Hello Dragon Coalition fans! This past Saturday, UCSD’s Womxn’s Ultimate team woke up bright and early to embark on the trip to UCLA for our first tournament of the 2023-2024 season. This tournament, we were split into three different, twilight-inspired teams: Team Bella (UCSD X), Team Jacob (UCSD Y), and Team Edward (UCSD Z). With each team playing 5 games in just that one day, the DCOs were working hard all day. This tournament gave the rookies a chance to finally show off all of their newly learned ultimate skills to the world, and they did not disappoint. 

As the sun rose over the UCLA campus, we started off on our first games, with Team Edward facing the Claremont Greenshirts, Team Jacob facing SDSU, and Team Bella facing SLO. Team Edward and Team Jacob were victorious, but Team Bella lost their game. They were some great, spirited games to start the tournament off strong, with some awesome, foundational, shut down defense. In the second game, Team Bella and Jacob were defeated by Occidental and Cal Poly respectively, and Team Edward won against Fresno. Team Bella and Team Jacob both had buys so they came out to the sideline to support Team Edward in their next game against UCLA. After a competitive and exciting match, Edward came out victorious, with epic connections and stellar cuts. Rookie Maryclare “Mando” Kinsella picked up a bunch of hard-to-get catches and rookie Ananya “Puls” Shaligram did an awesome job running down discs. However, team Edward lost their next two games against SLO and UC Irvine, finishing in 4th place overall. Team Bella played their next two games against Fresno and Long Beach, ending the day with a win against SDSU! Team Jacob lost against UCLA X in their fourth game, but won their final game against UCLA Y on universe point. After being down for most of the game, Team Jacob made an epic comeback with four breaks in a row to finally grab the victory 6 to 5.  

At the end of the beautiful, sunny LA day, Team Jacob placed sixth, Team Bella ninth, and Team Edward fourth. Thus, the debate of Jacob versus Edward (versus Bella), that has been plaguing the world since 2005 has finally been settled. Overall, it was a super fun day filled with lots of tough competition and great energy. Everyone was able to get a bunch of playing time and experience, and there was a ton of improvement by everyone. However, despite the tough competition, there was also definitely an emphasis on sportsmanship and the spirit of the game by all teams, with many spirit circles and spirit awards. Can’t wait to see what our Dragon Coalition brings to KFall next weekend!