Tournament Results

Clean Victory at the Dirty Dozens for Whisby

Posted by: on Jun 23, 2014 | No Comments

Jeju, South Korea

April 12-13, 2014

This is a reprint of Allison Walford’s awesome writeup on Korean Ultimate’s website (reprinted with her permission. Head to the original article to see some sweet photos). For more information about Korean Ultimate (it’s pretty fun up there, trust me) head to the KUPA homepage or their facebook page.

 

April 12-13th 2014 marked the 10th anniversary of the Jeju International Tournament, Dirty Dozens. This year’s edition was the largest to date, boasting 28 teams representing 6 different countries, and with 350 participants and guests from 6 continents (only Antarctica remains unrepresented to date!) and over 15 countries.h a

To accommodate the additional teams, KUPA added an additional field site at Geolmae Soccer Fields, and switched to a sweet (and probably way too nice for frisbee players to ever be allowed back at) new hotel, The Island Blue Hotel & Resort. They were gracious hosts, providing palatial rooms, delicious breakfast and all the necessities to make our stay far cushier than we probably deserve.

Aside from poor weather on Sunday, the tournament went off mostly without a hitch. Thanks to a group of nine wonderful volunteers, games started and ended on schedule throughout the weekend, and the weather cleared up on Sunday just in time for Finals.

 

Saturday Play

Saturday was a clear, sunny day full of surprises for a lot of teams. In the combined A/B division, Taiwan’s Whisby Nation, Tokyo’s UKI, Shanghai and Seoul’s #LGW took the 1-seeds in their pools to lock in their shot at the championship on Sunday. The 2 & 3 seeds in each pool played crossover games to determine championship bracket entrance. Fukuoka’s NUNSOPU’S, South Korea’s Limp Disc, Seoul’s Sugapoint and China’s Free Smile Island snagged the last four spots into A-bracket quarterfinals.

In the C division, 2013 champs Harriscary Elephants fell short of expectations in pool play, while two Korean player based teams, Rush N Catch and Woori Team streaked to the top of the C-division, earning a chance to play into the B division Sunday morning.

Saturday night’s party was also a rousing success. The party theme of Classics inspired some really sweet costumes including the Spice Girls, Pokemon, Super Mario, Wayne’s World, and a whole lot of togas.

 

Sunday Play

On Sunday morning, players woke to Jeju Island’s famously strong winds and rainy weather. Luckily the rain only continued through the first round; however, the wind persevered throughout the day, making many games battles to get a break. Games across all the pulls were really close from quarters. Whisby Nation, UKI, Limp Disc and Shanghai all won their quarterfinals games so the semis showdowns were between Whisby and Shanghai on field 1 and UKI and Limp Disc on Field 2. Shanghai and Limp Disc fought hard but couldn’t finish against disciplined and organized Whisby Nation and UKI. And the stage for Finals was set.

B-division and C-division were equally competitive on Sunday. Japan’s Somei Yoshino really kicked their play up on Sunday after a tough loss to Sugapoint into the A-division play-in crossover game. Somei Yoshino ended Sunday undefeated, bringing home to B-division Championship. In the C-division, Jejunicorns, who dropped into the C bracket after playing in the A/B Division Saturday played strongly to earn their title as C-division champions, keeping the C-division trophy in Jeju another year.

As the finals began, the winds started to die to and the skies opened up and rays of sunlight beamed down on the fields. The frisbee gods were clearly looking out for us at that point. UKI vs Whisby proved to be exactly as exciting as all the spectators hoped, with lots of huge plays on both sides of the disc. The game was close through to the very end, but Whisby came out on top.

 

Awards

A huge congratulations to Whisby Nation on taking home the 10th Jeju Dirty Dozens title. Also, big congratulations to UKI, runners-up, as well as Somei Yoshino and Jejunicorns, the B- & C-division champions.

This year’s finals MVPs were Whisby Nation’s Cloud & UKI’s Tamir Stulberg, who both played huge, exciting games.

The team spirit award was presented to Fukuoka University’s NUNSOPU’S who were filled with excitement for the sport and spirit in all their games. It was also the first international tournament for their team (and first time traveling abroad for many to boot!)

The party was won by China’s Free Smile Island, who took the Classics theme to the next level by coordinating their costumes to bring all of the beloved Mario Bros. characters to life. A special Party Animal Award was given to the dancing machines: Eric Neimeyer (Daegu Party) and Niji Ohno(IKU)

And our Dirtiest Dozen, 12 players who received the most MVP votes from the captains of opposing teams throughout the weekend were awarded last:

  • Kaori Misawa (UKI)
  • Amy Smith (Shanghai)
  • Sara Caudill (Team Rocket)
  • Makoto Munakata (NUNSOPU’S)
  • Ida Binti Abd Khalid (KURU)
  • Lauren Kubik (Gettin Jjigae Wit It)
  • Will Chen (Whisby Nation)
  • Paul Adkisson (Limp Disc)
  • Thomas Pineda (#LGW)
  • Nick Whale (Daegu Party)
  • Hwanjunn Yu 유환준 (UFO)
  • David “Carne” Miller (Rush N Catch)

Lastly, KUPA would like to thank our sponsors: Five Ultimate for providing some sweet gear for us to sell at the tournament, as well as the Jeju Island government who has supported us from day one, making this event possible. Thanks also to all the wonderful volunteers who kept time, recorded scores and generally made the organizers’ lives just a little bit easier.

We can’t wait to see you again in 2015! JE-WHAT?

Leave a Reply