The spring season is finally in full swing for the men's ultimate team. This Saturday and Sunday at Farley Field, the team will compete in the North New England D-III College Open Conference Championships with its sights set on ultimately reaching the USA Ultimate D-III College Championships.
The team must first defeat its regional opponents, which include Keene State, University of Maine-Farmington (UMF) and Colby, before it competes on the national level.
With much at stake this weekend, the Polar Bears are eager to make their work on and off the field pay off.
"We had a very strong offseason and have been training hard for this upcoming weekend," said junior captain Adam Mortimer. "I think the team has shown a close bond...So far in our outdoor practices and tournaments, everyone looks good, and this should definitely give us the upper hand against the other teams this weekend."
Though the Polar Bears have not yet faced Keene State, UMF or Colby this season, they hopes their past experience against these teams will create an advantage on the field.
"We've played them in the past years and done really well against them," said junior captain Dylan Kane.
In addition to facing familiar opponents, the Polar Bears have plenty of reason to feel confident heading into this weekend.
Two weeks ago, the team had a strong showing with a fourth place finish at the Garden State Open in Ewing, N.J. The team impressed during the first day of pool play by defeating Princeton (13-6), Drexel (11-8) and SUNY Stony Brook (13-6).
"We have a really good zone defense and our short game has worked well on offense," said captain Jonathan Coravos '11 of the team's keys to success. "When we move the disc quickly, few teams can stop our momentum."
"We've improved a lot with on-field communication and sideline-to-field communication, which has not only helped our positioning in our zones but also fired our team up," he added.
To begin the second day of competition, the Polar Bears overwhelmed Stevens Institute of Technology (13-2) in its final pool matchup to claim the number one seed in the pool and the number two overall seed in the championship bracket.
With this victory against Stevens, the team advanced to a semifinal matchup against top-seeded Columbia.
However, Columbia proved to be a little too much for the Polar Bears, who put up an admirable fight against the eventual tournament champions in a 13-8 loss. The day ended on a bittersweet note as the team lost its third place game to Drexel. However, by placing fourth, the team finished higher than its initial seeding of sixth.
Even though the team sees its performance at the Garden State open as a step forward, there is still room for improvement as the conference championship approaches.
"The biggest thing we can improve upon is transitioning on offense from the horizontal stack to the vertical stack," said captain Adit Basheer '11. "We have had some trouble with our communication in setting up this offensive formation. Our cutting is the most important thing and we want to revamp our end zone plays."
Nevertheless, based on what it has already accomplished this season, the Polar Bears are confident that they will have what it takes to come out on top at Conferences and claim a spot at the New England D-III College Regionals. From there, the team would go on to compete for a bid to the national College Championships.
This kind of excitement in the postseason tends to bring out the best in the team.
"Conference play is an exciting time since it's the beginning of what we've been working for all semester," said Coravos. "This is the time when we expect to see other teams play their hardest and when we expect ourselves to play the hardest."