Sunday began cool and never really warmed up as Saturday had.  The temperature never reached 60 and that, matched with a steady breeze, made for some chilly sidelines. 

No surprises in the Rockhurst - Northwest School quarterfinals game.  After Rockhurst upset Lakeside in the prequarters, their path to the semis went through The Northwest School.  Jeremy Norden and his crew busted out of the gates fast to take half 8-1 before the other quarterfinal games had reached their fifth point.  In what looked like practice and energy conservation, The Northwest School then began mixing up their D a bit and resting their star studded starting seven.  Rockhurst was able to put up five points, a few of which were on a somewhat casual zone defense applied by The Northwest School.

Seattle Academy had earned the right to play Nathan Hale in their quarterfinal match up.  Nathan Hale took immediate advantage of Seattle Academy's zone D to create an early three-point lead.  For the remainder of the game, it felt like the game wanted to be close, but Nathan Hale would always come up with a big play to expand on their lead.  After Seattle scored the first point after half to make it 8-5, Nathan Hale hurled a floaty backhand into triple coverage, but Senior Chris Hylander rose above the crowd alone and brought down the goal to make it 9-5.  And later, when Seattle Academy appeared to make their one last push for a comeback, Nathan Hale senior Ian Davison got a monster point block that Hale followed up with a score to expand their lead to 13-7, which was enough to chop the legs out from under their opponent.  They would go on to win 15-7.

In tightest quarterfinal contest, South Eugene faced first timers to UPA Westerns, Cathedral.  South Eugene's early zone D was no match for Cathedral and the game began with the teams trading the first six points.  South Eugene handler Ivan Becker-Wayman explained their zone D weakness was due to the team feeling "kind of tired this morning and still a little groggy."  The transition to man D immediately jump started the defensive intensity, inspiring a hand block by Becker-Wayman.  South Eugene went on to take half 8-4.  Trading points the second half resulted in a four-point margin of victory for South Eugene.

In what looked like it would be the most exciting quarterfinal game, Cretin Durham Hall and Churchill traded for the first 12 points of the game.  At 6-6, CDH's Sean Scullin's misfired on a huck.  And from there, what had been a very possession game, suddenly had some quick turns and fast breaks.  Junior Matt Vik got the disc right back for CDH with a foot block, but it was quickly followed by a CDH drop and a Churchill huck for a goal.  Churchill had the advantage for the first time in the game it was all they needed.  From that point forward, Churchill took over, scoring the next five and nine of the last 11 with handler weaving and hucking to set up another battle with cross town rival South Eugene in the semifinals.

Nathan Hale was the next on the list to take on powerhouse Northwest School.  As if it weren't already a big uphill battle for them, Nathan Hale lost Senior stud Allan Laviolette just five points into the game.  After rising up to dig a huck out of the air on D, he landed awkwardly and collapsed to the ground in what appeared to be a bad knee injury.  After a long injury time out and Laviolette being carted off the field, Northwest was able to score the point to take a 4-2 lead.

The next point, a blady huck from Northwest superstar Casey Ikeda was saved with a layout catch for a goal.  At 5-2, Northwest dropped discs in the endzone and had two additional throwaways to the goal when Nathan Hale finally converted the Northwest turns into a goal of their own.  Northwest, obviously upset by what might have been the only 3+ turnover point their entire tournament, called a time out to discuss. 

Out of the timeout, Jeremy Norden got the disc on an upline cut, wound up, and hucked what looked to be an uncatchable laser toward Ikeda.  Ikeda found a new gear and shocked the crowd with the catch of the tournament.  He quickly bounced to his feet and dished a backhand for an easy scored, and more fuel for the already cheering crowd.

Northwest wins half, which turned out to be an incredibly long break, which led to the game to being capped. 

The second half story was some casual D by both teams and Northwest really transitioning to a conservative offense, converting on all but two possessions for the 13-7 victory.

In the other semifinal, cross town rivals Churchill and South Eugene were facing each other for the third time in just a couple weeks.  In the previous two meetings, Churchill had won by a small margin, but South Eugene was missing seniors Sam Barber and Jimmy Utterbach.  What became immediately evident was that spiking in this game was not only accepted, but encouraged.  And in fact, there was an agreement made between these two teams at a meeting prior to the game to spike as much as possible.  And that they did.

South Eugene broke Churchill right away, then Churchill got the break right back to make the score 3-2.  Then South Eugene started to play some zone D.  South Eugene junior phenom Jacob Janin told me that the Axemen "actually had never played zone before and were playing one [they] just learned this year."  For such an immature zone, it sure did work.  Every time they ran the zone, South Eugene got a turn and converted it into a score.  Scoring six of the last nine of the first half, they took it 8-6. 

In the second half, the zone D continued to get turns, but the offense wasn't as efficient in converting them to goals.  The coolest thing to watch, though, was seeing Ivan Becker-Wayman having to work hard to be effective for the first time in the tournament.  Churchill senior Andrew Sheridan had two handblocks on Becker-Wayman and nearly a third, on which there was a foul call, all in the second half.  Even still, Becker-Wayman was touching the disc every few throws and threw an amazing break to set up the thirteenth goal for South Eugene.  And then, what was a common theme, Sam Barber perfectly launched a backhand into the wind to score the game winner. 

This game saw no turns until the third point when the teams exchanged a couple.  The few errors were a combination of some rather timid defense, allowing underneath cuts rather freely, obviously aware of both teams' abilities to huck and, of course, the patient offenses for both teams.  At 3-2 Northwest leading, four turns were exchanged, and South Eugene was able to tie it back up at 3-3.  The conservative offense being run by Northwest and the tremendous poise of Jeremy Norden became perfectly obvious on the seventh point, when several up line cuts by Norden had open deep receivers looked off for the easy underneath eight-yard gainers.  It then became a common theme that Northwest would methodically work it up to the doorstep of the endzone, eight yards at a time, and then scored on the three-yard pass. 

At 4-3 (Northwest), a few exchanged turns, gave South Eugene the disc near the goal they were attacking.  Axemen junior Miles Schneider gunned for the endzone just as his intended receiver stopped his cut,  Luckily, sophomore Charlie Wilson-Moses was there to pick up the garbage.  Unfortunately for South Eugene, this would be the last time they would score. 

The remainder of the game was solid Northwest pressure on every South Eugene deep pass, which was enough to force an error or D until Northwest got the disc.  Then, eight yards at a time, Northwest would march down the field until they found an easy opening for a goal.