Who are the best players in the Southwest region? This is an open thread to discuss All-Region nominations, All-Freshman nominations, coaching awards, and more. Stay positive and keep it civil.
Alexander Belfiore on Stanford , should be ok the all rookie team. Super solid U-20 player who balled out in conferences
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Loic “the Shire” Billaut from should be on all freshman team. He has been a great addition to the ucla D line with shifty handling
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Ridge Huang for all-freshman. It feels pretty obvious. He probably has the quickest 1st step in the region, he is extremely threatening in the reset space, and he is very consistent. Easily one of the sharpest offensive weapons in the region.
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From santa cruz but will give my most unbiased take possible, caveat that I don’t know a lot of players names.
All freshmen line -
Ridge Huang*
Selim Jones*
Toby Warren*
Loic B. *
At least one more from UCLA who I don’t know the name of
Stanford handler that always throws those wild scoobers to the breakside upline (also don’t know name, and might be some freshman on stanford I’m missing)
- = ROTY candidate too
All-region first team:
Riley Kirkman-Davis (UCLA) *
Anton Orme (SLO)
Calvin Brown (SLO) *
Liam Jay (UCSC) *
Dylan Burns (UCSC)
Dexter Clyburn (Cal) *
Simon Covington (Stanford)
Second Team
Marshall Wildman (UCLA)
Aidan Curry (UCSC)
Blue hat w/ yellow brim guy (UCSD)
Keaton Viadro (Santa Clara)
Kyle Lew (SLO)
Emmett (SLO)
Gavin May (Cal)
*.= Also player of the region candidate.
I’ve also heard a lot of people mention Alex Nelson, but honestly SLO has so many good players I haven’t been able to pick his face out, so that’s at least one clear thing wrong with this list since I wouldn’t know where he fits into this picture.
Breakout player of the region:
Sam Laur (sp? Cal)
Liam Jay (UCSC)
Mario Ambrose (UCSC - we get 2 noms IMO cause breakout season)
Matthew Barcellos (UCLA)
Anton Orme (SLO - was good before but helped fill KJ’s void nicely)
Red Hat Guy (UCSD - where did he come from?)
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Mario Ambrose is far an away the breakout player of the year in the southwest and honestly I don’t even think it should be a discussion
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San Diego State coach here. JAKE HOOPER #26 of SDSU should be in consideration for All-Freshman. A lot of pressure has been put on Jake all season to be our main initiating cutter, and he has excelled in his role. Not only that – he also had to fill the center handler position at Regionals after several of our starters went down with injury. He rose to the occasion and is a huge reason why SDSU finished 10th and broke seed by 5 spots. Jake is a dangerous cutter, thrower, defender, and puller. Any team would be lucky to have him.
I know a player on a 10th place finisher is not as easy of a pick as a player on a Nationals team, but Jake Hooper has shouldered so much responsibility as a freshman this year. He deserves this recognition, and at the very least, your consideration.
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Wasn’t really around much last year to have a good sense of what year everyone is but of the non SLO guys I thought that in no particular order these were the best players in the region:
Dex (Cal)
Dylan Burns (UCSC)
Lotto (UCLA)
RKD (UCLA)
Liam (UCSC)
Gavin (Cal)
Marshall Wildmann (UCLA)
Simon Covington (Stanford)
A couple of the (UCSD) guys are quite good, though I frankly don’t know the name of a single guy on that team. Same two that Johnny mentioned stood out.
Shane Davidson (GCU)
I’d probably give Dex the POTR edge given his workload relative to Ursa’s success, pretty phenomenal sophomore campaign. I think you could make cases for a couple SLO, UCLA, and UCSC guys, but all of those teams have a significantly more balanced top end and share offensive responsibility pretty evenly making it hard to point to one guy as the lynchpin to their good seasons.
Anyways, great year everyone, bummer about three bids, but four pretty clearly top 15 teams is nothing to sneeze at even if it didn’t come to pass how we all might have hoped.
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The sky is the limit for Jake Hooper. He is a phenomenal athlete - standout soccer player at Strath Haven HS (PA). Played ultimate at summer camp in Maine. We were thrilled to have him join the ultimate team SPRING of his senior year and he was an immediate contributor and won our offensive player of the year. He was amazing at the state championships where we got fourth. Smart, coachable, good teammate and competitor, and can run all day. So happy that he is still playing and doing so well at SDSU. He and Gavin Abrahamsson played travel soccer together growing up for years, and it was cool that they were ultimate teammates for a few months. Hope to see Jake in the AUDL or on a U24 team someday soon - and for SDSU to keep rising! He’s got so much talent.
1st
Dexter Clyburn (Cal) - insanely high usage rate probably gets him POTY
Anton Orme (SLO) - dominant mid all year, most likely to earn it back on a turn. Could be POTY
Dylan Burns (Santa Cruz) - best cutter on the team, also block getter on D crossovers
Gavin May (Cal) - Cal low-key going old Florida style and he’s Cole
Alex Nelson (SLO) - he has probably scored deep on you
Calvin Brown (SLO) - “the greenest light humanly possible” smdh
Riley Kirkman-Davis (UCLA) - when he’s hurt they are a much different team.
2nd
Kyle Lew (SLO) - we put so much on Kyle for D and QBing on O, he’s a star
Aidan Curry (Santa Cruz) - [folks] dig the long ball
Liam Jay (Santa Cruz) - tough cover, top 2 player on a top 3 team
Brandon Van Dusen (UCLA) - somehow convinced USAU he was eligible
Marshall Wildmann (UCLA) - man gets open a lottt and can shoot too
UCSD tall guy - good for 6 goals a game shooting or catching
UCSD handler (Tyler?) or Matt Barcellos (UCLA)
Freshmen
Selim Jones (Santa Cruz) - FOTY for me driving their D-line O
Max Gade (SLO) - takes a top matchup every game
Toby Warren (Santa Cruz)
Alex Belfiore (Stanford)
Ridge Huang (Cal)
Loic Billaut (UCLA)
Luca Adams (UCLA)
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UCSD player here. Two guys getting mentioned so far are Max Gibson (red hat guy, super tall, throws the whole field whenever he wants, if you hear Carti at a tourney there’s a very good chance he’s playing it) and Tynan Sander (blue hat with yellow brim guy, got second team all tourney at Stanford, already a crazy frisbee player and he’s only a sophomore, also very cracked at hacky sack).
While I’m here, plug for All-Freshmen would be Ethan Wang. Guy was instrumental in Lexington’s deep natties run in high school (check out their highlight vid, he’s #2) and he walked on and became an instant contributor on offense and defense. Lay out blocks, hucks, a deep k pop bag… guys got it all.
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Max Gade is a lock for the All-Freshman line. The best cutter defender on the best team deserves that spot. He was our matchup for Ben Dameron, Henry Ing, and many more. The kid locks up and gets blocks up. Don’t mess this up MultiWhirled
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Kushal Khangaonkar should absolutely be in the All-Region discussion. He has played a huge role for Cal this year as an O-line hybrid. He is often our initiating cutter and has been practically unguardable in that role. He is also a very effective deep thrower. When offense turns the disc he is constantly generating blocks to get it back. He also crosses over to D-line a ton in big games. It’s shocking that his play hasn’t earned him more attention.
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Lists in approximate order, excluding myself (Calvin Brown) but won’t object if you give me a vote somewhere
First Team:
Anton Orme (SLO)
Dexter Clyburn (Cal)
Kyle Lew (SLO)
Gavin May (Cal)
Lotto (UCLA)
Dylan Burns (UCSC)
Alex Nelson (SLO)
Second Team:
Aiden Curry (UCSC)
Liam Jay (UCSC)
Riley Kirkman-Davis (UCLA)
Marshall Wildmann (UCLA)
Tynan Sander (UCSD)
Simon Covington (Stanford)
Matt Barcellos (UCLA)
Don’t know too much about who is and isn’t a freshman but will shoutout freshman Max Gade on CORE for consistently taking top cutter matchups - played great defense on Ben Dameron, Jack Brown, Marshall, Dexter, and more.
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Didn’t watch too much of the season but I got:
1st team:
Charlie Jia (real ones know) (UCSC)
Kushal khankovar (cal)
Garrett Bush (slo)
Adeyemi Jr. (slo) ( https://youtu.be/TDwZvcwgoAM?t=188 )
Brandon Van Dusen (CSULB)
Felicia Yang (ucla)
Token UCSD player
The one aggressive dude on Stanford
Open to constructive Criticism 
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I would like to take the chance to shoutout my teammate Owen Camp from Stanford. Not many people understand how much time and effort he puts into this sport.
Owen is more than just a rock solid player on both sides of the disc. When you need someone to step up, he’s always there. Earlier in the season we decided that we really needed to revamp our video presence. Since then he’s easily spent over 40 hours this semester editing film with my girlfriend in her dorm.
I didn’t see anybody give him much trouble when he was the initiating cutter. If you watch any of our film from this year, his ability to get seperation on the other team’s best guy is second to none. We have plenty of film because Owen and Sarah spent so many nights on it.
I’ll link his highlight tape when they get it done so you can see what I’m talking about. It should be out in a few more days, since they’re always talking about how close to finishing they are.
Thanks for being such a good friend, Owen!
I (Keaton orser) think that the best player in the southwest is easily Kien Warren. He’s really good
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All region team
Dexter clyborn
Anton o’riley
Riley kirkland-davis
Liam Kay
Alex Nelson
Selim jones
Roty
Selim jones or Toby Warren or cal guy and standford handler
Most improved
Dylan Brian or marcel barcelos
Owen Camp also helped my girlfriend pass all her classes by tutoring her in her room every night! What a guy
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A reasonable list where you just misspell most of the names isn’t as funny as I think you think it is.
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