007, in time for indoor training.

First though, we have Nationals this coming weekend. Party at minglewoods saturday night!

See the fire, Keep the focus!!
Carleton on three!

See the fire, Keep the focus

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