Men’s, women’s Frisbee team to take on more than 50 teams in tourney
This weekend, the USU Ultimate Frisbee Club will travel to San Diego, Calif., for the President’s Day Tournament.
This tournament is one of the biggest Utah State will participate in and attracts teams from across the country. The competition will include 36 men’s teams and more than 20 women’s teams.
Competing teams include West Coast teams from California, Oregon and Washington, regional teams like Idaho State University and the University of Colorado and Eastern teams like Harvard University, Yale University and last year’s national champion Brown University.
The tournament will begin Saturday and run through Monday. Saturday’s teams will be divided into pools of five. Each team will play every other team in its pool for a total of four games.
Sunday, teams will be put into new pools, depending on their performance Saturday. Stronger teams will be pooled together to increase the competition. Teams will play four more games Sunday. Monday, teams will be placed into two single-elimination brackets: a championship bracket and a consolation bracket. Teams will have the opportunity to play up to four more games Monday if they keep winning.
Utah State is sending both a men’s and a women’s team to San Diego with about 20 men and 10 women. At the last tournament, the women’s team played shorthanded, and while it will have more players at this tournament, it’s still short on players.
Seven players will be on the field for each team, and with only 10 players the women will have only three subs – not many, considering they play at least nine games over the three days, said men’s team captain Mike Bybee.
Both teams expect to perform well in San Diego. At their last tournament, in Santa Barbara, the men won the consolation bracket.
Bybee said if the team can make the cut the first two days and make it into the championship bracket, they expect to make a strong showing. At the last tournament, losses during pool play placed USU in the consolation bracket, Bybee said.
Currently, USU is ranked 64th among club teams. New rankings, based on a power rating, will come out next week reflecting performance both at Santa Barbara and San Diego.
In March, Utah State is planning to play in two tournaments. In early March it will travel to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, N.M., and later that month to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.