By John Shelton

Vancouver, Canada’s Furious George has won their third UPA Club Championship in the past four years, beating Sectional rivals Seattle Sockeye on a characteristically windy Sunday morning here in Sarasota.  

This title is especially impressive because of the significant changes Furious made to its roster and role assignments at the beginning of the season, implementing a season long agenda of building trust and confidence in their supporting cast of young talented role players, who did a fantastic job all tournament long of setting up the big plays for their superstars Jeff Cruickshank, Mike Grant, and Andrew Lugsdin to consistently execute. 

Contrary to the last three seasons, where Furious more or less kept the same roster intact, they started this year with a “huge” tryout and added nine new players (while losing at least five of their top veterans).  Mike Grant said beginning the season with a brand new team was difficult, but by tailoring to the younger players, with hard work, fresh strategies, and positive support, for the first time he and the other veterans felt they’d created a new, regenerated identity for Furious George, confident and capable of winning.

Before the Club Championships, when asked to pinpoint the difference as to how his team performed early on in the season and then winning Regionals, Mike said, “Team cohesion is the number one factor.  We had a slower start to the year due to our brand new roster, but we've kept a positive face and battled on after each loss. Our practices have been intense and the new guys bring a speed and intensity that make practices extremely
valuable. Winning regionals was a result of the young guys trusting the veterans, and vice versa.  We all believe we can win this year and we know we have the talent to do it, it is just a matter of trusting this instinct at a big tournament.”

Furious played with this instinct in today’s Finals.  In a game where players on both teams unanimously emphasized the wind as the most significant factor, Furious George’s young talent confidently executed and controlled the disc better than Seattle’s more saavy personnel of experienced handlers. 

Seattle was also missing Dennis Karlinsky and Lou Burruss (who was important on Saturday against Doublewide and DoG) from their offensive line-up, both veteran handlers accustomed to high pressure and windy conditions.  Sockeye’s handlers Ben Wiggins, Phil Burkhardt and Dave Bestock, struggled to initiate their usual fast motion offense, and the wind hampered their ability to make the usual big strikes upfield to receivers Sam Kirchmeir, Mike Caldwell, Moses Rifken and Chase Sparling-Beckley.

“Yea the wind made it really difficult for us to play our game,” Kirchmeir said.  “We like to strike fast, using our deep game, and we didn’t have that today.  Mike [Caldwell], Moses, Chase and I were having trouble getting the disc, we couldn’t make our usual cuts we’d have to come down the lane and then sort of cut across because the wind wasn’t really letting us get the big gains.”

The first point of the game, even with hasty or absent-minded turnovers by Caldwell on Sockeye and Mike Grant on Furious, proved to be of great significance.  Mike Grant finished it with a nice 50 yard huck to Lugsdin for an upwind goal and one point lead, the only break for either team in the first half.

Twenty-three turnovers later, Sockeye started the second half trailing Furious 8-7 and pulling to them downwind.  Showing tactical forethought Furious used its end-game personnel for this point, with Mike Grant as well as Lugsdin making cameo appearances on the offensive line (Lugsdin was moved to defense for this game because of a separated shoulder that prevented him from being able to throw the Frisbee, and was assigned to shut down Ben Wiggins.  Another smart strategic adjustment for Furious; Lugsdin had two blocks on Ben in the game).

“We knew that it was important to score that first point [of the second half] upwind,” Lugsdin explained to me after the game, “because we were pretty confident we’d get the next break downwind.  I mean we were the only team to score it upwind in the firsts half and we only did it one time.” 

Furious didn’t execute their plan perfectly; their must-score offense missed on a Cruickshank shot to Mauro Ortiz, but Sockeye’s Sam O’Brien gave it right back to Mike Grant, and two passes later Furious scored their second upwind point with Al Cowen’s short throw to Oscar Pottinger.

Dave Bestock made it easy for Furious to go up 10-7, when he ended a Sockeye seven pass drive and a chance to get an upwind break right back with a missed throw to Mike Caldewell.  It was old school Mike Grant on the conversion, who made a nostalgic deep cut to score on a nice huck from Oscar Pottinger.

At this point both teams, as well as everyone watching, were waiting for Sockeye to orchestrate a run.  And at 11-8 they did by scoring three of the next four points, tying the game at twelve all.

What might look like a characteristic Sockeye run, determined, dangerous and quick at the opportune moment, to turn the game’s momentum, was nothing more than a sluggish, awkward crawl, during which both teams combined for twenty-one turnovers (eighteen unforced), and what felt like as many travel calls.  Furious had multiple opportunities to close the game out, and Sockeye had a wide open door to take a lead, and neither team made a decisive push, fumbling easy passes, making panicky cuts, and rushed throws.

With a 13-12 lead Furious had a chance to convert upwind after Sam O’Brien handed the disc to them on the first throw off the pull.  Cruickshank lasered a forty yard backhand too low and fast, but Jeremy Cram’s well-played layout tap on the disc macked it to a wide-open Furious George rookie Alex Hughes, who caught it an inch from the goal line.  With nobody else within twenty feet of either him or another teammate standing twelve yards away alone in the goal, Hughes rushed a low backhand straight into the ground. 

Long before Hughes had released this throw, however, Jeremy Cram had bounced up from the ground, put his hand up to indicate he’d been fouled, and was looking around for an observer or teammate to confirm his call.  When Jeremy saw Furious turn it over, he tentatively lowered his hand and started running downfield to play offense. 

Sockeye scored that point to make it thirteens.  Had anyone at all on Furious seen Jeremy’s call (many spectators noticed it), or if Jeremy had stuck with his call rather than retract it after seeing Furious commit the turnover, the play of disc would have stopped before that turnover was committed.  Either Cram’s foul call is upheld (unlikely, Cram was on defense, bidding on an uncatchable throw with two other players, and he managed to get the block anyway), and the disc goes to Seattle , where Hughes caught it, or his call is overruled, and Furious would have had the disc on the goal line and a certain upwind score, giving them a two point lead at game-point and pulling downwind.

It ended up not mattering.  Furious scored the last two points.   Converting a block by Anthony Maley at 14-13, Al Nichols overthrew a flick from ten yards out of the endzone that might have sailed out the back had Sean Delfel not run it down picking up the trash and clinching the UPA 2005 Open Division Club Championship.