Ultimate frisbee club bids high in first fall tourney in Boone, NC
After snagging a seventh place finish in the Ultimate Division III College Championships in Buffalo, N.Y. over the summer, the Georgia College ultimate club team, Disconnected, competed in its first tournament of the Fall semester.
Disconnected competes through an organization called USA Ultimate, which is the sole sanctioning body of ultimate in the university system, and even though the ultimate season does not officially start until January 2012, USA Ultimate hosts unsanctioned tournaments throughout the Fall semester.
“They have tournaments that are sanctioned, which means they go on your national record, and they have unsanctioned tournaments,” said Sean Morris, senior business management major and president of Disconnected. “We use the unsanctioned tournaments to get good practice and they’re a really good learning experience for the new guys. All the tournaments in the fall are unsanctioned and are warm-up tournaments getting the teams ready for the spring.”
From Nov. 5 to 6, Disconnected was on the road in Boone, N.C., at Appalachian State University to compete in the unsanctioned Blue Ridge Blow-Out tournament and made it all the way to the semifinals and finished the tournament tied for third place.
“We had some people that were rookies last year that really stepped up and filled the shoes of some of the veterans that left last year,” Morris said. “We also had our veteran players making the right decisions.”
On day one of the tournament, Disconnected got off to a solid start in its first game against Charleston Southern University. The team came out fast and was able to secure a 5-0 lead over Charleston Southern.
GC managed to stay in control of the game while maintaining a large lead and defeated Charleston Southern with the final score of 13-4.
In its second game of the tournament, Disconnected suffered a tough defeat against the team We Are Nice Guys.
One of the factors that made We Are Nice Guys such a difficult opponent for GC is that the team was not a college team but a team completely made up of alumni, which gave them the advantage of having much older and experienced players that had been playing together for a longer period of time.
Although Disconnected fought hard against the alumni team, GC was nearly shut out by We Are Nice Guys with the final game score of 13-1.
“They were basically sort of like a pro team for ultimate, where players can go to continue playing ultimate after college,” Morris said. “They were a nationally ranked team.”
In its third game of day one, Disconnected faced Duke University and were able to secure a 13-7 win.
The team continued to play aggressively in its fourth and final game of day one against Eastern Tennessee State University. Disconnected dominated over ETSU and finished with a 13-7 victory.
When day two of the tournament began, GC showed that it had not lost its focus taking on its first opponent of the day, Elon University. Disconnected stayed in control throughout the entire game and nearly shut out its opponent, earning a 15-2 win over Elon.
Disconnected’s second game of day two was against the host of the tournament, Appalachian State University. The team fought hard and defeated the tournament host 15-7, advancing to the semifinals.
In the semifinals round, Disconnected faced another team composed entirely of alumni, Not Those Guys. Although GC fought hard against the alumni team, it was defeated 15-9. This loss eliminated Disconnected from the semifinals and tied it for third place overall in the Blue Ridge Blow-Out.
“I’m definitely satisfied with our results. We beat every college team we went up against, we only lost to veteran club teams,” Morris said. “Getting to play teams that were as good as the ones we lost to was good. We got to see what the best players do to get wins.”
Morris also feels that the tournament helped make Disconnected and GC better known.
“It inspired us for the season and the tournament allowed us to show people who Georgia College is. When we came into the tournament we were placed 17th out of 20 and we ended up tying for third, so it really shows how good we’re spreading the school name,” Morris said. “We’re hosting a tournament in the spring. We want to let other teams know we’re a high level of competitiveness and we want to play teams of the same caliber.”
Disconnected will continue to train and prepare for the ultimate season beginning in January.
“I think it was made very clear that there’s always improvements that can be made. We’re going to stat running a lot more,” Morris said. “We only had 14 players so we have to have everyone in good shape and use ourselves smartly. And we need to practice our decision-making. Those are probably the two things we’ll work on the most.”
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