The GM's Thoughts: The Home Stretch

Posted by: MarkDolven

Written by Mark Dolven, GM of the Carolina Core

We've now been in Los Angeles competing and living for almost seven weeks. The Oakwood Apartment complex has become my home away from home for the second straight year. I calculated it the other night and after this season is over, I will have lived at this complex for a total of four months in two years. That's a lot of time away from my real home, but it is a small price to pay to chase our dream, the World Championship. We are however on the home stretch of the 2008 season. If we win on Monday, we will play in our second straight World Final championship match on the following Monday and then head back to our homes on that Wednesday. So we are in Los Angeles for ten more days and it's time to make the most of it.


The Red Carpet Was Nice, But It's Time To Do Work
Although we had a brutal regular season during Region 1, we've turned it on since then. That's basically the theme of this franchise though because we didn't have an excellent Region 1 regular season last year as well, but we did well in the playoffs. Overall here are our records all-time:

2007 Region 1 Regular Season: 6-6
2007 Region 1 Playoffs: 1-1
2007 World Final: 3-1
2008 Region 1 Regular Season: 4-8
2008 Region 1 Playoffs: 2-0
2008 World Final: 1-0

All-Time Record: 17-16
All-Time Regular Season Record: 10-14
All-Time Post Season Record: 7-2

As you can see this team really does step it up in the playoffs. When we defeated the Venom in the North American Final, our experience really did put us over the top. On Monday when we take on the Salvo, it will be our 34th franchise match which is the most in CGS history. On the contrary, it will be the Salvo's 8th match. Hopefully we've learned something in our 26 extra matches that we can use against them. We will need every advantage we can get to beat them. Although I may or may not like the way the carry themselves, I really respect them as a franchise. They rolled through the European Championship and are definitely a franchise than can give us trouble. They don't really have any glaring weaknesses, so we won't be able to beat them unless we bring our A-game in every division.

If I was forced to choose one key to beating Birmingham, I would say that it is Mystik beating Sarah Lou. Kat has never lost to an International player in a match and we'll need that to continue if we want to get back to the Final. She started strong against Catpower of Wuhan last week, but it's no secret that Sarah Lou is ten times the player. The Salvo female has really been a cornerstone of their success this season. Her only loss is in the Individual finals against Vanessa and even then it was only a 5-3 defeat. Sarah Lou plays an aggressive Kasumi, but fortunately for us Kat is a tremendous player and has a plethora of success against Kasumi players. I truly believe Mystik is the better player in this game and if she proves this with a victory, we should be in good shape.


Mystik Will Be Our MVP For Sure If She Beats Sarah Lou
On the bottom of the bracket, the Optx and Allianz will fight for the other finals spot. I won't be cheering for either of these teams because they are both friends of the Core, but I can't help but think Optx have a better shot at advancing. Not only are they a North American team with all of the experience, but they have such an incredible DOA team. Berlin's biggest weakness is in DOA, so if Vanessa and NinjaCW can run the tables like they should, the Optx should make their first grand final appearance. One thing that has been consistent with this CGS season though is that nothing is sacred. Some of the craziest things have already happened like us winning North America with a 4-8 record, so I am not counting Berlin out. They have been working extremely hard in the practice rooms and if a couple of things go their way early on, they could be the team waiting in the finals.

It's kind of ironic that this year's final four bracket looks almost the exact same as it did last year. Three out of four of the teams are the same with the Optx being the only new team in the mix. Birmingham faced off against the North American champs in the Semi-Finals as well last year, but it was against the Chimera instead of us. Berlin on the other hand faced off against the third seed from North America last year as well, but it was us instead of the Optx as it is this year. It's kind of funny how that worked out and I hope things all play out the same way they did. I would love to have another All-American final with the North American champion coming out on top again. I wish it were that easy.

The home stretch is here and the entire team is pushing themselves more now than we have all year. If we can somehow get past the Salvo, the team will not settle for second place again. Seven players on this team were part of last year's second place finish and it's been eating all of us alive since. The next ten days are why we all live and why we are chasing this dream. Thank god we're the GDMF Carolina Core.

Let's Roll!~