“Mother of George” has mother of all weekends

By JONATHON MYERS

The DIII Eastern Championships took place this past weekend in North Myrtle Beach and UMW Ultimate Frisbee, otherwise known as Mother of George, brought their best. Some of the top teams in the nation came together to compete and Mother of George came in seeded 15 out of 16 in the tournament and No. 220 in the nation. With a win-loss of 2-5, Mother of George ended up taking eighth place overall.

To begin the tournament, UMW Ultimate lost on the universe point (a tie game ending with the opponent scoring for the win) to Rice at 11-10. Mother of George also suffered losses to Brandeis, Air Force and Oberlin.

However, they did manage to beat regional rivals, Elon for the first time in recorded history on the universe point at 9-8. The second win for Mother of George came from the No. 2 team in DIII ultimate and top seed in the tournament, Richmond by a final score of 11-9. It was also the first time UMW Ultimate has ever beaten them.

“We have played them many times every year and we just had the right formula and the right personnel this time around to take them down. We were able to get up by two points and hold them off until time ran out,” said coach Keys Pattie.

After being knocked out of the top bracket, Richmond ended up taking ninth place overall. Both Elon and Richmond ended up in the finals for the tournament the past two years. The momentum did not hold up, however.

“Sunday for us was rough, as we just didn’t have the legs to keep up with the stiff competition,” Pattie said. “We went 0-3 in bracket play to finish eighth. We entered the tournament seeded 15th, so we still broke seed by seven, which is a tremendous accomplishment.”

Certainly, this past weekend marked many firsts for Mother of George. “Since the club was suspended, about four years ago I think, we have been in a major rebuilding period. We have very high hopes for this year and are currently in the hunt for Nationals. This would also be a first for the program,” Pattie said .

“The important thing was to learn where I am weakest in my game and do what I can to fix it before sectionals in two weeks,” said junior cutter Robbie Pratt. “The rookies were incredible this weekend and made a ton of fantastic plays. Noteworthy guys were Cameron Bierkan who could not be stopped and Joseph Richards who played through an injury and scored two game winners. I really want to list the whole team because they all played their hearts out. Zach Norrbom was great as usual.”

From April 16 to 17, Mother of George will be hosting the North Atlantic Coast DIII Conference Championships, facing the likes of Richmond once again along with teams like Navy, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Christopher Newport and Catholic. UMW Ultimate will have to place at least second in order to make it to Regionals.

“With the core group of players we have this year, on both the offensive and defensive side of the disc, we can hang with any team and we will be sure to rattle some cages as the season progresses,” Pattie said.

As of the new USAU rankings following Easterns, Mother of George is now seeded 145th in the nation.