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.
WashU Iron Horse players here —
Coaching Awards: We want to nominate our coach of the past decade or so and alumni of WashU Iron Horse, Anat “Noodle” Gross. Noodle recently won the St. Louis Ultimate Association Equity in Ultimate Award, an award that was so fitting and well deserved. Noodle’s leadership has been crucial to Iron Horse’s success on the field, turning a team that had more rookies than vets into a third place team at South Central Regionals. Noodle does a phenomenal job at keeping the team disciplined with positive energy, and making sure that everyone has the opportunity to join, learn, and grow as a player. Along with the rest of the coaching staff and leadership, she provides everyone with regular personalized feedback and specific suggestions for drills and conditioning. She makes herself available to the team with coaching “office hours,” and leads pre-practice workouts before almost every practice in the spring. She also has helped to connect Iron Horse players with the club ultimate community and supported us all in our growth outside of WashU. Noodle always has our backs, whether it be defending our practice field space or starting a revolution in the Regionals Captain GroupMe to alter the regionals schedule after significant storm delays.
ROTY:
Caitlin “Java” Pedraja (WashU): Not a freshman, but a rookie to ultimate. Java instantly gelled with our O-line — she was an obvious addition to our kill line only a couple months after she touched a disc for the first time. She can juke any defender, always finds the open space on the field, and will sky defenders that have a whole foot on her. Java has taken instant curiosity in the sport of ultimate, watching film in class and absorbing everything she has learned on and off the field. She has developed knowledge of the game that more closely resembles a veteran with several years under her belt.
Breakout player/most improved:
Elise “Duke” Gadson (WashU): Coming off a club season with St. Louis Stellar, Duke has become a key player for Iron Horse’s D line and kill line. Her speed is unmatched — I’ve yet to see any matchup where she has lost a foot race to a disc. She is great at reading the disc, has insane vert, and a willingness to put her body on the line for some crazy bidding catches. Her field vision and cutter continues have been crucial to the success of her lines—she either has the assist or goal probably 90% of the time she is on the field.
All Region
Sandy Wu (WashU): GOAT. The LeBron James of ultimate frisbee. Layout grabs and D’s, skies, high release throws over the top of the zone, full field hucks, you name it and Sandy’s got it in the bag.
Rachel Byerly (Mizzou): Mizzou came out of nowhere this year and tied with WashU for third at regionals (and maybe beat us a few times this season), and most of it can be attributed to Rachel and Allison. Rachel is not only one of their key handlers, but also is a huge threat in the deep space.
Allison Faerber (Mizzou): Another critical member of Terror Mizzou, Allison is a precision thrower and is the heart of their handle set.
Elissa Balke (UTD): Balke as a deep defender means that the team on offense can no longer consider their hucks viable. Offensively, she goes every other with the other handlers on Whiplash. She is a playmaker for UTD with perfectly placed throws.
Allison Chang (UTD): Chang is a defensive menace, bidding for any disc in sight with smart poaches. She is also a very reliable receiver.
Georgia Hansen (Kansas): Georgia can beat almost any matchup with her speed and vert. Her teammates are always looking to find her anywhere on the field.
Coach from Melee here. These are some of the top players in the region, based on who we played and/or played enough to have strong opinions about (and obviously from our own team as well):
These players should be considered for all region:
(Colorado) Clil Phillips
(Colorado) Fiona Cashin
(Colorado) Emma Williamson
(Texas) Karina Kumar
(Texas) Abigail Koehn
(Texas) Karalie Morrison
(UTD) Elissa Balke
(UTD) Nandhini Parthipan
(UTD) Allison Chang
For all the other teams in the region, we either did not play them this season or only played them once and do not have strong sense for who their strongest players were.
As far as rookies go, it is hard to know who the rookies are for other teams but at least for Texas, Advika Kamatar should be considered for any rookie awards.
quandary coach, caveat i’ve only attended regionals this year and only commenting on teams we played at regionals - most rosters don’t have numbers associated with names so i’m using numbers in most cases:
st. louis: i want to say #60 or #3 (could be both)
texas: #08, #14, #20 (#08 specifically should no doubt be on first team)
kansas: georgia (#20 i think?) - got near double digit run through blocks, and hub handler with the hat who was cooking uplines on us (want to say #21)
mizzou or texas coaches for COTY
overall while the region seems to have lost a few teams that used to compete, the overall level of play has really improved across the board. sorry for the numbers and not names