Ultimate frisbee gains momentum after tournament

By SOPHIA MALDONADO

Staff Writer

This past Saturday and Sunday, the men’s ultimate frisbee team, Mother of George, participated in a casual tournament against four other universities at Lois Hornsby Middle School in Williamsburg.

Although UMW only has an A team, this type of tournament involves sorting out the A teams and B teams for the different schools.

There were nine teams total including UMW’s A team and A & B teams from William & Mary, James Madison University, George Mason University and Christopher Newport University.

The team has three captains. This year, they experienced an influx of first-year players, about 15 to 20 compared to last year’s three first-year players. The upperclassmen players are about equal in number.

Day one of the tournament comprised of three games against the A teams. UMW lost to W&M 13-7, JMU 13-10 and GMU 13-10. Day two of the tournament had a more positive outcome for the team. After a narrow loss to JMU with a score of 12-11, the team came back to win against W&M 11-8 and CNU’s B team 11-9.

At the end of the games, the team members gather around and take turns giving each other compliments.

William Carpenter, a senior and one of the team captains, said, “A lot [of us] will give shout-outs to others on the team for something they did. Maybe either a cool play someone made, being really positive or just overall pointing out that they did well.”

Matt Nelson, a sophomore on the team, explained how “the way they practice the sport is really spirit-based,” and they incorporate that into their methods. It also involves an honor system that counts on members calling out their own fouls.

The team is excited to pick up momentum and jump back into their regular season.

“It felt great to get back on the field again. We have a lot of rookies, so a big part of the tournament for MOG was figuring out everybody’s strengths, and sort of testing players in new roles,” said junior James Fendley. Fendley is confident in the team’s overall performance. “Since it was the team’s first tournament in months, naturally, we were a bit rusty. Overall, we’re happy with this tournament because we saw improvement from returners and a lot of potential in the rookies.”

Last season, the men’s ultimate frisbee team peaked as they tied for fifth in power rankings. Two years ago in 2017, they also received seventh in the country as a DIII ultimate frisbee team.

While competition is on the players’ minds, the team’s primary focus lies on making themselves stronger competitors.

“Our team has so much potential this year. Our offense has a vicious arsenal of attack strategies, with some fine-tuning I don’t think we can be stopped. I’m not too concerned about our opponent’s strategy,” said Fendley. “As the captain of the defensive line, I’m working on preparing my team for whatever we go up against. We are going to form more consistent defensive and offensive lines. We want players to get familiar with each other so we can be more fluid.”