Seattle Cascades Fall to Salt Lake Shred, 21-22
By Becca Weinberg, edited by Charles Hamaker
Herriman, UT - In their first time in Zion Bank Stadium since 2024 Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) Championship Weekend, our Seattle Cascades lost a tight game to the Salt Lake Shred by a final score of 21-22. An early lead was foiled by a major Shred comeback, and the Cascades’ second half struggles continued with an eventual game-sealing goal for Salt Lake at the end of the fourth quarter. Impact players in this game included hybrid player Garrett Martin with four goals, handler Christian Foster with four assists and one goal, and handler Connor Belfield with four assists and two goals.
Photo by Roxanne Duennebeil
First quarter: 8-4
The Cascades took an early lead with two goals from hybrid player Zeppelin Raunig and one each from cutter Ryan Liao, hybrid player Derek Mourad, hybrid player Emmett Shipway, handler Tommy Li, cutter Dom Jacbos, and hybrid player Brandon Li. Assists from handler Christian Foster, handler Tommy Lin, handler Connor Belfield, hybrid player Ian Sweeney, handler Marc Munoz, and Mourad kept the Cascades' offense moving. Seattle forced turnovers consistently through big-time blocks from handler Aaron Wolf, Shipway, Munoz, Belfield, and Raunig, and were able to capitalize on their retained possession to score. With a four-goal lead at the end of the quarter, both the Seattle offense and defense created viable scoring chances for the team.
Second quarter: 13-9
A strong Seattle defense continued forcing Shred turnovers, with another slew of blocks from cutter Lukas Ambrose and two from cutter Langley Fitzpatrick. The high-pressure, downfield defense stepped up to shut down the Salt Lake cutting motion, and strong handler defense forced turnovers in the handler space. Goals from Li, Wolf, Liao, Ambrose, and hybrid player Garrett Martin were combined with impressive assists from Li, Belfield, Sweeney, Munoz, and Foster. With Seattle’s offense and defense continuing to work together and a few long points throughout the quarter, their four-goal lead remained at halftime.
Third quarter: 16-16
Salt Lake came out of the half with a renewed energy and capitalized on multiple Cascades mistakes. They began a strong comeback effort in the third quarter, with Seattle only scoring three goals while the Shred scored seven. Although Belfield and Martin connected to score the first goal of the quarter, the strong Salt Lake response led to five goals in a row to tie the game. The Cascades finally got one back after a big block by Raunig in the endzone found Belfield off an assist by Ambrose, but the Shred responded right away to tie the game back up again. In the following point, another important block in the endzone by Belfield led to a goal from Mourad on the other end, but the Shred scored one more time to remain tied at the end of the quarter.
Fourth quarter: 21-22
After another quick set of two Shred goals, the Cascades got two of their own with goals from Martin and Liao and assists from cutters Jack Brown and Asher Lantz to tie the game back up at 18-18. Two more Salt Lake goals stole the lead back, but cutter Mikey O’Brien connected with Foster to remain within one. The rest of the quarter featured back-and-forth action, with two more goals from Salt Lake and two quick responses from Martin and Raunig through assists from Belfield and Mourad. Although the Cascades scored last, there wasn’t enough time remaining to get one more back and tie the game.
Stat of the game:
In their fifth game of the season, the Cascades recorded a 91% huck percentage, meaning 11 out of their 12 deep throws were completed. With many of their scoring chances coming off of deep cuts and relying on their downfield speed, Seattle was successful in finding open players in the deep space.
What’s next?
Seattle will prepare to face the Oakland Spiders tomorrow, May 24th, at 3:30 PM. The Spiders remain atop the West Division with an undefeated 4-0 record. While the Cascades have yet to beat them this season through two head-to-head matchups already, they will look to build on previous highlights from past matchups to secure a win on Saturday.
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Instagram: @CirclingSeattleSports Twitter: @CirclingSports Threads: @CirclingSeattleSports Tiktok: @CirclingSeattleSports Facebook: Circling Seattle Sports BlueSky: @circlingseasports.bsky.social 〰️
Check out our previous Seattle Cascades articles here.
Check out our previous articles with writing for CSS by Becca Weinberg here, and her work with Lookout Landing here.
Cover photo by Roxanne Duennebeil, provided by the Seattle Cascades.
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