AOUGCC 2017 Conquers Manila
With 64 club teams from all over the Asia-Oceanic region flying into Manila, The Asia-Oceanic Ultimate and Guts Club Championships held last August 18-20, was without a doubt, a major highlight of the Philippine Ultimate calendar for the year 2017. Clubs teams from Japan, Australia, Singapore, Korea, India, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Cambodia to name a few landed on our soil to challenge our very own club teams on a three day non-stop ultimate action at the Alabang Country Club, Manila.
With that said, Our All About U crew and the rest of the Philippine Ultimate Media, went to cover all the actions from every corner of the wide ACC field. Though I still haven't recovered from a very one sided battle against the Dumaguete Sun (Photographed another three-day tournament in Ultimate Shindig Dumaguete) a week before AOUGCC, I really don't have any reason to pass this opportunity. I mean, with the top club teams and top caliber players are in your neighborhood busting their buns off for the bragging rights to be called the number one Club Team in the region (of their respective division) for the longest period of time.... You can't seriously say no to that. So I hauled up my gears (and my sun burns) to Manila, put a lot of ice and water in my camelback, and began shooting people.
As expected, the games went on top speed the moment the first pulls of the tournament were thrown to the other end zone. Club teams from Australia, Singapore, and Japan immediately made their presence known, but the Pinoys never backed down from the challenge. Bad Blood Women's team had a good run during the weekend, but The Vicious girls almost made it to the championship round against the powerhouse team, Huck of Japan. Havoc Mayhem of Singapore went on to defeat the Vicious Girls to play for the final showdown against the very impressive Japanese Women's team. Though they came just a tad bit short, The Vicious girls did all the things that they needed to do -Compete to the highest level all throughout the weekend. With bronze medals around their necks, it goes to show that we are on the right track in developing our single gender teams in the country and in this region as a whole.
Same goes for Men's. Though, Japan and Australia are still considered as the giants of Men's Ultimate in this region, Singapore slowly but surely creeps into the top of the list together with the Philippines. Shout out to Crackerjacks Crush as they managed to score an upset against a very strong Australian team in Colony; won against the unbeaten Vicious Men's team in the semis, and almost scored another upset against the unbeatable Nomadic Tribe of Japan in a very strategic championship battle. The Philippines, on the other hand, was very well represented as Vicious Mens placed 4th in the overall standings and Young Bloods though placed 18th, they won the most important award of the tournament, The Most Spirited Team trophy. Team Pancake placed 20th in the standings.
But it wasn't just the Manila teams who made their presence known, The Provincial teams also had their fair share of the limelight as Team Karne Norte of Tuguegarao and Bagani of Malaybalay Bukidnon placed 15th and 16th, respectively. You have to give it up for these two teams, that even though short in numbers, still they gave their all.
There were a lot of fantastic games all throughout the weekend, lots of intense battles and definitely tons of upset games were recorded. It was just too unfortunate that the Mixed championship game was not played on the showcase field. Because in my own personal opinion, the Mulatto-Boracay Bandits game was without a doubt the game of the tournament. Down 3-0 from the start to trailing 5-8 by the end of the first half, Mulatto made some drastic adjustments in their offensive and defensive lines that made the bandits collapse and never score a single point in the second half. Mulatto took advantage of all the errors, drops and miscommunications of the bandits. Scored every possession that they get from all the unfortunate mishaps, and made me ask myself these questions up until now, weeks after that historic comeback.
"What in the world happened to the bandits?"
"What did the Dabawenyos talk about during halftime that changed the course of the game?"
I've seen a lot of 11-0/15-0 game results in the past, But I haven't seen a 10-0 comeback in a championship game of the biggest club tournament in Asia-Oceanic region. It was definitely a jaw dropping result. It only shows that the "Never Give Up" statement is real. Mulatto showed us the true meaning of never giving up. Mulatto showed the whole region how a REAL championship team plays the game. They lost two of their first two games on Day 1, but they never gave up. They bounced back in Day 2 and demolished every single team that came their way in the elimination rounds. The Bandits sure was a force to be reckoned with. A selection of the best players of different provinces in the country mixed with some of the top players of Boracay, it was pretty much a well assembled mixed team. But luck wasn't on their side during the AOUGCC weekend. Unfortunately, the "Quicksand Theory" is real. That weekend, The Bandits stepped on a quicksand.
Final score: Mulatto 15-8 Bandits.
The Orange men and women of Sunken Pleasure took Bronze out of the 28 mixed club teams. Cagayan's CGY Ninjas placed 6th, and Alpha (Manila) placed 14th to round up the Philippine Club teams campaign. Overall, it was an impressive result from all the Pinoy Mixed teams.
Guts tournament, on the other hand, was fairly new to us shooters of the flying disc game. So we were all fortunate enough to experience it and photograph the sport. It's all about how you throw the disc with all your might, hoping that the defenders won't catch it, or if you are the defender, you need to have the agility of a cat and a strong grip to catch the disc with one hand and hoping not to get hit on the nose. It was actually pretty exciting to watch, and I would really love to get a chance to cover Guts in the future. Will anyone have the "guts" to assemble a Filipino Guts team? Time will tell. But I think we will be pretty good at it as well.
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| Photo by Nico Primaleon |
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| Photo by Nico Primaleon |
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| Photo by Nico Primaleon |
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| Photo by Nico Primaleon |
AOUGCC was such an amazing experience for all the shooters that weekend. We were all in for a treat from Day 1 up to the last points of the tournament. Big thanks to WFDF for choosing the Philippines and congratulations to the PFDA board, tournament organizers, marshals and all the people responsible for making these years AOUGCC a success.
It was definitely a killer weekend in Alabang!
For more photos of AOUGCC2017
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