One region. Two bids. Three teams no one would be surprised to see make a deep run at this year’s USAU National Championships.

Northeast Men’s Regionals this weekend looks to be a bloodbath. Fourth-ranked New York PoNY and #5 Boston Dig will need to fend off a motivated Toronto GOAT team who, despite preseason hype, find themselves on the outside of the bid picture looking in, ranked #18 heading into Regionals.

“I think we’re coming in with a bit more humility than we have in past years,” said Nathan Hirst, an offensive handler in his fourth year with GOAT, reflecting on the team’s mindset as they assume the role of spoiler in a typically contentious region. “We’re very confident, but I would say our team has a policy of ‘no bulletin board talk’, we like to joke around but we never want to give a team extra motivation to beat us.”

GOAT has both over- and underachieved in a long and multi-faceted season: an incomplete roster with few performance goals outside of “have a fun week with the boys” stormed into the semi-finals of the World Ultimate Club Championships in Cincinnati in July while playing almost as much Spikeball as ultimate, while a dominant Rush team comprised of mostly the same roster as GOAT faltered in the AUDL playoffs, losing to the New York Empire for the first time in their history.

Most recently, GOAT has been putting the finishing touches on a weak USAU regular season, by their own admission, which featured several short-staffed teams travelling to late season tournaments to get enough games in before the playoff series. At the Elite Select Challenge in early September, the team dropped two winnable Sunday games to fall out of the algorithmically-driven USAU top-16 ranking and lose a bid.

“It’s totally on us,” Hirst said. “If we had performed differently we wouldn’t have to worry about Regionals as much, but we’ve come to terms with it and accepted that we put ourselves in this hole.”

They head into the two-bid Northeast Men’s Regionals with their work cut out for them, as their path to Nationals will involve beating either a strong PoNY team – coming off a 15-12 victory over San Francisco Revolver earlier this month at the Triple Crown Tour Pro Championships – or the perennially strong Dig, who absorbed much of Ironside’s roster this offseason in a merger that made them the unquestionable top dog in a stacked ultimate city.

GOAT will field a complete roster for the first time all season, including having Mark Lloyd back with a defensive unit that will have to contain the likes of Jimmy Mickle and Ben Jagt.

“PoNY really upped their game this season. They are going to be a tough egg to crack,” Hirst added. “Our O-Line is going to really need to play almost a perfect game in order to beat them.”

PoNY is embracing the opportunity to compete in close, meaningful games at Regionals. “The bid situation isn’t bothersome to us,” said PoNY captain Matt Hennessy. “We want to make a deep run at Nationals, and if that means needing to beat a top eight team on the way to that tournament, we’ll be better for it.”

Co-captain Isaac Saul echoed his sentiments, adding: “Our goal is to win a national championship, and if we can’t get out of the region – regardless of the bid situation – the only thing we can reflect on is the level of play we brought to Regionals. We’re ready to go and excited for the challenge.”

“On the men’s side, this is going to be the most exciting Regionals in the country.” -Matt Hennessy, PoNY

Bids being stolen in the Northeast Region is nothing new. “We’re fired up about it,” Hirst said. “In 2016 when GOAT didn’t make nationals, we actually got our bid stolen by Dig, so for us we’re looking for a little bit of payback.

“It’s just a matter of coming in, doing the job we have to do, executing well, and not letting energy be down or anything,” Hirst added. “It’s one of the first times in a while for us having our whole team back, if we can just maintain that sideline energy and grind through the weekend we should be alright.

“We’re going to go in confident and see where the weekend takes us.”

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