Smaug had a great regionals. Unfortunately, I had a final first thing Monday morning and couldn't make the trip up to Morgan Hill to help out the team, but I followed the team closely all weekend through score reporter and twitter. My heart was racing and I must have hit the refresh button about 100 times when they went to universe point with Chico on Saturday.
I'm really proud of what the team accomplished this year. We knew that the team was going to be young and that there would be some bumps along the way. However, at the beginning of the year I said that I thought Smaug's program is developed to the point where it doesn't matter who is on the roster - you should expect us to be good every year. The guys proved me right. Smaug finished tied for 5th (you might call it just 5th based on head-to-head with Davis at regionals) in the brutal new Southwest. Along the way, they beat Davis, Long Beach and Arizona, and finished higher than UCSD and UCSB for the first time in recent memory.
A lot of the credit goes to Peaches, who did a great job coaching and staying tirelessly energetic and enthusiastic. Even though we implemented a new system this year, it was looking great by the end of the year. New players stepped up and figured out what it takes to win games when teams are fighting tooth and nail. We overcame number of big losses to injury, including Zodiac, Machina, Gambit, Spectre, Scarecrow, and Fawkes for Sunday at regionals. Those guys are all starting players when healthy, so it speaks to the depth of the team that others were able to fill in and still keep rolling. Although the regular season was really inconsistent, the team peaked at the right time and finished as well as anyone could have expected.
The outlook for next year depends entirely on how many returning Smauggies find themselves a serious club team to play with this summer. Smaugs have always come from LA Open and Condors. If the young guys actually take the effort to try out for top teams, Smaug could be very good next year. There are a lot of athletes and a lot of good returning players. Most of the big teams in the Southwest are graduating a lot of their big players. UCSC, SDSU, Cal and Long Beach will be different teams next year, off the top of my head.
This weekend, though, it's time to put the team back in their place at Alumni Day.
