Frisbee club men win consolation at tourney
The Utah State Ultimate Frisbee Club men’s team won the consolation bracket in its first tournament of the season last weekend.
The team traveled to the University of California, Santa Barbara, for the season’s opening tournament. Top-ranked schools like Stanford University, the University of California, San Diego, and UCSB were among the competition in the tournament’s two days.
Saturday consisted of pool play. A team’s performance that day determined its bracket for double elimination on Sunday. The first team to reach 13 of each game was declared the winner.
USU’s first game Saturday resulted in a 13-6 victory over Pomona College, a small liberal arts college from California. The rest of the day the team did not fare as well. In its second game, USU played the University of
California Berkley and suffered a 13-9 loss. In its next game, USU lost, 13-7, to the University of California, Santa Cruz. The final game of the day was another loss, this time to host UCSB, 13-9.
The team has several new players and on Saturday everyone was getting used to playing with each other, said team captain Dustin Smith. Smith also said the team may have been tired from driving all night Friday to make it to the tournament.
Sunday’s results were much better. The Aggies beat the University of Arizona, 13-6, in their first game of the day. One of their opponents also forfeited. In the consolation championship game, USU defeated the University of California, Los Angeles, 13-8, to claim the consolation championship.
“Everyone played very well,” Smith said. “On Sunday we started to gel as a team. Everyone played super good on the second day, especially the new players.”
The women’s team also went to the tournament but were shorthanded with only six players. On Saturday the women’s team played UCSB, UCSC, Cal-Berkeley and UCLA. The women scored eight points for the day but did not earn any victories.
“We did fairly well, considering we only had six players, and we had lots of fun,” said team member Rebecca Ciccone.
The eight points the women scored will help their Ultimate Players Association ranking, Ciccone said. The Ultimate Players Association is the player-supported organization for Ultimate Frisbee.
USU will play next in a tournament in San Diego in February.