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News (updated 5/15/09):
The UPA College Championship Series is almost done. For 20 lucky women’s team, there will be one late tournament—Nationals in Columbus, OH, Memorial Day weekend. For the Bettys, our road ended with Regionals. We had a great end to our season. Sectionals Sectionals was held in Springfield, MO this year. The Ozark section had been previewed as a strong section in our overall region. On Saturday, we played St. Louis, John Brown, Oklahoma State, and Arkansas. We finished 3-1, with the loss to SLU. There were some winds, but it was nothing compared to Sunday. Mother Nature really had some fun with us that day—first thing we see when we woke up was a nice steady rain falling outside. Our first game was against Oklahoma. The weather let up a bit during the game, but the wet ground and wet disc led to some lengthy points. We got the win, 12-5, and moved into the Championship bracket. Mother Nature was ready to play again though. We were facing Washington University in this game, and it was a LONG one. The wind picked up, the rain started falling hard, and we got dirty. These are the points where a team really comes together—fighting through the elements, huddling together on the sideline, but still out there because you love the game that much. Well, that game was halted due to a lightening delay, and then it was called between our captains and the Washington captains. They got the W and moved into finals. The nasty weather led us to flip for the next game as well (against Truman). We lost the flip, and thus the game, coming in at 4th place. That was enough to get us to Regionals easily. The game is totally different in bad weather, and that’s something we really took home with us from Sectionals. Regionals Regionals was a completely different experience than Sectionals, and different from most tournament this semester in fact. It was held two weeks later in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and while there was some wind, it was overall a very nice weekend for Ultimate. On Saturday we faced Washington, Vanderbilt, Missouri State, and Arkansas. We had some good but tough games. We went 2-2 with wins over Missouri State and Arkansas. The Arkansas victory was especially sweet because it was a come-from-behind victory. With a short roster, day one out of the way, and a chance to hold seed still, we spent Saturday night just relaxing and recovering. On Sunday, we started with a game against Oklahoma—this was the one to hold seed. We won, putting us against the former Regional champs, Texas, to play for a shot at the backdoor game for Nationals. We weren’t able to pull a massive upset on one of the best teams in the nation, but we were happy with scoring on them J It was a fun, hard-fought game. The loss led us to the 5th/6th place bracket, where we had a fun game with the ladies of Truman State. While we got the W, it was really more of a game just having fun and trying new throws, new guarding techniques, new cutting techniques, etc. Overall, the tournament was full of heart—playing through injuries and never giving up. And that made it one of the best tournaments of the year. Congrats to WUWU and SLU for securing the South’s bids to Nationals. Represent the Ozarks! more news... |