Calvin College, Kalamazoo College, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Grand Valley State University, Kuyper College, Kettering University and the host Hope College all brought teams to compete.
With the UPA college sectionals tournament scheduled for the following weekend, the tournament held special importance for the teams attending. The tournament was a virtual preview of the following weekend with only a few teams missing. Both Magnum, from the University of Michigan and Burning Couch from Michigan State University. These teams usually earn the top two bids for regionals each year.
More importantly, Michigan B was also absent. They earned the third bid for regionals in the 2009 sectionals tournament and will likely be in close running with several of the colleges in attendance yesterday for the third and newly-acquired fourth bids to regionals this year.
The tournament kicked off with pool play at 9:30 a.m. There were two pools of four teams each. Pool A contained Calvin, Eastern, Kuyper and Grand Valley. Pool B contained Hope, Kalamazoo, Kettering and Western.
The first game had relatively light wind and there were several upwind points from several different teams. The two notable games were Western blowing out host, Hope, 12-6 and Eastern taking Calvin to universe point, winning 10-9. Rounds two and three both saw Calvin, Hope, Eastern and Western all winning their respective games. This set up a cross-pool match up of the four top teams at the tournament.
The first seed of pool A, Eastern, took on the second seed of pool B, Hope, and the first seed of pool B, Western took on the second seed of pool A, Calvin, in game one of the the first-place bracket. Meanwhile, Kuyper took on Kettering and Grand Valley took on Kalamazoo. After winning out in their respective pools, both one seeds fell by 1 point. The low scores of these games, 7-6 and 9-8, show both how evenly matched the teams were and how bad the wind was becoming. In the lower bracket Kuyper beat Kettering, setting up a rematch with Grand Valley who also advanced to the fifth place game.
The final game of the day saw the wind finally starting to die down. Calvin took advantage of this, blowing out host, Hope, 15-8 with multiple upwind points. Western beat Eastern by 2 points after going up one upwind break. Meanwhile, Grand Valley beat Kuyper by 1 point in the rematch game, earning themselves fifth place and restoring a bit of team pride.
Check out the video below for some select points from the tournament. Orange is Hope and Kettering is grey in the first two points. In the next few Calvin is red and white is Eastern. The last is Western in red facing Kettering. Note the pervasive sound of the wind throughout.
Official UPA scores.
Official UPA rankings.
-MD
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