Women’s Ultimate Frisbee earns bid to national tournament
The women's Ultimate Frisbee team will head to Ohio to compete in the UPA national tournament May 22 to 25.
By Rachel Eggleston, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Monday, May 11, 2009
The Dartmouth women's Ultimate Frisbee team is currently preparing for the Ultimate Players Association College Women's Championships after sweeping UPA sectionals and going 4-1 in the New England College Women's Regional tournament. The team, which calls itself Princess Layout, will compete against the top 20 teams in the nation on May 22 to 25 in Columbus, Ohio. The tournament favorites are the University of California-Santa Barbara and Ottawa University.
This year, the championships will last four days instead of three. The UPA also expanded each division from 16 to 20 teams for this year's competition. The organization is expected to post the nationals bracket Monday. The team will compete against the four other teams in its pool before moving on to the single-elimination rounds of the tournament.
In order to prepare for nationals, the team has been practicing three days a week and doing conditioning exercises, according to co-captain Molly Roy '09. Roy said that the team is focusing on cleaning everything up and nailing down the basics.
"I think we're in good shape, and we're generally solid," she said.
Co-captain Katie Nash '09 said being able to adapt to different defenses is also crucial to success at nationals. Nash said that the team had a difficult time adapting to Northeastern University's zone defense during regionals.
Roy added that the team has a size disadvantage against many of the teams that it competes against.
"We don't have height, but we have speed," Roy said.
The team is also hosting a fundraising tournament at Dartmouth this weekend, where the team will compete against several other high-level club teams.
"That will be a great practice run for nationals," Nash said of the tournament.
The team will look to its seniors for both leadership and talent on the field. Eight out of the team's 18 players are seniors, and they make up the majority of the "universe line," which is the team on the field during the "universe point," or game point.
The team recently selected Rohre Titcomb '09 as the recipient of the team's Callahan Award, given to the team's most valuable player. All of the teams participating in the championships will vote on each team's Callahan Award recipient to determine who wins the tournament's award.
Nash said that she thought Titcomb had a good chance of winning the tournament's award.
The team faced off against five teams in the New England College Women's Regionals on May 2 and 3.
Dartmouth had a record of 4-1 at the tournament, solidly beating University of Maine-Farmington, Brandeis University, Middlebury College and Harvard, and losing to Northeastern. At halftime, Dartmouth was beating Northeastern 8-3, but Northeastern closed the gap in the second half ended up edging out the Big Green, 13-12.
"We had a very sizable lead, but then they got a second wind, and they started to play zone [defense] on us," Nash said.
The team's goal for regionals was to stay focused and concentrate on qualifying for nationals, Nash said.
Last season, the team failed to qualify for nationals for the first time in five years.
"Our team goal was not even to consider regionals, but this year we made sure to be focused on what matters," Nash said.
Roy said that she was thrilled that the team qualified after a disappointing result at last year's regionals.
Dartmouth kicked off the UPA Series with the East New England College Women's Sectionals on April 18. The team finished in first place and won all seven of its games. Princess Layout beat its toughest competition, the University of Maine-Farmington, 13-4.
Because Ultimate Frisbee is a club sport at Dartmouth, the team has to work around limited finances and practice time. In order to be competitive in the UPA Series, each team has to participate in a certain number of tournaments each year, Nash said. Each tournament, however, can cost up to $200 per player, according to Nash.
"Each player has to make a big financial commitment at the beginning of the season," she said.