Hello, Dragon Coalition fans! This past weekend, UCSD Women’s Ultimate Frisbee headed north for the Santa Barbara Invite, our first tournament of the regular season. We started off our pool play with a tight game against BYU Chi, trading points for a bit before managing to get up by a few. Once we utilized our killer downfield defense to stop their main cutter, Chi had no chance of beating us, and we emerged with a 12-9 win. Next up, we were set to play Carleton Syzygy, the number two seed in the tournament and a team that has crushed us in previous years. However, that was not the case this weekend as we played a very close game against Carleton and gave them a run for their money with a final score of 8-12. Although we still lost, we played very solidly against them and will definitely be able to beat them later in the season. Some of our standout players from that game include Tori “Blitz” Gray, who got a Callahan (scoring a point by catching a D in our endzone), and Mars “Viper” Bau, who scored many of our points with their sharp cuts and insane closing speed. Our final game on Saturday was the pre-quarter game against Stanford Superfly, the number three seed in the tournament and last year's finalists at nationals. We played a very intense game with Superfly, trading points for a while before they were able to get a couple of breaks and get up by a couple of points. The clock was running out, and the chances of clinching a win were feeling very slim. However, D-Co, being a second-half team, had never felt more true than in this game as we ramped it up and played our hearts out on defense while remaining patient and smart on offense. Stanford only needed one more point to win, and if we wanted a chance at being in the quarterfinals, we needed to score three points in a row. Armed with hard-set determination, we did it and beat Stanford on universe point to end the game with a score of 11-10! This win was incredibly satisfying, and we left the fields feeling exhausted yet extremely proud of everyone on our team. 

Day 2 of SBI tested us like never before; it was freezing with an insanely heavy downpour, and we even got hailed on for a while. However, sans lightning, frisbee games are pretty much never cancelled, so the first game was still set to be against UBC Thunderbirds for the quarterfinals. This was a pretty unfortunate luck of the draw since UBC was the number one seed of the tournament and is pretty generally known for being one of the best teams in the country (even though they’re technically from Canada). But we didn’t let that phase us and went about our usual warm-up routine, focused and locked in. As soon as the game started, it was clear that both teams were playing their best, and we gave as much as we got, playing very hard defense and making their offense have to work for each point. Our offense was killing it, getting more clean holds than UBC and remaining calm under the pressure. Unfortunately, the rain ramped up, and the game got a bit messier; it was hard to see in the rain, and throwing/catching became a risky activity for both teams. This allowed UBC to get up by two breaks, and although we fought hard til the end, the game was incredibly tight and even, ending with a final score of 9-12. Rookie Sanam “Mobi” Rozycki-Shah displayed crazy defense all game long, at one point getting a full-diving layout D during the peak rain downpour. D-Co felt good about this game, and our score differential against UBC was closer than any other team against them all weekend. Knocked out of the championship bracket, we were now aiming for fifth place, and our last game of the weekend was to be against Cal Poly SloMotion, an opponent with whom we had a very close game earlier in the year and just barely lost. This time, however, we were determined to beat them and secure fifth place in the tournament. D-Co was locked in on this game and left everything out on the field. SLO put up a solid zone that we had to work to break through, but our patience and experience proved superior, and we managed to not let them get ahead. This was a long game with lengthy points, each side going back and forth trying to punch one in. The final point of the game was the universe point, and we were going into it on offense. We didn’t turn it and managed to score the winning point to end with a score of 9-8. What a way to end the weekend! We came into the tournament seeded 7th and emerged in 5th place, breaking seed by two spots. SBI was a great preview to the rest of our season, and we can’t wait to improve further and continue on our road to nationals. See you in a couple of weeks for our own President’s Day Weekend tournament!

Won against Stanford, a team who placed 2nd at nationals last year and came from behind by scoring 3 points back to back to back.