Open Division: Hodags Take Grand Prize, Stumble in Last NCUS Event

The first National Collegiate Ultimate Series culminated over the weekend at Centex in Austin, Texas in a manner befitting the course of the 2008 season. In the third and final Premier Event, the Championship Bracket was once again chock full of different teams than the Championship Brackets of either Trouble In Vegas or The Stanford Invite. In all, 20 different teams advanced to the Quarterfinals and recorded points toward the Grand Prize in the Open Division.

That $5000 check, the biggest prize collected by a College team to date, went to Wisconsin, one of only two teams to achieve the Top 8 at all three Premier Events. With wins in Vegas and Palo Alto, Wisconsin was firmly in control of the Grand Prize heading to Austin. In spite of dropping its first game of the season on Saturday to Michigan, and falling to rival Florida in the Quarterfinals, they still head to the UPA College Series with an impressive haul and a hefty check.

The only other team to match Wisconsin's consistency was the Cinderella story from Vegas, Arizona. With their appearance in the Finals of that tournament, along with two trips to the Quarterfinals in California and Texas, Arizona would take home 3rd Place and receives 50 discs.

The story of the weekend was Kurt Gibson and Florida, navigating a tough pool and a windy Sunday to claim its first Centex title in its third trip to the Finals in four years. In combination with a victory at Warm Up: A Florida Affair, Florida climbed over Arizona, the team that ended their two-year reign at Trouble In Vegas, to claim 2nd Place and a free bid to one of the Cultimate Events of the 2009 National Collegiate Ultimate Series.

The topsy-turvy results of this tournament matched those of the entire season, with six different Finalists playing for the Championships of the four Events of the NCUS. In the end, defending National Champion Wisconsin towers over the field, and will be the favorite as the season shifts to Sectional and Regional qualifying tournaments for the UPA College Championships to be held in Boulder, Colorado in the middle of May. They won't be without challenge, with all of the 20 teams who recorded points in the NUCS looking to make a similar mark in Boulder.