The ultimate fan girl’s account of women’s eastern regionals

On the 19th and 20th of November, I participated in the Women’s Eastern Regionals for Ultimate Frisbee. While I could just list the outcomes of matches, I think it’s time the sports section of felix discussed what goes the behind the scenes of an ultimate tournament – particularly from the lens of an inexperienced player.

As a part of Imperial’s second team, dD2, I didn’t really have the pressure of winning on my shoulders. dD2’s main goal was to improve and learn how to play as a team. Although we did not place so well (19th of 21 teams), we were proud of our improvement and growth over the tournament weekend. While we lost all our games on the first day, dD2 managed to tie and win games on the second day.

Since Imperial’s first team (dD1) and dD2 didn’t play at the same time, dD2 spent much of our breaks admiring dD1. I think it came to a point where dD2 kept saying, “did you see that throw,” or “they’re so good”. And to be honest, dD1 is good. I don’t think the outcome of Women’s Regionals reflects the skills of our women’s first team. They throw the disc with some pretty impressive physics, leaving me to admire to ability to throw discs with such grace. dD1 finished 6th overall, barely missing the top four qualifying spots for Nationals after losing to UEA and Sussex in their games-to-go. Watching dD1’s last games pulled on my heartstrings; while dD1 played clinically, they had a major height disadvantage. This resulted in Sussex and UEA chucking discs into the scoring zone and ultimately winning the tie-break points. Although there was some disappointment with the final results, we played some fun ultimate and had a great tournament. Also, dD1 beat their long-term rival team, Cambridge so what more could we ask for?