The men’s and women’s ultimate Frisbee club teams both qualified for the D-III Nationals last weekend and will compete on May 16 and 17 in Rockport, Illinois. 

“It’s a really exciting time,” said captain of the women’s team Sivana Barron ’15. “I think both teams put a lot of work into trying to manage their expectations and also doing their best to accomplish what they set out to do.”

The women competed in nationals last year and came in 15th place, after winning the entire tournament the year before. This is the first time in three years that the men have qualified for Nationals. The tournament lasts two days and includes 16 D-III teams for both the men and women.

For both teams, the competitive season begins during second semester and continues until the end of March. After that the teams compete in tournaments and finish the season at Nationals.

As club teams schedules are independently organized. The captains therefore hold a lot of responsibility and leadership. 

“Most of organizing tournaments, paying tournament fees and advocating for ourselves as a club—that all falls on the captains,” said captain of the men’s team Denis Maguire ’15.

There are four captains of each team—two seniors and two juniors. When the seniors graduate the teams already have two experienced leaders for the following year.

The women’s team is one of the few teams in the league that doesn’t have a coach. It is up to the captains to make decisions as a coach figure.

“We do a lot of logistics, lots of planning,” said Barron. “But we also do a lot to figure out which players work best with each other…a lot of the strategy.”

Meanwhile, for the past two years the men’s team has hired coaches that play on the Portland club team, Red Tide. Maguire said that this is helpful during tournaments as it allows the captains to focus on playing the game instead of calling lines and substitutes.

Although the season starts second semester, the teams begin practicing in the fall, mainly to develop the new players. They draw in first years and other new players using posters, advertising at the Student Activities Fair, and practicing on the quad to create visibility. The sport is somewhat unique in that it is typical for players to have no experience before starting college ultimate Frisbee.

Both ultimate teams have achieved notable successes this year. The women’s team holds an official season record of 17-7 and the men’s team has a record of 16-5. 

A tough obstacle the men's team overcame to get to Nationals was its game against Brandeis.

“In pool play we beat them 13-12, which was huge for us because it helped us advance to nationals,” said Maguire. “They are definitely one of the hardest teams we’ve faced so far.”

“The level of competition in Division III has really kicked it up a notch within the last three years,” women’s senior captain Molly Sun noted.

Both captains noted that for the women, offense comes pretty easily. As a result, in preparation for nationals the team will focus on defense, technique and positioning.

­“We’re hoping to face off against Williams,” added Sun. “We’re definitely really hoping to beat them there. We had a close loss to them at Regionals, so we’re definitely out for revenge.”

Maguire said that one of the main goals for the men’s side is to keep everyone healthy and overcome season injuries. They will also be working on zone offense, which is important in the windy conditions they will be playing with in Illinois.

“We’ve had experience going against top level Division III teams,” said Maguire. “We think we can compete and win against any team in the country in any given game.”