UPA SCORE REPORTER

Girls Division Saturday May 17
by Brock Stevens

Final Round of Pool play

Pool A

Northwest goes 4-0 in pool play with a 15-2 win over Hopkins. In the other game Minneapolis South makes it a three-way tie for third with a 10-5 win over Lakewood.  Lakewood loses out advancing to the championship bracket with a (-4) point differential to Hopkins (0), and South’s (+4). South’s big thrower Frieda Manthei  said, “Today playing without the wind was a highlight for me. I was just so happy.” Pool A standings:  Northwest 4-0, Lakeside 3-1, South 1-3, Hopkins 1-3, Lakewood 1-3.

Pool B

Nathan wins the pool with a dominating 13-3 win over Cathedral. “We just played outstanding starting the day,” Nathan Hale coach Chris “Fozz” Forsberg said, “after our opening round loss Saturday morning we did what we had to do to win our pool.”  Cretin-Derham gets a big morale boosting win over Seattle Academy, 11-8. Down 6-5 Raging Safari goes on a four-point run with the senior connection of Natalie De Palma hitting big left-handed hucks to Maeve Dwyer three times in a row for scores. They go on to win 11-8. “I have really liked playing with Maeve,” DePalma said, “Were always on the same page. It seems like we have one brain between us.”  Meanwhile, Alameda secures the fourth and final pool B quarterfinals spot with a 13-1 win over Robbinsdale Armstrong. Final standings: Nathan Hale 4-1, Cathedral 4-1, Seattle Academy 3-2, Alameda 2-3, Cretin Derham, 2-3, Robbinsdale 0-5.

Quarterfinals

Northwest 14-5 over Alameda
As they did all weekend the gals in the hot pink shorts threw all their enthusiasm and energy into every point but it wasn’t quite enough against a deep and experienced Northwest squad.  As she did all weekend Marisa Rafter would throw deep forehands and Annie Paulukonis would be just laying out with no thought of injury to get the catch. “I just love to run them (Rafter throws) down,” Paulukonis said. “This has been just a really fun weekend.” (photo Perry Nacionales)

Seattle Academy 15  Lakeside 6
It was a hard fought first half between the two Seattle squads.  Seattle took the half 8-5. In the second half there zone O picked it up a notch and they cruised to the win.

Nathan Hale 15, Hopkins 3
The Raiders continued its morning domination of Minnesota squads jumping out to a 7-0 lead on its way to a semifinal berth.

Cathedral 15, Minneapolis South 13
It was the fourth May meeting between these two Minnesota squads. South won the first one by a point and Cathedral dominated the next two , 13-7 and 13-5. Again it looked like Cathedral would take it to Squall racing out to an 8-3 halftime lead. South then roared back pulling to within two at 12-10. “We changed our mentality after falling behind,” South’s Manthei said, “ we didn’t pay attention to the score we just played as hard as we could and had fun.” Cathedral’s Ali Lanz got her team back on track when got off another big throw which Kari Neutlzing tracked down who then threw to Cami Nelson for the score. South scored the next two points with a Brenna Kruse score making it 13-12. The Lanz-Nelson combo then brought Cathedral to game point. Nelson snagged the score over a shorter South defender.  On the next point South was able to convert a Geneva Martin D for a score. Martin hit Kruse who threw it to Emily Ragan, who threw it to Aly Fasset-Carman for the score. Fasset-Carman was manning the deep position in the South zone throughout the game and made a number of big d’s.  Cathedral then finally pulled out the win with Nelson once again pulling down a Lanz huck. She then threw a cross-field forehand to Kaylyn Leither  for the game winning score.

Semifinals

Nathan Hale 15, Seattle Academy 7
At the start it looks like this will be a classic battle with the teams trading off the first eight points of the game to make it 4-4. The raiders are up 8-5 at the half. They then dominate the second half. Callie Mah has three big d’s in the game. Sophomore Kelsey Radwick scores three times as does freshman Naimi “Ambi” Antolin. Junior Barbara Hoover is on the throwing end of most of them with six assists in the game. (photo Perry Nacionales)

Northwest 15, Cathedral 10
The balanced Northwest Fire attack goes out to a 7-4 lead. Cathedral then counters with a three point run to tie it at seven. Northwest then counters with four point run of its own to make it 11-7. Cathedral  closes to with three at 11-8 and 12-9 but can get no closer and a Anna Reed-Julia Snyder give and go down the sideline closes out the game. Snyder has seven assists in the game, Reed three. Lindsey Miller and Lani Nguyen each get three scores. For Cathedral three was the statistically significant number with No. 3 Grace Balfanz getting three d’s, Neutzling, Nelson, and Lanz getting three assists. Lanz three d’s and Nelson and Leither three goals.

Finals
Nathan Hale 12, Northwest 11

A classic final capped off the 2009 Girls Westerns.

In the battle between Seattle archrivals,  Nathan Hale was looking for revenge after getting beaten twice this spring by Northwest, once in league play (a come-from-behind universe point win)and again in the Washington High School championships, 10-4. The Raiders raced out to a 6-1 lead. Then at 7-3 was a point not to be remembered with three different girls going down. Hale’s Tallis Radwick took a big hit, after shaking it off she got back up to continue playing, then there was a big pile up in the end zone with the Raiders Katie Fellows getting the worst of it. “I was trying to avoid Tallis because she’s only a freshman and I’m a senior when I went down awkwardly on the outside of my left knee,” Fellows said while limping around a half hour after the game, “I sprained my ACL, but I think I’ll be all right.” After about a ten minute delay (eight minutes were added to official game time, soft cap and hard cap) play resumed. Hale quickly scored to take the half, 8-3.

After a quick halftime Northwest was determined to make a game of it scoring three of the next four points. Soon its 11-7 when Antolin makes a nice end zone cut to the cone and Rachel Karpelowitz hits here for the score.  Less than ten minutes to hard cap.  A Jessica Leslie to Reed connection and a Micheala Fallon to Leslie score (10 different players scored and eight different players had an assist for Northwest in the game) make it 11-9 with less than three minutes to hard cap. Some tough D causes a Raiders turnover and Northwest swiftly moves the disc up the field and Kate Benjamin connects with Carey Hert just before the hard cap. Then we come to universe point when Hert throws to Leslie for the score. Then in a dramatic final point in which Hale gets turned back twice from victory with Miller d’ing Mah and Hert  d’ing Sutter. Hale gets the disc back once more and Karpelowitz throws it into the end zone with her two quick underclassman racing for it and Fallon ready to defend. Fallon tips it and Antolin then dives for it and grabs hold of it for the game winning score. “I didn’t know I was in the end zone,” Antolin said, “My goodness, I’m so happy."


Girls' Division Saturday May 16

By Brock Stevens

It was a cold and blustery start to the tournament with game time temperatures for the first round at 40 degrees with a stiff west wind.

Pool A

The wind gets the better of the four lower seeded teams in the pool resulting in Lakeside beating Lakewood 9-8 and Hopkins beating Minneapolis South 8-7 with no upwind points scored.  Late in the Lakeside-Lakewood game Lakewood has one outstanding chance to score upwind getting the disk two yards from the end zone off an Ola Czastkiewicz hand block, but a stout Lakeside defense held. A couple more exchanges of the disk and then Lakeside’s Lucia Childs-Walker gets a D and the team from Seattle scores the game winning goal with Katie Rodihan hitting Devon Thorsell. (photo Perry Nacionales)

Pool B

In pool B Cathedral and Cretin-Derham were able to score an upwind goal the first chance they got and were able to maintain the break throughout their games. Cathedral went on to beat Alameda 11-6 while Cretin Derham beat Robbinsdale Armstrong 8-6.  Cathedral moved the disc quite well upwind with  their go to thrower Ali Lanz (the only senior on the team) and receiver Cami Nelson. Lanz had five assists in the game and Nelson six goals. Alameda got great efforts on defense from Marisa Rafter, Natalie Mckee and Annie Paulukonis with seven, five and three D’s, respectively. Rafter also had all the assists for Alameda. She connected with Mckee five times.  In the third game in the pool two teams from Seattle fought each other and the wind throughout. The wind beat them both as it did in A pool, no break scores, and Seattle Academy beats Nathan Hale 10-9. Hale’s Kelsey Radwick pulls down three scores in the game.

Second Round

Pool A

The top-seed in the tournament, Northwest School, takes the field for the first time and beats Lakeside 7-5 while Lakewood gets a 9-8 win over Hopkins. Christina Mickle throws the game winning score to Czastkiewicz. Lakeside captains Rodihan and MacKenzie  Ruoff say that they always play Northwest tough . Rodihan said, “it is always fun to play them."

Pool B

Cathedral shows once again they may be under seeded and takes a 10-7 win over Seattle Academy. Cathedral takes the half, 7-5, with an upwind score. Lanz gets a big D, a big huck, and an assist (hitting Grace Balfanz for the score) on the point. Bottom-seed Armstrong once again shows a lot of heart, sometimes playing with only six players on the field,  but comes up one point short (10-9) against top pool B seed Nathan Hale. Alyssa Carlough is even able to score a Callahan.  In the final game of the morning it is Alameda growing in confidence with a 10-7 upset of Cretin-Derham. Alameda coach Vi Le said, “We realized that we couldn’t worry about the wind and ran our offense. We had good flow with our vertical stack.” Rafter again led the way with five assists in the game. Also Paulukonis was throwing herself all over the field coming up with big D’s and big catches. (photo Perry Nacionales)

Third Round

Pool A

Northwest beats Lakewood 9-1 with Anna Reed dominating the game. The Lakewood squad complimented her on some sick layout D’s and catches. Clara Boland could not connect enough times with her big hucks to keep the game respectable. In the other Pool A game it is Lakeside’s Thorsell coming up with the winning score on a Callahan, 8-7. Rodihan said that score and Sally Landefeld’s Callahan score in the previous round were some of the highlights of the day for Lakeside.

Pool B

Alameda’s Rafter’s big game against Nathan Hale, throwing every goal for her team, wasn’t enough and the team from California falls 9-8 when Nathan Hale finally scores an upwind point point against the wicked west wind. They score moving the disc down the field with a three or four 10-yard passes amongst Shira Stern, Amanda Kostic, and Tallis Radwick. Seattle Academy dominates Robbinsdale 12-2 with freshman Kirstie Barton dominating play with five assists in the 12-2 triumph. Armstrong’s coach Christie Dosch said they are the best team that we have seen this year. Finally, Cathedral improves to 3-0 with a 10-7 win over Cretin-Derham. “ I think we used the wind to our advantage all day,” lone Cathedral senior Lanz said. 

Fourth Round

Pool A

Hopkins’ Emma Peaslee continued her outstanding play (16 assists and 14 D’s in three games) but it isn’t quite enough in their game against Lakeside and they fall 10-8. South’s Aly Fasset-Carman is all over the field against Northwest but her disruptive 10 D’s are not quite enough for Squall to upend the top-seeded team, 9-4.

Pool B

Nathan Hale’s Kostic and Cretin-Derham’s Natalie De Palma go throw for throw in a barn-burner of a game . De Palma gets off a couple of beautiful left-handed hucks of over 40 yards for a couple of scores but it isn’t quite enough and the Seattle squad finishes the day 3-1 with a 13-10 win. Seattle Academy also finishes 3-1 on the day with a 9-8 win over Alameda with Barton and Emma Kahle throwing the scores and Katie Reynolds on the receiving end. Cathedral finishes off the day with a 12-5 win over AU Gold. This sets up the chance for a three-way first place tie in the pool if Hale beats Cathedral in the final round of pool play tomorrow and Seattle Academy beats Cretin-Derham.  With point differential in games played against each other Seattle Academy at minus two it is out of the running for the top spot,  and Nathan Hale has to win by four points or more to take the pool.