All Region 2016: Great Lakes (D-I Men's)

[agdavis93]

U Chicago Player who was new to the region this year

Jeff Zhao for U Chicago- Has monster pulls and huge layouts on D. Was a huge reason the D line scored upwind. Had great chemistry with Judah Newman. Those two will be fun to watch for the next two years
Mike Pardo U chicago: Super fast first step, pain in the ass to mark either downfield or in the handler set. Took the best matchups and forced turns
Spielman for Northwestern- Everything that’s already been said is true and seems to always stay calm with the disc and make the right decision
Nathan Yeazel Northwestern: Had height and speed, plus knew his limitations as a thrower and used his size well to break the mark. Very spirited.
“Charlie” for Notre Dame: Huge bids, very athletic. Was a go to target for janky hucks. Also super nice guy.
Nick Pro Illinois- Not much to say that hasn’t been said already. Hell of a player.

FOTY:
Kyle Rutledge Northwestern- Not afraid to layout and always pressured under or deep cuts. Going to be dominant in the region.
Sean McSweeney U Chicago- Way too polished of a thrower to be a freshman. Can break the mark when he wants and has great over the top throws.

[pstogdon]

As a disclaimer, I play for UChicago.
Apologies in advance to players outside of the Illinois Conference, I can only comment on the teams and players that I know.

Illinois
Illinois has a lot of solid contributors, but I have to shout out Nick Pro. He’s too fast and too good in the air to contain. He’s been one of the top players in our region for a while now, and certainly deserves an all-region spot.

Northwestern
Ben Spielman is NUT’s rock. Good at everything, great in the air, smart with the disc, he’s another lock for all-region. I also want to shoutout Nathan Yeazel, a strong deep threat, and Hare, whose defense is also very strong. They always seem like a well-coached team.
I loved competing against this team this season, hopefully we can be on the other side of some of those DGPs next year.

ISU
ISU seemed to be low on numbers when we faced them down the stretch, but I was impressed by the play of their freshman Josh Sanabria.

Notre Dame, Michigan, Purdue
Notre Dame demonstrated great depth in our quarterfinals matchup, and they certainly deserve to have players recognized as all-region. They worked the break-side well and had a lot of guys who were strong in the air. Great sidelines too. Unfortunately I can’t single out and individuals, and I wouldn’t know their names anyway. Hopefully somebody more familiar with their team can give them their due.

We didn’t play Michigan or Purdue, but as winners and semi-finalists they must have some ballers. I heard that Noah Backer was on another level in the finals.

UChicago
I’ve also got to shoutout some of my teammates:
Michael Pardo is no doubt, one of the best players in the region. His speed makes him so dangerous going deep or busting up-line. He generates an absurd number of Ds, and his throws have become pretty serviceable as well. He deserves to be first team all-region.

Nick “Corndog” McDonnell
1st team-all-nickname. Unfortunately CDog tore his ACL during sectionals, but he’s a great deep threat and an intelligent player (when he’s not trying to show off anyway). Look out for his return during the series next year.

Anthony Davis AKA Tony Meatballs AKA The Brow
We picked up Tony as a grad student after he spend a few years captaining Santa Clara. He’s 6’6", skies piles, cuts at the right time, and demonstrates a ton of composure on the field.

Judah Newman
High-energy DLine handler. He’s fast, got big throws, and is starting to break the mark really well. Gonna have a big impact on the region in the next couple years.

Sean McSweeney
Sean is a freshman and stepped right in as an o line handler. He’s got good breaks and creative throws. He should be considered for freshman of the year.

Jeff “WeTs” Weis
WeTs isn’t a freshman but he is undoubtedly one of the best rookies in the region. His defense is already incredibly strong, when his offense catches up he should become one of the top players in the region.

I also want to shout out our coach, Zubair. Without him we would be screwed. He is incredibly devoted to making our team better, but most of all, I don’t know of anybody in the region who loves frisbee more than Zubair.

[ndultimate]

Notre Dame player here to shine some light on a few of the players mentioned and offer my biased opinion.

Jeremy Doyle #75. A co-captain and the O-line handler who really opened our offense up. He has all the throws, from lefty scoobers to blades, he finds a way to get the disc to you if you are open. While yes, he was the one ridiculed for his high release flick in this video, I promise that most of his crazy throws are much more successful. O-line handler resets were unstoppable because of Jeremy’s IQ and vision. I believe Jeremy has to be 1st team all-region.

Charlie “Kru” Labuz #2. Speaking of that video, Kru was the one behind that amazing layout. He’s a 6’4 athletic beast who I would take in a 50-50 against anyone. While he’s a natural d-line cutter, we switched him over to o-line this year because we needed his experience and athleticism. He consistently came down with crazy skies and layouts.

Luke “Beetleborg” Brennan #7. Beetleborg is another player who just has all the throws. As a d-line handler, the fact that his throws manage to work miraculously well in 20 mph winds is a big reason of why we did so well at Huck Finn and Saturday of Regionals. He frequently matches up on one of the opponents top players, and has an incredible field sense that lead him to either 1st or 2nd on our team in Ds this year. Beetle gets some incredible poach Ds and layout Ds. He really is a complete player.

Patrick Hansen #73. Our other captain. Pat is incredibly fast and played a ridiculous amount of points on Sunday at Regionals to will us to the finals. He consistently gets open and makes the smart throw every time, almost never turning the disc. When he crosses over to d-line, his speed allows him to match up with top cutters or handlers on the other team.

I’m also going to throw our coach, David Hoffman, into the discussion for Coach of the Year. The two years before he came we finished 13th and 6th in the region. In his two years as a coach, we have been in the game to go. Last year we graduated I think 13 seniors and came back just as strong because of the fundamentals that Hoffman has brought. The fact that I had like 8 players I wanted to mention above is a credit to the system he built and our reliance on all 7 players on the field, not one or two studs to run the offense.

I wanted to echo a few players on other teams who have been mentioned. I’m not very good at picking out individual players during games in less I’ve already scouted them, so don’t be too offended if you didn’t get mentioned.

We played Illinois in really shitty conditions so there cutters didn’t get to excel in the roles they normally do. I know Pro is a stud who made a few good layouts against us. I also was very impressed with Prayag Patel. Big lefty handler who has both hucks and great inside breaks.

Purdue: I’m going to echo Bobby Leroy. Gets most any break throw off that he wants. Their two top cutters were Specs and the shorter guy who is lightning fast, can’t remember his name. Both good cutters.

Indiana: Mac is athletic dude who is very tough to stop in Indiana’s ho stack. He played a ton of points on Sunday at Sectionals.

Michigan: pretty tough to pick individual players because they were a complete team, but I would agree with Greenwood and Backer. Good luck at Natties guys!

[Noah_Backer]

Shout outs (in no order):

Sam Greenwood 15 - Michigan
Zach Goulson 11 - Michigan
Alex Russomano 3 - Michigan
Wesley Chen 2 - Michigan
Jeremy Doyle 75 - Notre Dame
Patrick Hansen 72 - Notre Dame
Ben Spielman 2 - Northwestern
Nathan Yeazel 17 - Northwestern
Nick Prozorovsky 1 - Illinois
John Saniat 8 - Illinois
Prayag Patel 17 - Illinois
Jay Andreani 13 - Michigan State

I am obviously excluding some really good players from this region that I have not played against, but these are the ones I can speak about from experience.

COTY -

Tyler Kinley - Yes, I am partial here, but TK came in this year and took a large amount of responsibility with this program. He completely transformed our offense to become more efficient and had a HUGE part to do with our success this year. Combining his skills with the other coaching of Ricky and Jamp was incredible for the program and he definitely deserves recognition for it.