US Open

07/12/10 - 07/17/10 in Minneapolis, MN

OPEN Division

MASTER Division

GRANDMASTER Division

SENIORGRANDMASTER Division

JUNIOR Division

WOMEN Division

Thanks to Harvey Brandt for the results.

This is a brief report. Also other participants may get some
 information out as they recover.
 - Accuracy and SCF started of the 6 day event. No mysteries in Open
 Accuracy as many time WFDF World Champ, Conrad Damon, took
 control. Susie Horn set a Women’s SGM World record. Marie Delrose took
 the Women’s title in a playoff with Beth Verish. SCF saw many amazing
 throws as Jack Cooksey, Cody Kirkland, locals Eric Reppun and Jeff
 Feldberg scored high marks. Many throws were made with the tourney
 fastback, a remolded 1A put out by Discovering the World. Jack Cooksey
 dominated, Lori Daniels took the Women’s title, and once again Susie
 Horn set records in the Women’s SGM. This time for MTA, TRC, and SCF.
 - Tuesday morning started with Discathon in a very nice park with
 rolling hills and plenty of trees. Conrad Damon once again led the
 way, with former champs Thomas Cole and Harvey Brandt close
 behind. Cody Kirkland showed once again that he may be an overall
 force in the future. Good genes from former World Champ John Kirkland
 and the irreplaceable G Kirkland. Beth Verish took the lead in the
 Women’s first of two combined races. In the afternoon distance, Cody
 Kirkland lead both of the first two rounds before giving way to Jack
 Cooksey in the finals. Relative newcomer Alan Koechlein, a Cooksey
 protege, finished third. Lori Daniels took another title for the
 Women, with Susie Horn continuing her SGM World Record run with a
 second place finish. That gave her five World Records for the week.
 - Wednesday brought the only bad weather of the week. Storms hit the
 morning round of golf at Bryant Lake, a wonderful and extremely well
 maintained park course. The high winds and rain prevented really low
 scores. John Kirkland was the leader in the clubhouse with Conrad,
 local MN boys Tim Mackey and Christian Olsen close behind. Cody
 Kirkland also lurked. After making it through Bryant Lake, the worst
 was feared as the field headed to Hyland Hills, another beautiful
 course on a challenging ski slope. Relief was evident as the storms
 stayed to the South, allowing some good play. It was humid, soaking
 everyone out there. Cody Kirkland and Tim Mackey posted good rounds to
 come in tied. Cody prevailed in a playoff, couldn’t tell you how many
 holes it took as some cold beverages were calling my name. Lori
 Daniels and Beth Verish tied for the Women’s lead and somehow forgot
 to play it off, what with the heat and such.
 - Thursday started off with Discathon bright and early. The weather
 was back to a balmy 85-90 degrees or so, with a touch of
 humidity. Open semis saw Jack Cooksey take the first heat with Cody
 Kirkland fading near the end of the race in his hopes to be the wild
 card qualifier. Time would tell. Next race saw another legacy appear
 as Spencer Herrick did his dad, Jim Herrick (legend in name if not in
 age division), very proud. Unfortunately, Jim would not make it to the
 finals in his heat. The third race saw a tough draw as former champ
 Harvey Brandt and current WFDF World champ Thomas Cole went head to
 head. This was likely the race to NOT be in for anyone else as both
 turned in good times, despite Thomas having to back track to get an
 overlooked mandatory. Harvey took the win with Thomas having the
 eventual wild card time. The last race saw Conrad Damon make a few
 mistakes (not many times you could was that during his wee) but still
 cruise to a victory and finals spot. Next up was the Women’s final,
 which was a two race cumulative event. Beth Verish held a 44 second
 lead over Lori, with Susie Horn another 3 seconds in arrears. (No
 world record for Susie this time!) Lori made up most of the time but a
 failed third test allowed Beth to hold her off by 10 seconds for the
 WFDF title. The Senior Grandmasters do controlled pace event (throw
 every 30 seconds) for their overall. Even though most of them can and
 usually do the running event as well. Mark Horn took some of wife
 Susie’s magic to take the two race, cumulative event. Richard
 Koechlein (yep, dad of Alan, who sadly had a hamstring pull and
 couldn’t show his speed on the running event) made up a lot of time
 and finished second. Jim Herrick made his final throw just in time to
 grab third place. With about an hour of rest time, the Open race was
 ready to go. With enough discathon titles between them to satisfy most
 folks, Conrad, Thomas, and Harvey were the likely favorites. Thomas
 was nursing a stomach pull from earlier and Harvey was recovering from
 a calf injury so it was hard to speculate. Tight early, Conrad and
 Harvey eventually separated from the field. Conrad’s running held off
 Harvey as both threw the course very well. Conrad set the new course
 record, Harvey was second, and Thomas rebounded to take third.  The
 afternoon brought variable and often gusty winds for the start of
 DDC. With a great field of players - many world champs, highly ranked
 players, and the return of Scott Zimmerman, making the semis was no
 given. Through pool action there were only a few seed busting teams,
 see the statistics links above for more details. In the Women’s
 action, there were only two full teams. Lori Daniels and Bethany
 Sanchez were able to take the title, defeating Beth Verish and Susie
 Horn in straight games.
 - The eight team round robin continued from Thursday’s action to
 Friday morning. The better wind conditions saw the top four seeds hold
 on to set up the semis. Top seed Harvey Brandt and Dave Hesselberth
 (flying in only for DDC) finished on top and chose to play Mark Horn
 and Scott Zimmerman. Harvey and Dave survived a spirited effort to win
 two of the three games. Second seeded Conrad Damon and Carlton Howard
 (also flying in only for the DDC) took two very close games (two point
 margins in both) to defeat third seeded John and Cody Kirkland.
 Freestyle was the afternoon’s featured event. This event saw a few
 players finally emerge after hiding out all week. This is often the
 case in overall competition. Some want to do all the events, some area
 saving it for the crowd pleasing freestyle. A total of 16 Open
 division teams took the field. Again, I’ll direct you to the PDF file
 links at the top of this page for complete listings. Suffice it to say
 that there were some awesome performances from the highly ranked teams
 of Pat Marron and Dan Yarnell; Larry Imperiale, Bill Wright, and Dave
 Schiller; Rico Schneider and Paul Smith; and Tim Mackey and Scott
 Zimmerman. It was decided to take the top five teams from each pool to
 allow for more competition and more play for Saturday’s finals. The
 Women’s field was once again small. Beth Verish had a designated
 thrower as her regular partner, Tita Ugalde, had to miss the tourney
 due to late breaking family matter. Beth finished second to a very
 polished routine by Lori Daniels and Bethany Sanchez. Many of these
 freestylers are prepping for the upcoming FPA World event in Seattle
 so there was excellent jamming.
 - Saturday dawned with another day of beautiful weather. Very calm
 winds greeted the DDC finals of #1 World ranked Conrad Damon and #10
 ranked Carlton Howard versus #2 ranked Harvey Brandt and #5 ranked
 Dave Hesselberth. They had had a very close match in the round robin
 pool so it was expected to be tight. Unfortunately for the eager
 crowd, Dave and Harvey took command early and cruised to a straight
 games victory. Conrad and Carlton could not break the defense of Dave
 and Harvey and faced some tough attacks back. Never ones to let minor
 things like the end of competition bother them, most of the DDC
 players just got right back on the courts and played for hours.  The
 rest of the tourney decided to move on with the freestyle finals. Ten
 teams total presented a variety of styles and techniques for a very
 enjoyable last event. Every team played very well making the judging
 very difficult. The final rankings are in the files. Several teams
 deserve mention, however. Jack Cooksey and Thomas Cole showed they are
 more than field event mavens, putting on a very smooth and pleasing
 routine to finish sixth. Jack was also in a serious and close overall
 race which would not be decided until his freestyle results were
 known. Thomas Lasher again displayed wonderful difficulty and smooth
 action, carrying along his aging and injured partner Harvey Brandt
 (along with a broken disc during the routine) to finish fifth. Two SGM
 players showed there is no limit to freestyle as Rick Williams and
 Doug Korns put on a solid and smoothly choreographed routine to place
 fourth. The top three spots were seldom in question, just the
 order. Locals Rico Schneider and Paul Smith had a very crowd pleasing
 mixture of active moves to be the unanimous third place
 finishers. Larry, Bill, and Dave played second to last and put on a
 very exciting, smooth, and polished routine. They were prepping for
 FPA by competing in MN and their hard work showed. The last team was
 local Pat Marron joined by Dan Yarnell. They also put on a wonderful
 display of high tech and athletic moves with smooth interaction. These
 top two spots came down to a very close judges decision. Five judges
 out of the nine put Larry, Bill, and Dave in the top spot, with Pat
 and Dan taking a very close second place.
 - The only thing left was the overall titles. I won’t go too long on
 this as it is getting lengthy. You have seen the names frequently
 enough within this report to have a pretty good idea of the overall
 leaders. I’ll also give brief mention to the divisional winners as
 this was not only the US Overall, but also the Masters and Juniors
 event.  Leading the Open Division at the end of the week was Conrad
 Damon, taking the last two major Overall titles (along with WFDF last
 summer). A great overall for him, escaping Jack Cooksey by ONLY 1.5
 points at the end. Yes, that freestyle was very important. Harvey
 Brandt finished third, repeating in order the top three finishers of
 last year. Lori Daniels took the Women’s Overall title with a very
 solid performance. Beth Verish was second, and that wunderkind Susie
 Horn finished third.  Local newcomer Peter Rock took the 12 and Under
 Boys title, Jeff Korns the 16 and Under, Cody Kirkland nipping Spencer
 Herrick for the 19 and Under title. Mattie Shelton and Charlotte
 McKlveen led the tow Girl’s Divisions. Thomas Cole led the Masters age
 division, Conrad Damon also led the Grandmaster age group, while Mark
 Horn took the Senior Grandmaster title. A special mention goes out the
 Legend (in more ways than one) Jim Palmeri and to Senior Grandmaster
 Woman Susie Horn.
 - For six days it was a wonderful combination of beautiful Edina
 (suburb of Minneapolis), some great weather, excellent facilities, and
 great organization. The team that Paul Thompson put together included
 Lightning Lyle Jensen, Chris Sieben, Natalie Gille, Tim Mackey, Brad
 Wendt, Tim Gill, Pat Marron, and few others I am likely forgetting in
 my altered state. Suffice to say, this was one great overall event
 that should not have been missed.