Golden Triangle Invite 2026

Mama?s Venture South to Kick Off the Spring Season

February 7-8, Columbus, MS

Hello HoosierMama? Faithful,

I'm thrilled to kick off the season with our first spring write-up. Your HoosierMama?s, following the sage-like advice of Afroman, went 'home' to Mississippi for our first tournament of the Spring, Golden Triangle Invite. We went to this same tournament last Spring when it was called Bulldog Brawl. I'm not sure why the name changed. I never saw gold or a triangle. Or a golden triangle for that matter. The first place prize was a Thanos gauntlet (and $1000). There were odd things afoot in Mississippi, dear reader.

The team traveled with nearly the entire roster. I think just 3 were missing. Up to this point, the team has been inside at Mellencamp. It's cool practicing on the same field as national champions. Inspiring. But as such, our outdoor throws were certainly not dialed in. This would prove to be an issue for us later.

We arrive bright and early Saturday morning in order to get the bodies and minds prepped for a day where getting better the right way was the goal. I told the team I'd rather see us lose while trying to run the system vs winning playing "school yard BS". We know that in order to be competitive on Sunday of regionals, we have to be able to combine our athleticism with solid ultimate fundamentals. We won't be able to rely on just out-running teams. Luckily, we largely managed to do both!

Once I got it through their heads that they should be prioritizing power positions and well-timed deep cuts, D2 breaks became much more viable. Now we just need D2 to get a better hold on proper orbiting and defensive positioning and our depth will be able to hang at regionals.

Game 2 was a 13-11 victory against Union (Tennessee). I think they're D3, but they are very solid. Honestly, we were the better and deeper team, but these guys passed the athlete eye test. Big dudes jumping high, bidding far, and throwing far. You get the idea. This is a game where D1 really stepped up to help us get the win. In particular, we have a bracket set that really helped us to keep Union from simply hucking it a bunch to their big guys. Forcing them to play more small ball helped us get more turns which we ultimately converted for enough breaks to win the game. We called him out in the teaser, but we chose to start the game by trying to put rookie Blake Fraley on who we identified as their best offensive player. Blake took his lumps early in the game, giving up some strike power positions that they converted. But after some coaching, Blake understood what he needed to take away and adjusted. The next D point, Blake gets a layout D on a strike cut, leading to us converting a break. I don't think Blake gave up another power position the rest of the game.

Game 3 was our last game of Saturday. We played a depleted Mississippi State team. Or at least they seemed depleted. They had a few very solid players, but no depth. We played our D2 again almost exclusively in the 2nd half of the game. O line wasn't being pressured so I knew our few break lead would suffice. D2 got a ton of reps which is exactly what those guys need so early in their career.

One of my favorite D2 highlights included a power position huck from rookie Matt Adams that was thrown to rookie Nate Oldham. Matt overthrew Nate, but rookie Adam Brown never gave up on the play and made a nice bidding catch to secure the break!

We ended Sat 3-0, with one final pool play game against Kennesaw St Sunday morning. We won that game 13-9, following a very similar formula to our game against Miss St.

Our next game was the semi-finals against Clemson. Clemson was super solid. They had 3 handlers on O who played a very consistent and conservative brand of offense, making break opportunities harder to come by for us. The Mama?s O line was playing well, connecting on a ton of deep looks from Sr. captain Conner "Rodman" Blalack to Jr. CJ Santiago. At one point late in the game, I was standing on the sideline near their coach as we were receiving on O. Our pull play involved CJ, usually the fastest guy on the field, going deep. Immediately, CJ gets over top of his defender and I hear Clemson's coach mutter, "oh dammit you guys let their fast guy go deep again". We scored in one throw. We took this game 13-11, winning on a MASSIVE bid for the goal from So. Henry Vahl (Welcome to Vahlhalla, Hen-V-P)!

Finals against SIUE. This is the team we've seen more than any other over the last 2 years. I think this is our 5th or 6th time playing them since Fall 2025, including in the final of this tournament last year. You could say we know each other well.

I'm proud of how hard our boys fought. They did everything they could do to win and focused on the things they could control. They controlled how hard they ran and how much intensity they brought on the field and from the sidelines. They earned us a lot of break opportunities - more than they earned against us - but we struggled to convert them. I think we were like 1 for 15. And so it's hard to win a game with only one break, but we can certainly work with 15 break opportunities a game! Our job now is to coach them up so they can convert those opportunities more efficiently! There's a ton of youth on our D-line, so their growth curve will be significant throughout this semester.

I left the tournament, admittedly, a bit disappointed we didn't win. I always want to win. It certainly wasn't the priority this weekend, however. Championship game experience against an in-region opponent - especially one who really wants to beat you (they remember us beating them every time last year) - is always a great experience. Now we're back in the lab for 2 weeks before Eastern Qualifiers in Wilmington, NC.

Brought to you without any AI. Unlike Jimi.

Love, 

Coach Connor "Pretty" Regan '12-'16