Who are the best players in the North 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.
One of the most compelling storylines from this season has to be how senior offensive handler Ian McCosky from Minnesota ripped a lefty scoober spike into the mud on purpose during game point so that he could have the satisfaction of leading his team to personally ending the Wisconsin streak themselves. Supposedly after the game he mentioned how Carleton would’ve likely botched the job and they didn’t want to take any chances.
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I think the best players from the north central have got to be:
Declan Miller (CUT)
Fin Fuhrmann (CUT)
Paul Krenik (Minnesota)
Ian McCosky (Minnesota)
Nico Ranabhat (Wisco)
Matt Johnson (ISUC)
Cole Davis (IHUC)
Other players who deserve some love are: Anthony Jirele (obvi), Blake on Nebraska, #5 on IHUC (Avery Bandstra), Gunnar on Marquette, Noah on Nebraska.
Declan is obviously freshman of the year lmao
A lot of really talented players in the North Central which is awesome to see!
Didn’t mean to delete that whoopsie
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Standouts:
#11 handler on Greg duck (Ian Mccosky?? I think)
Anthony Jirele, Grey Duck
Nico Ranabhat, Wisco
Declan Miller, CUT
Matt Johnson, ISUC
Cole Davis, IHUC
#22 on IHUC (incredibly athletic handler capable of big defensive plays)
Paul Krenik, Grey Duck
Blake Krapfl on Nebraska as well as the stocky CUT handler (#9?) were also fantastic
Hot:
- Tournament directors: Taking the tournament to a whole new level as they remembered to have portapotties this year.
- CUT: Really exciting to see an underdog program like Carleton claw their way back to nationals for the first time in ~5 years.
- BlackCat Twitter: Ratioing and taunting their IHUC opponents after both their season had already ended.
- Ugly Duckling: Proved themselves to be the best B team in the region. The win against D-3 powerhouse St. Olaf was apparently no fluke.
- ISUC: They played good games against good teams. Simple as that. Kinda boring but not bad.
Not:
- Hodags: The streak is 0.
- Wisconsin Intramurals: After booting teams off the fields in favor of intramural softball practice last year, the intramural programs were nowhere to be seen. Enjoy your ruined fields, rugby team.
- IHUC: Lots of sus footy of these boys in blue clobbering their opponents but still getting beat.
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We start our journey at the 2022 High School National invite- all the top college teams are trying to recruit Declan Miller- he’s got a full ride offer from UNC, Nick Kaczmarek has offered a scholarship in the form of GNC gift cards, and Brown (and their dads) have been sliding in his LinkedIn DMs for months. Declan can choose literally anywhere to play, but is leaning toward UNC as the odds on favorite.
Along comes Phil Bowen, confronting Declan at a urinal minutes after the finals ended - Phil allegedly calls Declan a chicken**** for choosing the easy way out with UNC; he says if Declan were truly a great player he would come to Northfield and take Carleton from a regionals level team all the way to the big leagues.
Almost a year later and the madlad has done the impossible- It would be unfair to vote for anyone other than Declan for All Region Freshman of the Year.
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Cornfed (University of Nebraska) finished a program-record T-5 at regionals, bettering its previous high of seventh. For a state where there is no high school ultimate to speak of and a program that sees at most 1 rookie/year come in with any ultimate experience at all, that’s an accomplishment so many prior Cornfed teams could only have imagined. Note that since we had limited games against other Regionals teams this year and as I wasn’t able to attend Sectionals, I’ll leave to the others in our program and on this board to speak about the many talented and deserving players from other NC teams; however, a couple of our players merit discussion here.
Blake Krapfl (#62)
When Blake showed up at his first Cornfed practice in fall 2021 and made a gratuitious layout during our warm up drill in front of fresh-faced 18 year olds who had never touched a disc before, I rolled my eyes at the thought of what that meant for the team. I needn’t have worried–Blake improved our program on so many fronts. On the field, he was the machine that made our offense hum. Despite facing every opponent’s best defender (often the target of a 6-and-1 defense), Blake was always able to create separation downfield and then open the field up with his ability to hit any location with his throws. His ability to read and high-point the disc while maintaining body control in the air allowed us to generate upwind offense where past Cornfed teams would have had no deep threats. Blake also impacted team culture by holding his teammates accountable to our goals and their commitments while still creating an atmosphere for everyone to be the best version of themselves. He made me a better coach and future classes will benefit from that as well.
Noah Johnson (#25)
Our team-voted MVP, Noah was our main handler and his ability to throw full-field upwind flicks was the other half of the team’s ability to generate upwind movement. Noah has the quickest first 3 steps of anyone I’ve coached, which gives him the ability to get open no matter who is guarding him. His importance to our team on the field was demonstrated in our final Regionals game against ISUC: Noah had a game-ending injury with Cornfed leading 4-1 in that game, and we did not score a single upwind goal once he left the field. The only thing more impressive than Noah’s ultimate prowess is his development as a leader over his time at Nebraska and in this season as captain. He has an innate ability to make everyone feel valued and included, and he flipped the traditional coach/mentor-athlete/mentee relationship on its head by proactively letting ME know he was there as a resource for me after a practice where he sensed something was going on in my life. You will not meet a harder-working and harder-caring player or person than Noah.
Freshmen:
We also had two freshmen (again, with no previous ultimate experience) play huge roles on our universe line at the end of the season and who deserve a shoutout. Luke Walsdorf (#32), our rookie of the year, was a frequent target of Blake’s and Noah’s upwind hucks and, as a thrower, played with a confidence that belied his <1 year of experience. Sam Malick (#13) won every contested disc thrown to him and generated some pivotal blocks in big moments.
TD’s even put metal manhole covers on the field so players didn’t fall into manholes. Excellent foresight.
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Cullen Baker (CUT) -center handler for CUT has disgusting breakthrows and all region last year
Declan Miller (CUT) -duh
Daniel Chen (CUT) -Daniel is a beast he’s actually unguardable
Anthony Jirele (Grey Duck) -see what I wrote for Daniel
Max Dehillin (Grey Duck) -I never saw him throw a turn and is basically a free reset
PK (Grey Duck) -he’s really really good dude. Amazing defense. Great throws. Super aggressive cuts.
Jace Dean (CUT) -took the hardest match ups for CUT all season. Super high ultimate IQ
If you need a player who isn’t on the two teams going to nationals Nico on Wisco was really good. Declan is pretty obviously the best Freshman in the country. Matt Johnson on Iowa is also pretty damn good
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Just wanted to shout out a few dudes that play for UW Eau Claire EauZone:
#3 James Harvey: He will break every mark and has the ability to find receivers anywhere on the field. His pinpoint accuracy throws make him the QB of our team. He’s got a really quick first step and he’s super hard to guard when he’s locked in.
#2 Johnny Stevenson: Johnny may not be the tallest fella but he’s so bouncy and fast that it doesn’t even matter. Dude is the epitome of consistent and he has really smart and accurate throws. He can lock down a lot of opponents and he puts a ton of pressure on throwers.
#15 Nehemiah Senger: Don’t put it deep if Nehemiah is in the vicinity. Every time a team shoots it deep to his matchup, they’re met with a humbling stare down after (and sometimes even before) he D’s the disc. He’s over 6’6 and he can jump, so by default he’s a huge threat to any team, but his throwing ability has improved so much and so quickly, making him borderline unguardable.
#17 Arthur Briscoe: In just two years of playing ultimate, this dude has already become the one of the best defenders on our team. He takes the hardest matchups and holds them to minimal completions. In just the past year, his catching ability has also improved so much. He comes down with a really high percent of his 50/50s and he can get open easily on the best of defenders. This dude has the most potential of probably anyone on our team, so be ready to hear his name a lot more frequently.
#9 Joe Brandt, #21 Ben Leurquin, #23 Haakon Neske (Our D-Line Handlers): These dudes absolutely cannot go unmentioned. All three are extremely reliable defenders and on top of that, they started running a really fast paced handler weave this season that’s proven to be really hard to stop. Joe has some insanely fast hands and he’s really reliable in the air. Ben is an extremely athletic player who locks down handlers and has the capability to level up the team’s defensive intensity. Haakon has really accurate throws and plays with a high defensive IQ that led to a lot of forced turnovers throughout whole season.
I really want to shout out our bench this year too. We had a roster of about 30 guys this year, and everybody was really committed and everyone contributed so much to our success, our sideline presences, and the intensity we brought to tournaments. If we have the numbers for a B team next year, they’ll be loaded with talent and experience they haven’t had as much in the past.
Some players on teams we faced who might not get the recognition they deserve:
#3 Owen from Duluth: Dude has some really nice throws that really opened up a lot of opportunities for their offense. Best player on this team by far.
All of Ugly Duck: Really solid B team that can compete with some really really good teams. They’re hard to stop because they’re all so solid across the board.
#6 Anthony from Whitewater: I think this dude made the Radicals roster so props to him for that. He puts this team on his back and really seemed like a good leader. Great throws, great bids, great IQ.
Northern Iowa’s center handler with a five panel hat and glasses: He made some great plays that kept this team fighting through the last point of this game. This whole team has a lot of talent! Excited to match up with them again next season.