2000 East New England Div II. Club Sectionals

Date - October 1, 2000
Where - Devens, MA
Official Site - N/A
Pictures - Here

The Rundown
Thank's to 2000-2001 captain Chris Melfi for the rundown:

WPI competed in Open Sectionals this past weekend -- the beginning of the run for the national championship that ends in late October. We sent two teams to Devens, Mass, hoping to learn, get experience, and above all, have a blast. Unfortunately, I can't speak for how the B team played because I was only able to watch a couple points in between games. Hopefully someone will be able to fill in the details. But the A team's day went like this:

1st game: Harvard B
RESULT: WPI 11-6

Harvard B is a relatively inexperienced team that I'm sure was at the tournament for the same reasons we were, and it showed. We started out a big disorganized with a little clogging in the lanes against their man D, but that improved by the second half. Nice deep cuts by Jon and Jay resulted in a couple of completed hucks. Were it not for a few questionable calls by one of their players and the fact that Steve got a
knee in his hip that pretty much put him out of action for the rest of the day, this would have been a great game!

2nd game: S.O.L. (UNH)
RESULT: SOL 13-7

I can just see the headlines for this game: S.O.L Player Distracts WPI's Melfi During Headstand Contest, S.O.L Wins Pull. Yup, I lost the headstand contest for pull and I'm sure that just so demoralized us that we couldn't win the game. No, seriously, UNH played a decent game, and we weren't able to capitalize enough on the relatively loose zone they ran against us. Nevertheless, this game was the beginning of an *awesome* day of pop cuts, especially by all of our freshmen. UNH had a couple of great layout grabs and d's that deserve mention in spirit.

3rd game: BU B
RESULT: WPI 13-3

This game was all WPI. We shot out to take half 7-0 against this team of newbies, and continued our romp up until things got a little sloppy at the end. Mark had an incredible toe-the-line-diving/leaning catch for a score off of a huck. We had the flow working like crazy in this game. Dan was roaching their defenders with his middle cuts, and great, hard D by just about everyone were definite factors.

4th game: Recreational Chemistry
RESULT: Recreational Chemistry 13-2

After a bye round, we warmed up for this game, which we knew would be tough. This was a team of a bunch of very experienced players who made their cuts count and didn't waste many opportunities. They threw a clam/zone type thing at us most of the time and after a while we got the hang of it and the handlers were able to work it up field with the help of our pops (yet again!). I threw away at least 3 passes that would have been scores due to impatience, but overall we played very well considering our opponents.

FINAL RESULT: 2-2, one headstand contest lost, no major injuries!

I just have to mention how everything seemed to come together yesterday. We were making great continuation cuts and everyone was seeing the holes in each zone we faced. The freshmen are picking the game up MUCH faster than I remember picking it up, and with tournaments like this that give us great experience, we are going to be a much better team than in the past couple of years. I'm very happy with our result! YEAH BUS!

Someone fill in the details of how the B team did....I saw at least one layout grab for a score by Dan H. against Harvard A!

Chris ("There's nothing wrong with my hat!") Melfi

A-Team Results (2-2)
Win over Harvard B, score 11-6
Loss to University of New Hampshire, score 7-13
Win over Boston University B, score 13-3
Loss to Recreational Chemisty, score 2-13

B-Team Results (0-5)
Loss to Harvard A
Loss to Stoned Clown
Loss to Tufts B
Loss to Holy Cross
Loss to Yeuthanasia