Westerns: The big dance

In a few weeks Gunn High school and Alameda (something starting with a C) Learning Center, or Darkmeat, will be playing in the biggest tournament in high school ultimate: Westerns. This tournament has the best schools from across the western United States, playing to be crowned the best of the west. Featured in this tournament will be future high level men's and women's club players and most likely future Callahan winners.

The tournament is single gender, which means it's men vs men, unless one team decides to play ladies and women vs women.

Two teams from the Bay area will duke-it-out with the top guns of ultimate. Gunn is from the Palo Alto area and Dark Meat from Alameda. These two teams met in the championship game at last weeks California State Championships. Even though the final score was overwhelmingly in favor of the Darkmeat team, Gunn had a great run at the tournament and a great year.

What should you expect from each team at Westerns? Dark Meat hopes to make quarter finals. Meat player and 2010 USA U20 team player, Eli Kerns, has never made the quarters. That is his main goal. Of course winning the whole thing would be great, but I promise that the teams they play are the best around, and it's not impossible just unlikely that they would win the whole thing.

Let's not forget about Sweet Meat, the Alameda girls team. Marissa of Sweet Meat has great throws and decision making, but I believe the team is just too young to make real noise at the tournament.

The unknown team of Gunn. None of which have ever played in Westerns will most likely not win a game. They have a lot of talent, it's just too raw for a tournament like this. This shouldn't take anything away from the year they had. They have great coaches and some kids that have alot of heart, and passion for the sport.

Whatever happens, expect there to be a lot of fun and great stories coming from these kids. Updates will come as i know them.

Good luck to both teams.