Hello Dragon Coalition Fans! This past weekend, your favorite Womxn’s Ultimate team headed over to Santa Cruz for their very last tournament of 2023, Sean Ryan. It was a long weekend, with 6 games played over the course of those two days and the DCOs worked hard to demonstrate everything we had learned during this first quarter! 

After a long day of driving on Friday, the DCOs woke up bright and early on Saturday to a beautiful, rainy, and foggy morning in Santa Cruz. Although this made for a somewhat uncomfortable warm-up, we kept spirits high into our first game against UC Berkeley. Although the rain had let up a bit by then, the ground stayed wet and muddy which led to quite a few slips and falls from both teams over the course of the game. However, we persevered and won the game 10 to 4! This game was super fun, with exciting plays all around. Second year Teaghan “Trex” Lynch had an awesome sky and fourth year Xuan “Gadro” Feldman had stunning defense and tons of run-through Ds. We went right into our next game versus the hosts of this tournament, UC Santa Cruz. With amazing defense and handler movement by Sophia “Aera” Fitch and an incredible score by rookie Ananya “Puls” Shaligram, we snatched the victory 10 to 6! We finished the first day of the tournament with a win against Santa Clara! This game had awesome handling by rookie Margot “Sigma” Nissen. After a long day of games, our DCOs went out for a well deserved meal. 

Sunday morning, we woke up refreshed and ready to kill it during our second day of games. Luckily, this morning began much less rainy, and we enjoyed some sun and beautiful views of Santa Cruz during our first game against University of Nevada, Reno. With some awesome shut-down defense by Cassidy “Pharoah” Morgan and a beautiful huck from Teaghan “Trex” Lynch to Dylan “Ravine” Mullaney, we grabbed the victory 8 to 6. We then had a bye, which we used to refuel with some good snacks and cheer on the UCSD men’s ultimate team. Our second game was a super high energy and competitive game against UCLA, which had some awesome plays, such as an amazing D followed by a score by Audrey “BATS” Schneider and some stunning zone offense handling by Abbi “Pierogi” Shilts and Margo “Sigma” Nissen. Despite only being taught the basics of zone offense ten minutes before the game began, the DCOs worked hard against UCLA’s zone defense. We were down 4 to 8 during the game, until we scored a point and then had four breaks in a row to finally win the game 9 to 8!! And then, all of a sudden, we were in the finals against UC Davis! This was an exhilarating and competitive game with crazy plays on both teams, that we ultimately won on universe point 10 to 9! And with that we finished first and won the tournament!! What an exciting end to a quarter full of hard work and constant improvement! Can’t wait to see what the DCOs bring to the rest of the season. DCO, you know!!