Ultimate team coordinator Andy Bryn is hoping that his team’s uneven play in last weekend’s “Trouble In Vegas” tournament stays in Vegas.
The club team, nicknamed EGO and ranked seventh in the nation, went 3-4 in their season-opening tournament held last weekend in Las Vegas, Nev., which boasts itself to be the “Best and worst idea, ever.” The tournament hosted 80 teams in the men’s open division alone, with 124 teams, including women, competing overall. The veteran team’s biggest victories over Carleton and Colorado were overshadowed by tight losses to Illinois (twice), Whitman and Wisconsin.
“Honestly, it wasn’t our best tournament. We didn’t play well in some of the bigger games,” said Bryn. “We beat some big teams but in the games that mattered to proceed we didn’t step up to the plate.”
The team is mostly looking forward to its spring season, when its biggest tournaments – sectionals, regionals and nationals – are held. It’s not surprising then that players were encouraged by their consistent effort, even though the record might have showed otherwise.
“I don’t think it was as definitive as the record shows,” said sophomore Kevin Minderhout. “Our first game we lost to Illinois, and that was a game where we started out in the lead the whole game until the very last point. As far as the losses go, they weren’t blowouts.”
The “most disappointing” loss of the weekend for Bryn was a 10-9 decision to rival Whitman College of Walla Walla, Wash., which proved to be the elimination game for Oregon.
On Friday, EGO lost to Illinois 14-13, beat British Columbia 11-9 and upended Colorado, runner-up in last year’s national championship game, 13-10. But of its next four games, played on Saturday and Sunday, Oregon won only one game, albeit against powerhouse Carleton College.
“To be able to play with them was a big step for us,” said Bryn.
Until a tournament on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on March 1-2, the team won’t have any matches. Minderhout considers the two-day Stanford tournament to be one of the team’s top tests of the season, and EGO advanced to the semifinals last season. The three-year-old Las Vegas tournament will be a building block for the future tournaments, said Minderhout, and the team, which has fewer members than usual this year, will focus on conditioning.
“The three days took a big toll on everybody that was playing there,” said Minderhout. “We’re probably going to amp up our conditioning, because it turns out tournaments are just completely taxing, physically.”
Men’s Hockey receives regional bid
The first-place Duck men’s hockey team will be able to step onto the ice at the Pac-8 tournament tomorrow knowing they have a spot in the American Collegiate Hockey Association regional tournament, guaranteed.
The Ducks earned the tenth and final spot for the West region tournament, held Feb. 22-23 in Oakland, Calif. They will open the tournament against third-ranked Colorado State.
It is the second consecutive year the Ducks have made the regional tournament.
“The season just keeps going,” said Cal Brackin. “I think this puts our whole season into focus.”
Brackin, who is one of two current Duck players to have won a Pac-8 tournament title, doesn’t believe the team will take this weekend’s tournament any less seriously knowing the regional bid is in hand.
“Everybody is going to have that number one objective,” said Brackin. “Now it’s Pac-8, it was stolen from us two straight years, so we have to win it.”
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