Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Elite Juniors Tourney Announced in Georgia

The Paideia Cup, as it is called has recently been announced on rsd as an "elite juniors tournament".

Ok, interesting enough, its got all the good markings of a great tournament. Solid perennial contender as the hosting team, held in warm climate for April, 8 teams - perhaps the 8 best in the country if managable.

But what sets it apart, why am i bringing it up here? Because it is free.

thats right, you heard it, i wrote it - free.

all that is required is a $200 deposit, a check which according to Hunter A. the poster on rsd - will be "ripped up in front of you when you arrive at the fields"

this my friends, and readers of high school ultimate news, is beautiful. this is where the action is. the team has decided to host a tournament where the only cost for the teams attending is travel to the tournament area.

surely this will enable the most elite high school teams in the country a better chance at attending.

i personally think this is an awesome idea, and kudos to Hunter and Michael Baccarini (Paideia) for pulling it off.

now is where you come in - there are hundreds of high school teams in the country, who are the top eight? who will end up traveling to georgia for what may be a preview of easterns or westerns? amherst? churchill? pensbury? madison?

in the coming weeks the site will be releasing polls ever so often of our contributors as to who they believe are the top teams in the nation. PlayUltimate National Survey... or idk, we'll tack on a catchy name to it which conforms to an even sweeter acronym later. point being - from the definitive source in high school ultimate you will have a recurring poll of the best teams in the nation.

who will take home the Paideia Cup? you tell us.


ps - if you are from the Georgia area, or play for paideia etc, we are currently looking for a contributor(s) from the region, contact the site at playultimateblog @ gmail.com for more information

we definitely want this tournament covered in person, so if you are at all interested, drop us a line.

11 comments:

McCabe said...

ill start the ball rolling - i think amherst is going to make the trip, and seeing how pensbury traveled in the fall, id put some money on them making a bid.

anyone else have thoughts? and captains or coaches of teams who are considering attending?

Anonymous said...

think seattle drizzle minus the seniors, plus some awesome younger kids, they may be there depending class overseas trips or not.

Nick Kaczmarek said...

Pittsburgh's youth club team may be heading down to this as well. They'd be without the graduating players, but would add some of the 2006 recruits (of whom there are a ton).

Anyways, I've also heard that an club teams from Oregon and Chicago are possibly coming as well as high school teams from Ohio and North Carolina.

Lukester said...

I would like some clarification on this tourney... The listing calls for the "Top 8 youth ultimate programs nationally", and from the comments above it seems that by "programs" teams are not limited to taking players from their own school? If this is true, this is not a preview of Westerns and Easterns, but of the Youth Club National Tournament happening later in the summer.

I know we at Churchill High School in Eugene, OR have moved our state tournament dates for our open/womens division from apr 22/23 to the 29/30 to accomodate a few teams here in Oregon who didn't ike the 22/23 date. That opens our school along with South Eugene (tied for 3rd in the open division last year at Westerns) up for a tournament that weekend.

With Westerns happening a month later in Boulder, CO, and it already being a significant journey for our students and parents to swallow (we are still a very young program with our own administration only now realizing we have a team), I'm not sure the likelyhood of attending something even further away in Georgia. But, there could be a much higher likelyhood of an Oregon Club team attending, and I know that I personally would make the journey with the team. Having it be "club" vs. "school" would in my limited perspective, give a better chance for Oregon to attend, but at the same time, it doesn't give the preview to Westerns & Easterns as i personally would like to see. I would love to be able to take our Churchill OPEN team across the nation and pit them against the likes of Amherst and others who have had incredible programs for a number of years. It would be great for our team too since we will be graduating only one single female come june, meaning our Churchill squad will be even better next year.

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling Amherst will take this tourney with the hardest match up for them being the Hosting team. With Grant, Ollie, and some kid named George we could see some good things from the paideia. Also it seems like CHS while having a slow start in the fall will look pretty solid, as will pennsbury.

Club Juniors teams should not be allowed since it is a spring high school tourney used to help a team get ready for the amherst tourney as well as easterns and westerns.

Adam

Nick Kaczmarek said...

So I was a bit stunned when my e-mail asking if club teams were allowed was answered with a yes. I assumed it would simply be for HS teams warming up for their late season tournament runs.

It definitely will be weird having club and high school teams there. The club teams will be likely treating it as a pre-season tournament - bringing a talented squad, but working more on getting people geared up to start their season - while high school teams will be looking to gear up for Easterns and Westerns. Kind of a wide range of goals comes out of that.

So for the best high school teams in the nation, they will get pushed harder than they would if only HS teams came, but some lesser programs may not make it in.

Lukester said...

I agree fully with nick here. tonight i will be spending time with my captains, parent team, and assistant coach talking about the upcoming season and what tournaments we would like to attend. I personally would really like to push for a tournament of this caliber with our team, but we're not going to attend as a single high school to play against club teams... amherst did that last year at the Youth Club National Tournament in Blaine, MN and proved they have the depth and program to do that. we're an obscure public high school with a program that is barely 5 years old. we also do not have the experienced players that these programs are able to retain with vibrant middle school programs. we only just started our middle school programs here, meaning we'll be where seattle was 10 years ago... despite all the history and legacy that Eugene, OR has had in ultimate, the community has never embraced juniors ultimate. we are only now starting to make a mark in our region and in the last two years have put ourselves on the map with our open team.
Simply put, i'm not interest in flying across the country with our players who are already struggling with meeting the financial commitments that Westerns will bring.
I could be wrong. Our players might want to attend regardless of the current requirements. Our players might also want to form a club team as they did this last summer and will be doing this weekend and attend as it seems Drizzle from Seattle will.
I will let you all know the fate of the Churchill Team (still ranked number one junior team in the nation as of today) later this weekend.

Mike Mullen said...

Hey all,

Northwest School was invited to this tournament but we were logistically and financially unable to attend. As anyone who has tried to travel on a plane with a high school team knows, it is very difficult and there are quite often limitations placed on travel by the schools. It is the price to be paid for being a school recognized team. And of course these kids are student athletes with limited resources and limited time.

If a team comes from Seattle it will be Moho, not Drizzle. Drizzle is the YCC team. Moho is a training program and the Moho teams are made up of people who can make the trip, but not necessarily the best players from the youth scene in Seattle. I would pleased, but surprised if a team from Seattle made the trip. Most of the top players are saving their money for Westerns, YCC, and/or Worlds.

I give props to Paideia for covering so many of the costs for the tournament, but it is simply too difficult for high school teams to travel across the country. I don't think there has ever been a high school tournament with all the best high school teams in the country attending and I don't think there ever will. I do think it is possible in time with the YCC to have all the best clubs teams at a tournament sooner rather than later.

I'm sure whoever does attend the Paideia tournament will have a great time and that there will be some amazing high school ultimate played.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

It will be intersting to see how all of these teams match-up. From what I've heard, Paidea is a fairly young team, and Amherst is more expierienced. I hope for a Paidea/Amherst game. I was talking to a Paidea alum, and he said that Stubbs is the anchor of the team and that team moral should be great. He did say though that they lack some height(4 total, only 3 guys that have palyed before). I'm sure Baccarini will have their team in shape for this tournament.

Anonymous said...

Any locals (east) coming? I had heard McCallie might go. They just placed third in terminus, losing to Paideia by 6. Not bad for a club team...

Anonymous said...

McCallie(TN), Woodward(GA), CHUF(NC), . Woodward was a late addition due to a team dropping out. Should be a very competitive tournament!