In lieu of writing another summary, I've included just the Metro East Regionals Preview that I wrote for the USAU below, which can be found athttp://www.usaultimate.org/news/preview-2011-college-womens-regionals-metro-east/.
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It’s been two weeks since Conferences and the Metro East Region is gearing up for Regionals in Princeton, New Jersey this weekend. Conferences in the ME Region seemed to be pretty predictable with Ottawa and Cornell handily taking 1 and 2 in the Western New York Conference and UConn and NYU taking the top spots for the Eastern Metro East Conference. EME faced a lot of upwind/downwind games and had a considerable amount of jockeying for the top spots with Rutgers and Yale coming in close behind. There could definitely be a battle at the top this weekend considering that there is only one bid to Nationals on the line – but Ottawa is the favored team at this point.
The revised regions for the 2011 College Series have definitely shaken up the Metro East by removing some of the best teams in the Region, particularly Maryland and Pittsburgh who earned the coveted bids to Nationals in Wisconsin last year. Ottawa is looking like the prime team to fill in this void and represent the Metro East in Boulder; but the Lady Gee Gees are being realistic about the negative side of seeing a smaller pool of competition. As Captain Kathryn Pohran has explained, “While the idea that some of the tougher competition will be gone is good, the fact that there is now only one bid from our region does not change our game plan. We still want to go in with the most competitive attitude - we know that nothing is going to be given to us and we have to work to get it as there are no second chances.” The other teams in the region are more than aware of this as well, preparing themselves for some tight games in which anything can happen.
Shockingly, it seems that the top two teams from each Conference have not played each other during the spring season. All four teams have been diversifying their playbooks, looking to throw new defenses to surprise unsuspecting teams – and in turn trying to prepare their offenses to adapt to whatever is thrown back at them. UConn showed off a pretty impressive zone that stifled NYU’s upwind game twice at Conferences and Ottawa has specifically been working on their Zone O at practices lately in order to counteract the numerous zones that have been thrown at them. With so many competitive teams trying to figure each other out so late in the season, there are bound to be some interesting games that require a lot of quick thinking. Some of the close games may come down to the team best able to adapt to these conditions which will be a true, and exciting to watch, test of preparation and mental fitness.
As the Metro East teams ramp up their intensity this week, they are looking forward to what should be a gorgeous weekend of competitive ultimate with sunny skies and warm weather. It should be an exciting weekend for players and spectators alike with a tight race to the top and a single-elimination bracket on Sunday that can only end with one team headed to Boulder.
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