The Kendra Fallon tournament this past weekend was the first tournament for most of the newly inducted fish and they showed up creating an electric tournament for UCSD S. Team S consisted of both returning Squids/Veggies and the recently joined Fishies as was the rest of the UCSD teams at the Kfall tournament. We started the tournament with some team bonding by creating our own jerseys to be used for the rest of the tournament and man did we look stylish.

Up first was our game against the Cal Poly Pomona Ultimate Frisbee Team and aside from some uncoordinated scrimmages during practice, this was our first game together. Both teams started the game slow with many turnovers on both sides but once Team S got going, we took off. The first went in favor of UCSD S over Pomona 11-7 and the first of many throughout the tournament. Our next game was against the infamous UCI Nightlife and even though we had just won our last game, we were still warming up to playing with each other. That was clearly shown against the clean and organized Nightlife who came out hot and heavy taking the first half convincingly over Team S. We didn’t let it get us down, however, and we improved our unforced errors along with keeping a pumped sideline thanks to Goldilocks who was loud the entire weekend. The tides were swinging towards UCSD S but not fast enough as UC-Irvine took the game 11-6 after a rough start from the squids. But we took that momentum into our next game against UCLA B where everything seemed to begin to make sense for our team. The first half of the game made it seem like we were going to bagel the UCLA team, but the second though convincing, we allowed some points to slip through from the SmauB team with no help from Donda’s defense and massive bids, along with some impeccable deep cuts from Staten Island, and some perfectly placed throws from Tendy. UCSD S took the game 11-5 over UCLA B. The next game for us was make or break for the championship bracket the next day and against some formidable opponents in CSULB. Unfortunately for them, we found our groove and we were able to take a clean and well fought game over them 11-7 with everything seeming to be going in our favor.

We started day 2 feeling good as we were heading into the bracket with no one and nothing to get in our way, except the San Diego friends. Off the bat, they seemed to be a lot stronger and knowledgeable in the game of Ultimate than us, and the wind didn’t help. Though it was a well fought game, San Diego friends took the game without breaking a sweat, a little strange was it not. We suspected foul play, but never would have expected them using “performance-enhancing” drugs that despite our beatdown allowed us to advance in the bracket. Though they  kindly stepped-down to allow us  to continue, that wouldn’t mean that our games would get easier. Our next game would be played against the SDSU Federales who had just beaten UCI easily the game before. What they couldn’t foresee was that we had locked in as a team and that meant implementing a deadly zone against them, which at times put them trapped in the back of their own endzone and possibly a callahan in sight. The Callahan never came but this zone forced many errors on their part as well as some errors on our part once we got on Offense. This game against SDSU, we had given everything we got, and it paid off as we were now in the finals against USC Lockdown. The game started swimmingly for our UCSD team as we got an upwind break to start the game roaring. That didn’t last long sadly as Lockdown proceeded to hold and break multiple times with their height and some cheeky hucks over/through the stack. This definitely cooled our jets after an explosive game before, and the rest of this game was much of the same with USC in control the entire time as we struggled to break again. Lockdown ended up taking the tournament but we kept our heads held up high as we had just finished our first tournament placing second. We celebrated with some bananas, stretching, and dancing to some funky tunes.