In a shortened President’s Day Tournament due to weather, teams were limited to just two pool play games on Saturday, two power pool games on Sunday, and the consolation and championship brackets on Monday. Once again this year’s competition was stiff and included powerhouses such as Oregon, Colorado, Washington and Cal Poly SLO, including a few other contenders who had attended nationals last year. Colorado ended up the winner of tournament taking the final game over SLO 12-7.

The Squids first game of pools happened to be against this year’s winner of Pres Day. In a close fought game, the Squids lost on universe to the Mamabirds 8-9. An out-of-bounds end zone turn on universe put the Squids in a tough defensive position that they weren’t able to claw back from. This was a good showing for the Squids as they were able to compete with one of the top ranked teams this year.

For the second and final game of pool play the Squids played against Utah. After going up two breaks with some stellar defense, Utah came out in a zone that Squids couldn’t break. Utah rode with their zone defense and got up a couple of breaks. Even with a late surge by the Squids, they fell to Utah 8-10. The switch to zone defense was key to Utah’s success and has been a struggle for the Squids thus far this year.

However, during the second day of games, the Squids were able to get back on track with a win over UC Santa Cruz 12-8. The Squids showed improvement as they were able to carve up Santa Cruz’s zone defense. Stefan “Dent” Samu played well with four goals and two D’s.

The final power pool game of the day was against Oregon. Going down two breaks to start the game, the Squids took Oregon’s best shot right off the bat. Every point after that was neck-and-neck. Both teams going even after Oregon’s two breaks. It was another tough loss for the Squids 9-12 but they hung in there with another top contender, showing signs of growth after every game.

From the results of pool play and power pools, the Squids were placed in the consolation bracket. They were scheduled to play two games but CAL forfeited their match to head on their way back home. So with only one game left on their schedule, the Squids faced SDSU in a San Diego showdown. Up one break at the half, SDSU kept the game close, but the Squids ended the game on three straight breaks. The final point was run by the fish and Andrew “Roq” Hua as Bernard “Bisquick” Suwirjo threw in the game’s final score to Adam “Friday” Stafford. The Squids won the game 13-8 going 2-3 on the extended weekend. Even though there were some tough stretches at points in the tournament, the Squids showed resilience, and they will be tough come regionals.