The Tide battles through the top teams in wavering San Diego weather.

Saturday

Tide rolled up to the UCSD’s RIMAC fields Saturday morning to sunshine and fresh air after a late night convoy headed down the night before. In its standard Pool to Power Pool to Bracket format, President’s Day Invite offers three full days of ultimate, with potentially a lot of variety against some of the top in- and out-of-region teams in the nation.

Set as the 10th seed, Tide found itself in Pool B on Saturday, with SLO, Utah, and SDSU. This pool could have easily been a rehash of Santa Barbara Invite, and it seemed that way with a starting 14-7 loss to SLO, but Tide quickly enacted their revenge against the still huck-happy Utah team with breaks early in the first half. Proving that they could also be an effective threat deep, Tide utilized sticky defense and decisive cuts to take a 9-7 win over Utah. Still off the high of getting even and facing a rebuilding but athletic SDSU (with only one week of practice under their belts), Tide shut down the Feds 9-5 to take 2nd in their pool which gained them entry into the Power Pool with the big dogs.

Power Pool E consisted of Colorado, Stanford, Cal, and Tide. Their first Power Pool matchup was against a rising Cal team for the fourth and last game of Saturday. Newly rebranded as Ursa Major, Cal offered a collected offense with a systematic defense, and the two teams traded for the first few points until Cal broke first to make it 5-3. Not one to be shown up, Tide’s gritty defense – often led by NC State veteran Rhys Grestch – quickly attacked to break back, leading us to an 8-7 half, on-serve. Cal attacked quickly out of half by breaking again when they had a chance. Cal’s poachy downfield but person-D handler system complimented with well-placed downwind pulls allowed them to stagnate Tide’s offense, resulting in an unfortunate 13-9 loss to round out the day at 2 wins and 2 losses.

Sunday

Sunday started with a continuation of Power Pool play, against top seed Colorado Mamabird. Energized off of a healthy club run to nationals as Colorado Lotus whereas Tide has a historical penchant for slow starts, Colorado moved the disc swiftly and attacked effectively all game, resulting in a 15-3 loss. Where other teams would emotionally fold, Tide maintained an incredibly positive morale throughout the entire game and immediately pushed a constructive focus toward their next and final power pool opponent: Stanford Bloodthirsty.

An early break from Stanford attempted to set the tone of the game, but Tide held their ground with an athletic play from Ryan “Spikeball” Oswalt. Stanford’s O wasn’t without their faults, and D line capitalized when necessary to answer and break back when needed, bringing us to a 7-6 lead. Tide’s chilly O flow led by captains Jason Zeidman, Xavier Prochaska, and Ryan Barry proved to be immeasurably critical, leading to Tide taking half 8-7. The Tide wasn’t done though, punching hard to start off the second half with a break. Short rounds proved to be an asset, as the Tide’s defense forced enough Stanford turnovers to hit hard cap, allowing Tide to take their final power pool game 9-8.

A 1-2 record in their Power Pool brought the Tide to Pre-Quarters, facing a UCSD Air Squids team that lost a lot of veteran presence after the Fall College Series (held in place of a 2021-2022 season due to COVID). Tide’s Tenacious defense let them take half quickly 8-4, in part due to Austin Covey’s vert and the vet-rookie combo of Rhys Grestch and Max Combs. UCSD’s O-line found some rhythm after half, resulting in trades out of half, but D-line converted another break to bring us to 10-5. More trades until the hard cap horn resulted in Tide taking the game 12-7 and knocking the Squids out of the bracket for their final game of Sunday.

Monday

Quarterfinals. Oregon Ego, with 4 wins and 2 losses (Cal and SLO) over the weekend so far, didn’t have the peak talent they had shown in the past, but were no doubt a strong team to beat. After quick trades, Oregon quickly broke twice to gain the momentum. Once our offense re-stabilized, Tide shot back with speed, capitalizing on Oregon’s miscues to break back once, but it wasn’t enough to salvage the momentum, as Oregon’s D-line used really good pulls and high-pressure reset defense to force Tide to turn it, resulting in them taking half 8-5.

Refocused and reinvigorated after half, Tide chose to not go down without a fight, quickly breaking out of half with the classic Rhys to Max wombo-combo. Despite their efforts to disrupt Oregon’s offense, hold after hold Ego worked it up, exploiting with sharp decisive cuts and aggressive athleticism. They weren’t without their occasional fault though, and another miscue allowed Tide’s rookie D line to break once again to claw us to 11-9. Firmly hyped, and attempting to pull the momentum back toward us, our D line continued to relentlessly attack. 11-10. 12-10. *Horn*. Hard cap. 12-11. L. There just wasn’t enough time. A tough loss to swallow, but it wasn’t without its very promising highlights for this young team.

Knocked out at Quarters, Tide could only hope to salvage a 5th place finish. And while they fought hard to take revenge against UCSC (8-7 L) and to play a quick game to wrap up their weekend against USC (8-5 L), it wasn’t in the cards for them. A long, grueling weekend of ultimate was finally starting to take its toll, both mental and physical, and while the effort was there, the consistent focus was not.

While the Tide drove home with a losing record (4W, 6L), it doesn’t tell the full story of the weekend. The story of a tenacious defensive line learning their roles and a powerful duo coming to fruition. The story of an offense learning, developing, and defining their style for the next 3 years. The story of a team facing adversity together, shrugging, and saying “fuck it, we ball” as they punch back with gritty Tide Ultimate. How will they learn and develop in the short time they have until Stanford Invite in 2 weeks?

We’ll find once they take on the top teams in the nation once again on March 5th and 6th.