Last weekend, Stoned Clown, the men’s ultimate team, hosted their first invitational of the fall club season against college and club teams from around New England. Stoned Clown approached this tournament focusing on learning rather than winning. 
“It was entirely a learning experience.  Our freshmen who normally don’t get a lot of playing time in the spring got a lot more playing time because it wasn’t about just scoring points”, said Captain Michael Ben-Zvi ’13. 
Further emphasizing the lack of concern for the scoreboard, the team was split “XY” style with the A-side divided between the two teams playing in the tournament.  
“The fall is our club season which we don’t take as seriously,” said Ben-Zvi. “We use the club season as a jumping off point to see where need to improve on for the spring.”
This year Stoned Clown is both a younger and smaller team, having lost a total of 30 seniors last year—10 from the A-side and 20 from the B-side. The team’s ranks, however, have gained a significant boost from the large turnout from this year’s freshman class, some of whom have experience from high school ultimate teams. 
This first invitational allowed Stoned Clown to not only gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the new squad, but also work together as a team in a game setting. 
“We wanted to see where we were at in terms of playing ability together, what offenses and defenses we want to run, and our conditioning level,” Ben-Zvi said. 
The tournament was not without smaller victories for the Stoned Clown. One major highlight of the weekend was scoring an unanticipated point against Garuda, the second-best team in Boston. 
 Stoned Clown looks ahead to Clambake, a two-day tournament run by the Red Tide club from Portland on the weekend of October 15.  The team has also just submitted a bid for an all-college tournament at Brown, which would count for their spring records.