Conferences (Formerly Sectionals)

Because the new format has a separate conference for big and small schools (D-I and D-III), our conference tournament had only 5 teams, Michigan, MSU, CMU, EMU, and WMU. On Saturday, we had pool play, and won all our games handily, with no team scoring more than 7 points.

However, Michigan State rested a number of their starters in that game, so we did not see the best of them. The weather was mid to high 40’s and it was raining/snowing most of the time. Basically, it was your typical Michigan sectionals.

On Sunday, the top 4 (of 5) teams played in bracket play. The weather completely dictated the style of play with a pretty consistent 20mph wind. We smoked Western in the first game using a lot of zone and hucks. In the finals against State, we took a 7-2 lead using the same strategy. Then, State went on a 7 point run, to win 9-7 as hard cap went on.

Since our conference only has 2 bids to regionals, we then had to play in a second place game against Western. Though we had soundly beaten them earlier in the day, they had given us trouble on Saturday, with the game getting as close as 6-5 us. Cold and tired, we started off the game in a funk. Western jumped out to a 4-2 lead, and with huge winds, every point meant more, since the game was destined to get hard-capped early.

With our season on the line, we gave everything we had, having some of the older dudes play many points in a row and using a semi-huck-to-zone approach (and working the disc when we got closer to the endzone). We fought back to tie the score 4-4, but then Western scored the next point and forced a turn on the following point. We got the disc back, scored it, and then never looked back, going on a scoring run of 3 or 4, and winning the game on hard cap 11-6.

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