Who are the best players in the South Central region? This is an open thread to discuss All-Region nominations, All-Freshman nominations, coaching awards, and more. Stay positive and keep it civil.
Hannah Bruce from Texas A&M should be a shoe in for first team all region. She has brought Texas A&M into a top 3 team in the Texas Section and she is only a sophomore. With undeniable height and skillful throws she is the whole package and still has 2 more years to go.
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Some possible nominees…
All Region:
- Chloe Rowse (CC)
- Kirsten Johnson (CU)
- Shiru Liu (Texas)
- Domenica Sutherland (Texas)
- Clare Frantz (Kansas)
- Caitlin Fitzgerald (Kansas)
Freshmen:
- Frances Gellert (CC)
- Emma Capra (CU)
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I’m only going to throw out people that I’ve seen this season. And most of what I’ve seen has been in the Texas Section.
Texas is deep and has players all over the board that can make plays.
- Shiru Liu (Texas)
- Domenica Sutherland (Texas)
- Annie Ortiz (Texas State)
- Jerry Benavidez (Texas State)
- Hannah Bruce (Texas A&M)
- #13 wears gloves- excellent cutter. Never caught her name. (Colorado State)
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Annie Ortiz is an excellent all around player from Texas State, she’s got all the throws necessary to lead an offense, she’s a matchup problem down field and consistently gets the better of her matchup on defense.
I agree with the Hannah Bruce recognition. She’s a pretty special player and it will be fun to see where she takes A&M in the next couple years.
I believe #13 on CSU is Maddie Pierlet.
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Colorado State
All-Region:
Maddie Pierlet (#13)
Kaci Cessna (#49)
Rachel Street (#21)
FOTY:
Kiera Lindgren (#9)
Colorado
All Region Nominations
Nhi Nguyen: Initiates offensive movement and typically takes the biggest downfield match-up and owns it.
Megan Ives: Very diverse player that also initiates offensive movement, but can also break open a zone from the backfield with her throws. On defense you will rarely see her on the mark because she never lets her offender get open
Jean Russell: Handler that can break open the field with her break throws as well as hucks.
Kelsey Bennett: The most solid handler on the team. Always makes the right decision and has the most perfect, effortless throws.
Amy Leder: Huge downfield presence as well as a defensive work-horse.
All-Freshman Nominations
Emma Capra: Absolutely one of best defender we have. Has taken big downfield match-ups all season long and has shut them down and limited their contribution to games (namely Kristen Pojunis in our game against UCLA). On the offensive side of the disc she will catch anything, anywhere, no matter the bidding defender at her back.
Fiona Dragonfly: Speedy defensive presence. Very dynamic and can take quick, squirrelly handlers and cutters and will shut them down.
Coach of the Year
Lauren Boyle: Lauren has been a part of the coaching staff for Colorado for three seasons now; she spent one season building Colorado’s second team, Devi, before taking over with Kali last season. Before coaching Kali, she was a huge presence in the youth season and has been coaching many of Kali’s current players for upwards of 7 years. Lauren has also been the South Central Regional Coordinator for the past few years, having put on some very successful tournaments. She is the most loving, supportive coach you will find. She is willing to meet up with you at any time of the day to talk about anything. She is always celebrating the little things each player does right, not just the big plays that come up. Lauren has also put together a lifting and track program for each player on the team to partake in, if they so choose, and will meet up to teach each exercise and ensure that the form is correct. She is also very aware of how important the mental side of playing Ultimate is and helps each player get out of mental slumps with various exercises that she has come up with. Finally, Lauren is a coach that is never satisfied with her performance and is always looking for ways that she can improve her coaching style.
Colorado State
All-Region Nominations
Kaci Cesssna: Holds down the backfield for CO State and really opens up the field with her throws and ability to push downfield from the handler position.
All-Freshman
Kiera Lindgren: Insanely fast. She often initiates the downfield movement for CSU and can get up huge for 50/50 balls.
Colorado College
All-Region Nominations
Chloe Rowse: On defense Chloe sees the field very well and knows when she needs to be tight on her player or when she can poach off and help as a deep poach.
Patty Weicht: Very fast down fielder that initiates their offense. Also a great shut down defender.
University of Denver (DU)
All-Region Nominations
Heather Kraft: The go-to player on DU. Insanely athletic! She gets the offense moving from anywhere on the field, whether she’s picking the disc up or the A1 cut. A fabulous defender who gets a ton of run-through D’s and the occasional, exciting lay-out D.
**I shall report back about more players after Regionals this weekend
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Kansas
All Region Nominations
Clare Frantz: Holds down the backfield for Kansas on offense and opens up the fields with her throws. On defense she comes through huge and gets the Ds when her team really needs it. Also, I overheard Clare giving Kansas a pump up speech before their game against Texas and I was inspired.
Caitlin Fitzgerald: Someone that you just need to limit the impact of when facing Kansas. Kansas looks best when Fitz is distributing the disc. She also is a major defensive presence who can get up huge in the air for 50/50 balls sent her way.
Whoever #10 Grace Roth?? is scored a bunch of goals and is a super fast downfield cutter
**Side note: I saw all three of these players attempted lay-out D one after another in their game against Texas and I forget which one but they came up successful.
Kelsey Akin: Although she was injured this weekend, I remember her presence at MLC really killed us as we struggled to find someone who could contain her. She was the go-to down-fielder on Kansas then, and I’m sure all season until her injury.
Texas
All Region Nominations
Dre (#5): Has some sneaky IO breaks that we struggled to contain during the finals.
Shiru Liu: Had some very nice hucks in our game and a killer backhand around.
Domenica Sutherland: At Stanford, she matched up against me a bunch of times and she was a very great defender. We never matched up this weekend, but she definitely limited some of our down-fielders.
I would also like the re-iterate all of the people I mentioned after the Rocky Mountain CC as they did more of the same killer work this weekend.
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Disclaimer I play for the University of Texas so I will try to keep my opinions as unbiased as possible.
First I want to name a couple player for UT that haven’t really gotten their name thrown our here yet.
Texas
Andrea Esparza (#5) one of our captains this year and truly if just a rock on the field for not only our offense but our defense.
Marissa Land (#0) though she has been battling injuries since Centex she is truly a go to offensive cutter for our team. And has really become a go to all around player for us this year.
Gaby Cuina (#10) easily one of the best down field defenders we have as well as one of the fastest people on our team. I can always count on her to be open on the field.
Laura Gerencser (#23) Shes tall, she has back hand breaks for days… I can’t even count the amount of times I have been in awe of her breaks. So consistent and always in control when she has the disc.
Shiru Liu (#89) cannot say enough. She’s got breaks for days. She’s got hucks for days. She’s quick and knows exactly where to go. From being mistaken as Kelly LaVine last year too many times there is no one this year that would mistake her for her. She truly is the rock to our offense.
Colorado
Kristin Johnson
Nhi Nguyen
Meghan Ives
Kelsey Bennett
Kansas
Caitlin Fitzgerald
Clare Frantz
Whoever #10 was. easily best cutter on the field. laid out for everything
Colorado College
Chloe Rowse
I’m going to throw out the names of a couple of ladies I saw this weekend. I think the CU, UT, CC, CSU, and KU girls that have been mentioned are all incredibly deserving, and I didn’t see any reason not to vote for any of those girls. I just wanted to put the spotlight on a couple girls on one of the smaller teams that I thought did very well.
Maya Dehart (Wash U)- The center point of their offense. Whenever Wash U needed a play, usually you could find this Maya right in the middle of it. Played solid defense too, and a sweet flick pull too.
Natalie Gould (Wash U)- Played big points for Wash U whenever I turned around. Not an extremely tall player, but was very impressive deep against taller receivers.
Since #10 on Kansas has been getting shout outs, might as well make sure people know her name so they can actually vote for her. She’s the one and only Grace Roth.
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I would also like to shout out a few players from the not-so recognized teams from Regionals. TCU brought a small group to Kansas and put up a very good fight in all of the games I watched. Special shout out to Senna Nilsson and Zoey Clark for really taking their team to the next level. Both were highly spirited players and really took over in high intensity games. Any player than can rally their savage team to come back from a 5 point deficit for universe point has my vote.
Also, a very skilled cutter from Anarchy, Katie Halloran. She sees the field very well and is in tune with her handlers. She is a very dominating presence on the field and always makes smart decisions with and without the disc. She would make a great club player with that kind of instinct.
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