Chicago Invite Tournament SiteOpen Results
Girls Results
The Chicago Invite took place the weekend following a wonderfully cold spring break in Chicago, IL. When Saturday morning finally rolled around it was just above 30 degrees. Teams from 5 different states began to arrive and discs were seen floating back and forth over the ice-covered ground.
The captains meeting would be ended with the first prayer that I've ever witnessed at an ultimate tournament's main meeting and was led by our very own open captain, Dan Williams. We have struggled with how we want to be relevant in the ultimate community with our faith, and though we do not have this figured out, we do see that God and ultimate make a lot of sense.
The North Park Open Team entered into our own tournament seeded number one... A little high according to a few, but even the UPA believed us to be the highest seed (according to the RRI). Our ladies on the other hand were a bit farther behind, but more so because the talent pool coming in their division was much stronger.
Pool play Saturday began at 9am with 4 games and a bye round for every open team. The Lost Boys would start the day out against Milwaukee School of Engineering; a very new team who was looking forward to their first ever tournament. Though they took a pounding, they did end up taking 2 points from us in a 13-2 LB victory. Next would be Northern Iowa, who would be a much stronger team, but still lacked the height and depth to hang with us after the first of many breaks. Iowa would go down 13-06 in just over 50 minutes. Our first two quick games gave us a chance to watch the other pools and support our ladies before taking on DePauw from Greencastle, IN. We would allow them one score; 13-01, before taking on Michigan State X. Michigan State X would be a fiery group who played nearly savage all tournament. A couple players of theirs were extremely talented and the spirit of both our teams got tested when we continued to break them despite hard fought points. Eventually we would take the game 13-04. Our Lost Boys would go 4-0 for the day and earn a first round bye on Sunday morning.
Pool play for our ladies began against DePaul and though it was close in the beginning with at least a few extremely long points, our 3 or 4 north park ladies along with their additional pick-ups took it to DePaul and the win 12-05. Riding the previous victory, our girls would take on Kalamazoo and handle them the same: 12-05. Following a third round bye and watching our boys play, they would take on Northwestern in a grueling match that would come down to universe point (or universal if you're from the midwest). Allihopa would push it deep and earn the win against Northwestern 12-11. Going 3-0, our ladies would get a cross over game against Illinois-Chicago (the number two on the other side). Our girls would struggle early and go down 3-7 before half. They would fight back to get within 2, but time would not be on their side and Allihopa would take their first loss of the tournament 10-12.
Our North Park Alumni (who were bolstered by a few of our current players) would go 2-2 in pool play with wins over Kalamazoo 07-03 & DePaul 09-08. Their only losses would be to Toledo 05-13 and Lewis 09-11 (after being tied at 9-9s and receiving the pull). Doug, Aaron, Jenkins, and Ty would lead this group and hopefully begin an annual occurrence of an alumni presence.
Sunday morning would start early for me, but not early enough... Our field situation would become more than annoying when 200 some football players showed up on the girls fields 15 minutes before they were to start their quarter-final rounds. After moving things a couple hundred yards, we'd get them set up behind the boys and the brackets on all sides were up and running. (Small men who like football often over-compensate with language and threats to women. I like that I'm not a small man.)
Allihopa would be much more in character on Sunday morning with a full north park team; many of our players were back from spring break and had their cleats on ready to play. They would go up against Loyola-Chicago in their quarter-final match-up. Loyola would go down 8-6 in another hard fought game that had their field directly up and down wind. Though our girls were eager for the next round and feeling pretty lucky, they would come up a bit short against Illinois-Chicago 04-13. Their placement game for 3rd would come only a few minutes later against a highly talented Michigan State team, who had just been taken out by Illinois 13-06. Our ladies ended up with a 4th place finish after going down 04-10, but felt good about their tournament experience.
Our Boys would earn a first round bye on Sunday morning. Our team would begin warming up about 30 minutes before Illinois B would be taken out by Loyola-Chicago and earn the right to play us. The weather would slowly become nicer throughout the day, but until noon it was freakin cold. Our boys would warm up on Sunday with Loyola and after 45 minutes we were finished with a 13-02 final score and ready for what was next. Toledo would emerge victorious against Rose-Hulman and came pissed off and ready to battle. We would come out a little too cocky and trade points until just before half. Finally we woke up and realized that we needed to respect these guys and begin playing some real ultimate. Toledo would exit the tournament after our 11-07 victory (the only game we would be unable to score 13 in). This would give North Park a birth to the finals against Western Michigan, who had earned the right to play us after besting Illinois-Chicago 12-09. We would stay close and even the first 6 points for 3 all, but that would be the closest Western Michigan would get. The next few points would be ours and eventually we simply ran their legs off and took the game and Championship 13-05.
Luke Johnson
Mark Grapengater - not up yet... but coming
David Hwang
Video:
Coming...
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