made it to the quarters....the hard way

After going 4-0 in the opening pool, Mephisto moved into one of the two power pools, with half of the top 10 teams. (I can't remember what Dan wrote in the last post and i don't feel like checking, so if you've read this already, please move on to the next paragraph). Their pool consisted of Thong (AUS), Faculty (AUS), Chilli (AUS), Fire of London (UK) and Mephisto. The other pool had Buzz Bullets, DoubleWide, Subzero, Clapham, and another team that I don't know.

Anyway, Mephisto started out Day 3 against Thong. (btw, Thong is an Australian flip flop, not the underwear). I wasn't there, so I don't have the details, but word is that they had a somewhat comfortable lead, but Thong came back to tie it up and Mephisto lost on double game point. For our non-ultimate readers, this means they lost by 1. That afternoon they came up againt Faculty and my source says that they came out flat and never quite got into the game. They lost by a bunch.

Day 4 started with more of the same - Australia and a loss. They played Chilli, the Melbourne team who were incredibly tall, fast and athletic. Mephisto was down 6-2 when i showed up and brought it back to 6-5. A couple of quick turnovers let Chilli pull away again and Mephisto never managed to catch up. Chilli won by 6 or so.

This led to the most important game of the tournament so far. Fire of London was also winless in the power pool, and the winner of this match up would head to the quarterfinals, while the loser would be bumped down to the 9-16 bracket. Mephisto got off to the same start that they have pretty much every game...down 2 points early. However, they made a quick comeback and led by 3 for the better part of the first half. In the second half it Fire looked like they were going to make a push to catch up, but Mephisto started to pull away and didn't look back. Mephisto by about 6.

For anyone interested in other Canadian teams - during the Fire of London game, Camelot was playing Dischords in the game to stay in the top 16. They were playing on the "upper" fields, which meant it was both windier and the wind created upwind/downwind points instead of the crosswinds that the boys were dealing with. I watched that game until it was 6-6, but decided that it wasn't going to be that exciting due to the windy conditions before heading down to the boys' field. I would be proven wrong though, as Camelot took a 2 point lead but then ended up losing 15-9, putting Dischord in the top 16.

Mephisto is currently about 30 minutes away from start time of their quarterfinal. They drew Buzz Bullets of Japan, who earned the number one seed of the other pool, winning all of their games. I believe that they are the only undefeated open team left in the tournament. hopefully Mephisto can use their height mismatches to their advantage and stop the quickness and precision of the Japanese, but it's going to be a tough game for sure.

Someone will post the outcome of today later! (our today - meaning Canada's tomorrow)

Courtney