Frisbee club host Big Sky warm-up at HPER field
After their first preseason match of the year last Saturday, the Utah State University ultimate Frisbee club will be hosting the Big Sky College Warm-up this Saturday and Sunday on the HPER field.
Twelve teams will be playing in the tournament, including two Utah State teams. Among the teams participating are Colorado State University, BYU, the Colorado School of Mines, Montana State University and Idaho State University.
At the end of the season last spring, the Colorado School of Mines was ranked 30th in the country, Colorado State was 37th and Utah State was in the mid 60s.
There are more than 350 ultimate Frisbee teams across the country, including teams from nearly every major university.
Play starts on Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m., and each team will play four games and have one bye. Each game lasts one and one-half hours and play is expected to last until 5:30 p.m.
USU will start play in the morning, playing four straight games and concluding the day with the bye.
On Saturday, the teams are divided into pools and play is in a round-robin format. Utah State is seeded third in the tournament based upon last season’s rankings.
For Sunday, the format will be a single elimination tournament.
Though the ultimate Frisbee season does not start until January, USU plays three exhibition tournaments in the fall. Last Saturday, the team played in the Pocatello Spud Fest in Idaho. It was the team’s first tournament of the year. Following the Big Sky College Warm-up, USU will travel to Tempe, Ariz., for the final tournament of the fall.
“This tournament is a good evaluator to see how teams are doing,” club president and team captain Dustin Smith said.
He said USU lost many of their players from last year, returning only about six players, but he feels they have some of the best athletes they have ever had.
“We have a lot of new players but we have been practicing three times a week,” Smith said. “We are feeling confident. The new guys are athletic and have picked up the game quickly.”
Despite only having six returning players, USU has enough new players for the club to be able to field two teams. Both teams are participating in this weekend’s tournament.
Smith said he thinks this year will be one of the best years for Utah State and the team’s goal is to qualify for nationals at the end of the season.