Hello Dragon Coalition fans! This past weekend UCSD Womxn’s Ultimate Frisbee headed north for the Stanford Invite, one of our last regular season tournaments. We had our typical round robin pool play on Saturday, starting off with an easy win against UC Berkeley Pi Queens with a final score of 11-6. We then went straight into our next game of the day which was against the Pittsburgh Danger, which was another swift victory for our unstoppable team. Our D-line was on fire and continued to get break after break against Danger, and by half they had only scored 2 points to our 7. One standout player during this game was Dylan “Ravine” Mullaney who played a large role in initiating our D-line offensive flow with her sharp cuts and reliable catches. We continued to dominate throughout the game and ended the game with a final score of 13-6. Our third and final game of the day was against Washington Element, a team we haven’t played in years but is consistently ranked very close to us. However, D-Co was still riding high from the last two games and started the game off with a break against Element’s O-line. We continued to have a solid and close game against Element, getting to 7 points first and taking half. Our O-line was breaking through their zone pretty breezily and the D-line was giving them a run for their money, scoring a few more breaks by the time we got to half. After half, things got a little trickier and Element managed to get a couple breaks on us; we were still up, but the game was getting closer and more intense. However, D-Co didn’t give up the fight and we managed to get the win, ending the game with a final score of 12-9. 

Day 2 began bright and early with our quarterfinals game against Cal Poly SLO Motion, one of our frequent match-ups and close opponents. It was a hard fought and close game, and it was clear that neither team was going down without a fight. D-Co got up by a few breaks early in the game and were able to take half thanks to some impressive handler offense from Jessie “Saber” Finkelor and Tori “Blitz” Gray. Unfortunately, Slo Motion brought a previously unforeseen fire to the second half and managed to break us a couple times to close the gap between the scores, and after a literal 20 minute point that Slo managed to get the score on, the game was over and they won with a final score of 9-11. Now in the 5th place bracket, we had to immediately switch gears and prepare to play UC Santa Cruz Sol, a team we lost to two weeks prior at the Prez Day Invite after a close game. A little worn out from our last game, Sol was able to get up by a couple breaks at the beginning of the game and took half before we could catch back up. However, at half time we calmed down and refocused our energy towards playing this game the best we could and returned to the game as a new team. We played hard and fought for every disc, and in an unexpected turn of events, managed to get back up against Sol and beat them on universe point! Our final game of the tournament was for 5th place against one of our opponents from the previous day, Washington Element. This time, our game against Element was much closer than it was on Saturday and it was Element that was able to get the first break of the game. While we held on as tight as we could, they managed to punch in the win to end the game with a final score of 9-11 and we ended the weekend in sixth place overall, winning 4 out of 6 of our games. We can’t wait to further improve and face these teams in future tournaments. See you in three weeks when D-Co heads to Seattle for the Northwest Challenge!