Frisbee club hosts tourney
Saturday and Sunday.
The tournament will field nine teams from colleges and non-school affiliated clubs also, including rival University of Utah and two teams from Brigham Young, as well as a strong UNLV team.
“Our biggest goal this tournament is to beat UNLV and beat both BYU teams,” team vice president Christopher Pitts said.
The team is optimistic about getting “pounced on” by BYU’s A-team – similar to a varsity team, Pitts said.
“People that have been here a lot longer than me have told me this is the best team they’ve seen in seven years,” Ikerd said. “A lot of that comes from just wanting to play. No one out here gets paid to do any of this – it’s about wanting to play and having fun. And winning will come.”
Pitts shared the same outlook for the club, although he acknowledged the club has a lot of new faces.
“This year’s team is a really new team, but a lot better than last year,” he said. “Last year we had like 10 or 11 regular guys and this year we’ll probably have like 15 to 16.”
Pitts said having a coach this year will also contribute to the team’s success. Ikerd, who also teaches ultimate frisbee classes in the physical education department at USU, has previous coaching experience in the Dallas, Texas, city leagues.
In addition to Ikerd, the inexperienced team will look to Pitts and team president Isaac Westfield for leadership. Westfield had been serving as the team coach before Ikerd took over.
“The biggest thing this year is just discipline and a lot of patience,” Pitts said.
Both Pitts and Ikerd emphasized that the team is still accepting players for anyone who is interested. They said they would like to see more women participating and hopes of being able to field an entire women’s squad.
“If you didn’t have subs and you were to play a tournament all day Saturday, that’s probably the equivalent of running a marathon,” Ikerd said.
This weekend’s tournament has the possibility of co-ed competition, Pitts said, the team will play co-ed if the other team they are playing brings women, but if there are not any other mixed teams, it will be an all-male tournament.
The tournament will be held Saturday and Sunday on the fields behind the HPER building. The team will also be participating in the Lucky Sevens tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. on Nov. 12-13.
-cmoffit@cc.usu.edu