Monthly updates on the team
This has been an awesome year. CSULB peaked, and I foresee the peak being higher next year.
CSULB finished the season 29 wins, 19 losses, ranked 90th in the nation out of roughly 537 teams.
At the Southwest Regionals, we went 1-3 on Saturday and finished Sunday 3-0 to take 9th place in one of the most competitive regions in the nation.
I am graduating, and leaving my legacy of this team to capable hands. I will write a bit more post Ultimate banquet. But I love you all!
Dan
Northern California has a special place in my heart. I am a so cal kid through and through, but 100% of the trips I’ve had to NorCal have been memorable in good ways thus far. So all you crazy kids who call NorCal home, I respect that. Though clearly, SoCal is better in every way (nah I’m just kidding?).
Anyway, Ripon, home of the Stanford Invite proved to be a perfect weathered weekend for some competitive ultimate. And the tournament didn’t disappoint. In a 48 team tournament, CSULB was seeded near the top of tier 2, where tier 1 had 24 elite teams based upon previous history (strength of teams historically, and this season thus far) and we were ranked 32nd overall.
Being near the top of tier 2 meant we had to face several tier 1 and upper tier 2 teams. Our first day proved to be a rigorous schedule, we were pitted out the gates against Whitman who was the top of the tier 2 list and at Vegas was a tier 1 team. In that game, we started on D and took a comfortable lead with two break points in a row. After they scored we were unfazed and kept the pressure to take the win in stride 13-9. Of note, I recall MJ completing several perfect hucks and finally pivoting like I’d wanted him to when handling. And I had two absolutely perfect pulls in a row that resulted in first pass turnovers then scores, with a lane block by Jacob and a phenomenal layout D by Uni.
We had a bye the next round and then played Humboldt State, a tier 1 team and talented team overall. They had some really good break mark throws and several very fast cutters. But with smart matchups and in a strongly offensive driven match, we essentially traded points with us winning half 7-6. And scoring a break point at 12-10 to trade points to victory 13-11. This game was one of mental toughness and intense desire. Both teams gave everything and fought hard. The Stalkers proved a force to contend with as we pressured on D and flowed well offensively. We had some of the best zone offense points we’d ever had in this game as well, with chilly throws and good decisions fueling our offensive drives. Near the end of the game, I guarded one of their fast deep threats and had a misstep which strained my hurting Achilles heel to the point of concern that I didn’t play the Davis game that immediately followed the Humboldt game. Each step my tendon was clicking and my flexibility which was already strained was hurting too much to validate my desire to play. So from the sidelines I saw our offense struggle but maintain ground until the latter half of the game when we lost intensity and gave up mentally. We had the game within 2 points most of the way until the end when we lost three straight break points to lose the game 13-8.
After being fueled by an amazing home cooked meal + roundtable pizza (thanks Taylor family, Stockton rulez!) as well as peanut butter + cheesecake frozen yogurt not to mention Chariots of Fire we came out ready to rock on Sunday. We laughed at daylight savings as we woke up at what used to be 5:30 in the morning and packed up in the midst of the darkness. Victory was on our minds.
Arriving at the fields which had apparently iced over and a thick fog hung over the soccer complex, we took note of the battlefield. We weren’t moving until our 4th game Sunday, which meant we got to dig in deep into the neighborhood and get comfortable. Our first game Sunday was against Berkeley’s B team. We had a lackadaisical warm-up since we arrived only about 20 mins before the game time. I wasn’t sure I would even play, but after warming up I felt my Achilles give me the go ahead. I still planned to play few points since this game was pretty much a gimme. We took Berkeley 13-1 with their only point coming off a poorly defended huck.Next game pitted us against Sonoma State, the Grapes of Wrath. They proudly bear some awesome looking jerseys and gave us a good game. They had a few tall players who proved to be worthwhile against some poorly thrown hucks, but overall we moved the disc at will and struck hard on defense with several layout Ds including one of my best ones of the tournament at full speed laying out on the outside shoulder on an in cut. We took the game 13-3.
Our next matchup was against the strongest team of the day thus far, Puget Sound. Coming down from Washington these boys had some talent and gave us a good game. There unfortunately was a few questionable calls that resulted in some arguments, including one I was involved in with an in/out of bounds player (Red) who in a zone offense was playing wing and standing still caught a pass near the sideline and threw a perfect huck which led to a score while their deep deep was calling out of bounds saying I didn’t have perspective even though I threw Red the pass, and that Red didn’t have best perspective even though he didn’t move. Oh well, we still scored after they contested him being in bounds. We had the game sealed at 12-8 but we let them score a few before we won 13-10.
Going 5-1 at this point, we were playing for 14th place against Las Positas College, (LPC). Adam Raty, one of the founding fathers of CSULB Ultimate, is pursuing a degree in ultimate professionalism at LPC and thereby justifies his eligibility, however he was a bench warmer (injured--sadly, what else is new) and overall underpaid informant. But we came out with fire, lightning, and flashy hip gyrations and scored 3 break points in a row including another perfect pull by yours truly (perfect) was not as relevant on this field since it was about 5-10 yards shorter than the other fields however. Anyway, we scored a Callahan off Christian’s sliding catch in the lane (how romantic--huh mike?). We allowed LPC to get back into the game though as we led 4-3 after a few botched offensive points. Mike threw a lazy pass that was caught for an LPC Callahan as well. But we kept our cool and played it tight keeping the game close. We had a chance to win the half, but had some poor decision turnovers. I had a nice layout D in the end zone off one of Bob’s break side throws to a wide open receiver to save a crucial point. I also had one of my best layout D catches inches away from Baumer’s massive legs and the body of his defender which was called back by a foul, dang. Anyway, this game was a lot of fun, and I was in a lot of pain (Achilles still), but we fought all the way through, with several outstanding D plays and pretty much unstoppable offense. We finished the game 11-13. The last point had several Uni highlights including a sky and later an endzone layout D on a breakmark throw. Not bad at all.
We happily took 14th place and retired from an amazing weekend of team cohesion on and off the field. We needed a jolt at this point and this tournament definitely provided that. Hanging with some big dogs and even taking some down was huge for the team morale. We have some much needed healing/time off coming up and plan to come out huge for sectionals, which is hosted locally by yours truly.
Congratulations to Uni for winning MVP and black disc for SI, and notable mention to MJ for coming in a close second in the voting.
And congratulations to APU who won the 2nd Best Tournament of Your Life hosted by CSULB the same weekend as the Stanford Invite. Our B-Team participated and broke seed and had a lot of fun. Long Beach Ultimate is stoked, next up is the Irvine Invite (March 14-15 then Sectionals April 11-12).
-Truth
Youtube now has the highlight video.
I'm uploading it so teammates can download it from the video section. Check back in a couple weeks and the individual game videos should also be online.
So I know some people actually read this. And I intended to write a follow up immediately following the tournament, but got caught up in life. So, I will let the highlight video that's being edited speak on behalf of the team. It ought to be done by Christmas. It'll be mine and Christian's gift to you all :)
In brief, CSULB showed great poise both offensively and defensively. I believe our O line had somewhere near perfect efficiency (meaning we scored everytime we started the point with the disc) and we won every first half 7-4. We were seeded 1st coming into the tournament. And it was our first time uniting into one team. Excitement coursed through our veins and came out like flashes of lightning as we outbid, outjumped, and mostly out hustled our opponents. We won all our games going 4-0 on Saturday and 3-0 on Sunday to take 1st place, beating SDSU in the finals 13-8.
Yea yea Beach!
So Cal Warmup Scores
In other related news, our RRI has improved significantly this fall and the UPA has CSULB ranked #1 in SCAL and #4 in the SW region behind Colorado, Colorado State, and Arizona. It appears the SW region is up for grabs. And you'd better believe Long Beach is ready to bid.
Truth
Irvine Fall Huckfest
CSULB once again stormed the fields for some competitive men’s ultimate. At the second tournament of the semester, we were still split into two teams, Silverfox and Mineshaft, respectively seeded 3rd and 5th in a 20 team tournament. UCI had a good field of competition with APU as the top seed having won our tournament against Mineshaft in the finals. With the teams still so newly infused with rookies it is difficult to correctly seed teams, as was proved here as it was at WTOYL. Arizona-X was second seed in the tournament yet finished 17th place while CSULB-X “Silverfox” was one of few to finish as they were seeded (3rd place).
I will again speak from the bias of Mineshaft and CSULB, but hey what did you expect? Our day began in the warm So Cal sunshine that we’ve grown to know and love. A slight cool breeze welcomed us as we made our way to the fields. You could tell who the rookies were, wide eyed, as fellow ultimate players donned their gear, taped their ankles, and began to focus on the games ahead. We had a few games against lower seeded teams to start the day before facing tougher games against UCI-Y and Arizona-Y (it was the trend of bigger teams to have split squads). We started our first game against SDSU-Y which had a slightly different mix from WTOYL, but still we faced many of the same players. Starting on defense, we won the first couple break points to go up 3-0. But our intensity wasn’t as high as it needed to be. We spread a few too many lines thin and allowed the game to get a little closer than intended and ended up winning as we strengthened our lines because of a hard cap. Oh well, 9-7 is a win.
We had a bye next round so we went to watch our brethren who were frustrated with an uncharacteristic loss to Westmont, one of the newer teams from the Santa Barbara area. I heard it was a game filled with “near misses” and “stupid mistakes” all of which spells two things to me: lack of intensity and focus. But they came out strong against UCI-X and beat them 11-5. We went back to play Pepperdine, who had several guys playing without cleats, and a few ladies as part of the team, including some super flexible young lady who could twist her legs into a pretzel and still somehow do tumbling moves. I heckled her a bit, and she retorted to one of my banters with, “If you were this flexible you’d be a girl!” Shot down… Anyway, we played a lot of our rookies in this game and had a fun game against a fun spirited team at their first tournament.
Our next game was against UCI-Y. We started out on defense, and had a fired up defensive line cause a turnover and score easily to take the break and the lead. They then scored on offense and then we traded points for a bit until Irvine scored a break point on us to tie it up. We traded points until 5-5. We were on defense and I remember giving a “must get a D speech” with eyes surely spittin’ flames and my feet stirring dust storms as the pull was ripped and our D line hustled down. I measure the team by the success we have in duress because we pulled out the D and a sick score to take the half 6-5 and start second half on offense. We took the momentum into the second half, scoring on offense to go up 7-5. Irvine’s game diluted to a quick huck off the pull and our deep defense was good enough to usually stop it and then work the disc upfield to score. We pulled out a big triumph to win 10-7, fired up for our last game against Arizona “Decepticons.”
Arizona looked pretty solid with some veterans who had played at nationals, and they had a pretty clear game plan that was figured out after a few points of “Jingles” throwing to the Patriot deep – they were wearing costumes -- We started the game on defense once again and scored the first break point once again. Consistent? Yes. Sexy? You bet. Our offensive line was as impressive as ever as we kept scoring our O points. I had a pretty good match up against “Patriot” who I’d say was probably the bulk of the cutting coming from their team, he beat me 3 or 4 times, but I did get probably two or three Ds on him. I tooled him up line whenever we were on offense though and I was able to find FX or Lojack open deep. We played a pretty close game winning the first half 6-4 over Arizona. We started second half with a score and traded points until 9-6. We then scored one more break point to make the score 10-6 as the hard cap went off. We then declared a rookie point which Arizona won on offense to finish the game 10-7. Before the game we realized that if we went undefeated on Saturday we would have a 12pm start time on Sunday, with a bye into the quarterfinals. We were pretty well motivated by “12pm” start time on Sunday. For our team that tends to be more than enough motivation, and the intensity throughout the Arizona game was amazing as people were skying for Ds, laying out, and just playing awesome like we practice. Our triumphant huddle after the game was accompanied by some Silverfox brethren. Everyone was excited for the direction our teams were going. Mineshaft maybe a little more than Silverfox at the time, but hey who’s counting? I kid, I kid….
Well anyway, sleeping in proved difficult as I kept thinking about playing ultimate. I woke up wide awake at 7am having gone to bed around 11:30. I told myself I didn’t have to pee and somehow slept until 8:30. Showing up to play your first game at 12 is a blessing. We didn’t take it for granted either. We came out with crushing vigilance against our opponents and SDSU-X happened to be the first victims. We won the first half 6-1, with wind blowing from 10-18 mph at least. After several errant hucks, I calculated the degree of tilt, the required torque, and fired away deep passes upwind, downwind, it didn’t matter, they were on the money. We had cutters open deep, underneath, wherever we wanted we got the disc, and we were simply running harder than the other teams. We beat SDSU 11-2 to advance to the semi-finals paired in another epic grudge match with our brothers from Silverfox. They pulled a big upset win against APU who apparently didn’t know how to manage the extra sleep. Silverfox’s beating APU 8-6 pitted a guarantee of Long Beach in the finals! We were ecstatic!
Well we came out the gates faster, stronger, harder, and were quickly up 4-1. The pace of the game stayed in our favor right until the near end when Silverfox scored two or three in a row. We ended up winning the game on a sloppy huck rescued by the rookie, Twister, skying me, and several others for the score 9-4. Finally, we come to the finals. We knew the game was to be either USD or SLO, and if I were a betting man I’d say SLO would have made it just based upon both team’s programs from last year, but USD beat them 8-6 in the semis. My Monster teammate, Forbes and I had our captain’s agreement, and he gratuitously lost the flip to us as we chose side and started on offense. The wind was still pretty high and proved to be a factor as the sloppiest point CSULB has ever played became our first score. At least 4 turnovers on both parties occurred including two “first pass” turnovers. Ugh… well I went on for defense and we held them at bay for a bit before they broke downfield with a huck 1-1. The game’s downwind points proved pivotal, and we had better depth on our lines, so we took advantage with some pull plays, and quick disc movement. But we ended up committing some early game errors as we lost a downwind point and an upwind point because of throwing/focus errors against USD’s zone/wall. They run a “rabbit” with 3 midfield defenders and 3 deeper defenders and once we moved the disc enough to slay the rabbit we found plenty of openings. At least that was the game plan, but I and others had some mis-thrown passes that put us in the hole for the first time all weekend. We ended up losing the half 6-4 and we had to start on defense second half.
Well, Marcos and I like to dig out people’s guts in order to bring some zeal into the game. And I tell you what, sometimes it’s prettier than others, and this was one of those times. We brought “it” in, – what is “it” anyway when we say, “Bring ‘it’ in!”?; perhaps it is the collective conscience waiting to be united in synergy-- amped and ready to rock. Well, the dam broke loose as we tore up the field defensively, with several forced errors, a few sky Ds, handblocks, a layout D by yours truly, and Kyle’s Callahan. It was brought on by excellent downfield defense, and Perry’s awesome coverage of their start handler to cause a terrible floaty throw in the wind at a high stall count which Kyle easily caught for the Callahan. We won the second half 7 points to USD’s two and took the game and the tournament 11-8. As a trophy we were given victory cake which ended up my undoing later that night. But it was a sweet victory nonetheless. To all of Long Beach and my valiant readers who read this garbage “recap” to the end, I thank you. And I cannot say enough words to really declare that Long Beach is on the map – taking the Ultimate field by storm! Go Stalkers!!
I can’t wait to see what a united “A” squad of Stalkers can do, ooooooohhh man it’s going to be sweet. Next contest, So Cal Warmup!
-Truth
So I among a few others made up the sideline of significant others, coaches, and interested players from the men's team as the ladies of Long Beach stormed UCLA's intramural fields for some competitive women's ultimate frisbee, in No Regrets' first tournament of the year. I sensed and heard the nervousness the women had about their own team, but I felt confident in their abilities and was excited to see what was to come. For reference sake, the women had had no more than 12 at a previous tournament, in games which require "7 on the line." So, most tournaments they brought a mighty 9-10 girls to challenge the other teams. Bruised, bloodied, and winded they kept playing with very little room for substitution especially when a teammate would fall prey to injury.
But this tournament proved an exception. With 15 ladies, they had more than two lines, and the common complaint was, "Too many subs!" Oh the irony... So, the veteran ladies complained, not too seriously though as they appreciated being fresh on the field. And they noticed how much harder everyone was able to run, cut, and play. Their intensity level was pretty high the whole day, while maintaining good supportive spirits, even with their opposition.
Their first game, they played one of the 3 UCLA split teams. They had several obvious veteran players, and some obvious rookies. Our ladies rookies had the advantage of several more weeks of practice than UCLA because of the semester vs. quarter system. It showed. Our new ladies dominated with throws, cuts, catches. The game was close for a bit, but CSULB opened up the game with a break score and kept the lead as both teams traded offensive scores. UCLA threw a zone defense that stumped our ladies for a few minutes, but resulted in several turnovers on both sides. Once No Regrets had possession again I craftily advised a timeout. They spent their timeout discussing positioning, movement, and strategy, then executed a perfect zone offense that kept the defense on their heels and paid its dividends. UCLA didn't throw it again. They won the game with defense second half not allowing a UCLA score and took the game 13-6 (scores will be relative).
In the next game they were pitted against Redlands University. Calling themselves the Jillalopes, they were a fun spirited team with some tall ladies. Our ladies proved much better conditioned and certainly more patient with their throws that the win came pretty easily. There were several amazing hucks thrown by Gerene, Patty, Gerri, and Sara that Melissa, TBone, Heidi, Evie, Emily, pulled down for big gains or scores. I was very impressed by the "help" the other ladies gave to their teammates as many scores came off deflections into the waiting arms of Ivana, or Sam. Good follow up!
I guess at this point I should mention that I made a bet with the women’s team that every "layout" that was an earnest bid for the disc would be rewarded by cookies delivered by yours truly. Needless to say, the ladies were motivated. Without defined terms, the layouts and intensity level was extremely high. Evie was the first, and her shirt was the dirtiest after all was said and done; having some AMAZING layout catches, sweet bids, and dives to save errant throws. The effort was so impressive that the reward for me is probably greater than the consumption of cookies. Dang that sounds like I suck at baking cookies... TBD... Anyway, the impressive layout catches made by others on the team shouldn't be ignored, particularly those of Heidi and Emily. T-Bone, Melissa, and Sarah also had mentionable layouts. “No good deed will go unpunished" (wicked).
No Regrets third game was against Cal Tech. This team had a decent number of veterans, and some interestingly dressed cast of characters. The game was much closer than I originally anticipated. And looking back, I am certain the motivation was lessening as the victories piled on. No Regrets assumption was they would win and stopped playing good defense. Now, undeniably, women's ultimate is a different game than men’s. It is still fun to watch and competitive. That being said, turnovers are in much greater frequency. Blame small hands, inexperience, fingernails, what have you, it just is true. The reason I say this is that when turnovers do happen, you have to be prepared to "get the disc back" by playing hard D. And in the Cal Tech first half, that stopped happening. They opened up the field with several successful hucks, easy up-line cuts by their tall handler, and took it to our ladies by winning the half 7-6. After giving some sage words, and after T-Bone and Nick's motivational speeches, the women listened. Starting with an Offensive score, they shut down Cal Tech defensively and took the game either 13-7 or 13-8. It was astounding!
Finally, the game against USC Hellions. Albeit a split squad, our ladies were nervous since USC was a team they had always been decimated by in the past. In the huddle T-Bone said they were faster, better throwers, more experienced than us. I sneered to myself, knowing the truth... pun unintentional. But it wasn't until the game began that I was proved right. CSULB took USC by storm and never let down their guard. Even on some lines with mostly rookies, our ladies were able to stop their flow and get enough passes to open up the score. The score was 10-5 when hard cap was blown, and T-Bone was ecstatic on the sideline. She knew the game was won as the ladies were battling out a "marathon" point that had probably 12+ turnovers. Finally a trailing away huck by Sarah was caught by a jaw-dropping layout by Heidi who had enough adrenaline to pick herself up and throw the score to a wide open Melissa. They took the win in stride 11-5 over USC to finish the day 4-0. Regret nothing!
My advice is take this as a stepping stone for everyone to improve. You may have won now, but the other teams are going to be improving quickly, particularly as they split into "A" and "B" squads. You've got what it takes to make this an amazing year filled with glorious victories. Just keep pushing yourselves, and PLEASE KEEP THROWING!
The Truth
Wow, what a weekend! For CSULB, we not only hosted the tournament, but we initiated our rookies, which if you ask anyone on the team, they'll tell you how awesome it was. We made a mess of the Joshua House to eat tons of pasta and get our carbo load on. Turned out to be about twice as much pasta as was necessary, so we'll need to have another team dinner before Irvine!
Anyway, the schedule was a pretty grueling set-up, thanks "Lo-Jack." Every team had 5 back to back games with no byes on Saturday. Thankfully Sunday had a bit more of a relaxed pace... nothing like trial by fire right rookies? Anyway, the action all weekend was awesome and the competitive level surprisingly high given how early it is in the season for everyone.
I'll speak particularly of the B-Pool, as that is where "Mineshaft" resided. Mineshaft's first game was against APU, which we felt confident against them having beaten them every game last year, that even with a split squad we could give the a good game. It became obvious that our defense was able to get turnovers and Ds out of their offense. But it became obvious too that our rookies couldn't handle their stifling zone defense. We had great flow on transition offense, but whenever they set up their zone, we had to have in our vets playing chilly zone O. We scored enough to take the game rather easily 11-8. Our next game was against Caltech and apparently we had some mismatches that Caltech capitalized upon to give us a really close game! They played awesome, and I must credit their defense with several crucial handblocks, particularly from the gloved Indian, Hersh! He also made some sweet deep cuts. They had a good number of rookies, and a new taller handler that played really well. I noticed Henry had trouble getting good throws thrown to him, but he dominated a quick deep strike against us with a perfect throw coming from the new handler. We put on a few stronger lines in order to pull out a win to take Caltech 12-10.
Next, Mineshaft faced San Diego State-X. SDSU suffered from graduating several of their top players it seemed, and they were running a split X/Y squad, but they had from what I saw few veteran players besides Splash and David who both played really well. We had a few successful runs of zone defense and stellar offense to make the game 11-4. Coming undefeated, 3-0 into what we anticipated to be the toughest team in our pool, UCLA, we were surprised to hear they lost to APU on universe point after being ahead 7-2 in the first half. Nate, my buddy and captain of APU said it was because of their zone that they had the massive comeback. We attempted zone, but we're not yet that practiced at it defensively so UCLA was able to beat it pretty effectively with throws going off through the middle and swings. We gave them a competitive game, but several key goal line turnovers and subsequent hucks by the tall lefty new guy proved too much for our turnover defense. I noticed the only deep passes came from the cutters (Linux and new guy), but still we didn't make adjustments in time to effectively stop their offense. A key point of the game was on a sweet pull of mine (there were a few!) that put the disc in the back left corner of the endzone. We ran down hard to put pressure on and allowed only one throw before a lazy pass from Linux went to my man, Knuckles. However, he waited for the disc and I leapt at the chance to catch a layout Callahan! Unfortunately against all laws of reason Knuckles felt he had been fouled and I tried to trade the lies he believed for the Truth. He denied and a case of “disc never lies” proved false as the tall lefty guy made a cut and then threw a completed huck for a score once the contested disc was checked in. We went on to lose 13-6, scoring 3 points in both halves.
Our final game we faced Occidental who had just forfeited after a teammate had a nasty broken arm. He was picked up by an ambulance on a stretcher after what I heard was the definition of a “hospital pass.” Apparently the disc was floaty that the defender swatted it, but instead it went vertical, so the same defender swatted it again, but this time it started spinning crazily and floated high enough for 8-9 guys to get underneath it. With arms criss-crossed and bodies flying, someone two hand grabbed the disc and ripped it down, apparently arms were interlocked causing a snap audible from the sidelines... So we played their team and I was impressed how good spirited and intense they still were playing in the next game. We won 11-6 and called it a day! As we were stretching we found out there was a 3-way tie for first place in our pool since us, APU, and UCLA-X were all 4-1. Because of point-differentials, UCLA took first, APU 2nd, and us 3rd. It was unfortunately so for our hope for a Long Beach finals because that pitted CSULB-X and CSULB-Y, Silverfox versus Mineshaft, first thing Sunday morning for the Quarterfinals.
The first game against our brethren proved to be an extremely competitive, action-packed game. The lead in the game transferred at least two times with us up 2-1 then behind 4-2 before winning the half 7-5. We started on O second half and came out with a score after a couple turnovers. The other Long Beach team kept the spirit high, and lessened their competitiveness as the game wore on, and we kept pumping. With the soft cap on the game was to 11, and we were up 9-5. But we allowed a score and then got stuck at 10 with several stupid turnovers that caused a hard-cap victory 10-7 over Silverfox. The huddle at half-time was epic as we were amped and I looked everyone in the eye and said, “I know you all want to win this, but so do they. This is one of those games that will be talked about all season, so let’s come out on top!” Excitement is a cliché word to describe how I feel about our program being this advanced and competitive this early in the season. Anyway, we went on to play UCLA-X again who had just come off a first round bye into the semifinals.
We won the pull as usual (I think we won every game btw) and started on defense with a break-point. Going up 1-0 felt great, we attempted zone D which was cleverly maneuvered by UCLA’s handlers and poppers to make it 1-1. We scored to make it 2-1. We continued trading points until going up one more break. We received the pull at 6-5 and I think we began pondering victory too soon as we had several fatal turnovers causing us to lose the half 7-6. Another epic half-time huddle, I told everyone within ear shot this type of game is why we play Ultimate. Here we were at the half with a team we lost to 13-6 yesterday and we are neck-and-neck with this time. Mineshaft came out firing second half, scoring on O fluidly. The score was 7-7 and it was set to be a good game. We played intense D, but UCLA managed to score 8-7. The softcap was blown during the next point and we knew we needed to score. After several turnovers, we won a hellish point to make it 8-8 game to 10. UCLA scored, 9-8. We were on offense and had to be perfect or else the game was UCLAs to take. Fortunately we were perfect enough and tied it at 9-9 and had to pull upwind for the final universe point. I put a decent floater at the goal line and everyone ran down hard to pressure their offense. One throw went off, and the lefty cutter got the disc and attempted a floaty high release to Linux, but Youtube was there to beat him to the spot and swat down the disc. I picked it up looking for glory, but was satisfied with an up-the line cut from Banzai. But glory was in his eyes as he spotted Cos cutting deep with said lefty poaching underneath. That was his last mistake he ever made as Lojack scored easily and we rushed the field.
After a 45 minute break we began the finals against APU. I felt pretty confident, but somewhat tired having sat a total of ~6 points between the previous two games. Anyway, we started out on D with another score to set up the game in our favor. A decent sideline showed up, and we kept pushing, but APU scored on us to make it 1-1. We anticipated their zone, and through a lot of swings and smart passes scored without a turn to make it 2-1. We had some bad matchups the next point and allowed an easy APU score 2-2. The next point went bad on a missed pass and APU scored to take the lead 3-2. We then made some readjustments but had a patience turnover and APU had a turn and then quickly went back into their zone. We had a second shot at the score and got it done to tie it up. But another score and another break by APU’s zone gave them pretty good control over the pace of the game 5-3. The rest of our offensive points proved to be very arduous, with high-releases, scoobers, hammers all coming out of the woodwork to make it 5-4. The rest of the first half is fuzzy but we lost 7-5. We started out on O. I remember having some crazy high turnover points for the remainder of the game, but APU scored more than we did as we failed to make the adjustments this time around to counter their zone. I’m sure it would’ve helped to have two of our missing handlers back playing, one missed all of Sunday due to a concussion (love ya Red, even though you don’t remember your sweet layout D), and the other had work. But the fact was that we played worse than APU, and their zone was very effective at causing us to make poor decisions and we didn’t move the disc enough. We did a pretty good job of shutting down their V-stack, but unfortunately we just didn’t get to play D enough, and when we did we allowed too many deep throws to go off, that even if they turned it over, they had their transition zone defense ready to go. Clever strategy, and a great game. We took second place with smiles and congratulated APU on winning 13-9.
All told, it was one awesome weekend, and I’m very proud of our rookies steppin up big time with Ds, layouts, hucks, and some handled the disc particularly well! Its going to be a great season! For game results and standings you can click here.
Until next time
The Truth
You may have noticed that our roster has been a bit more organized. We've divided up our roster into two groups, the "X" and "Y" team. They're supposed to be equally strengthed based upon talent, experience, and athleticism. You can select the sort by X/Y and last name to find out which team you are on. These X/Y teams will be utilized for the next several tournaments that we attend. The first testing grounds will be this Saturday as we are in Claremont.
Speaking of which, I hope you guys are as excited as I am to be invited to this scrimmage. For one, it is flattering as Claremont was the champion of our sectionals tournament last season, and because they are a great spirited and competitive team. I look forward to giving them some fun games as well as throwing our studly rookies and wily vets out there to do some damage.
I just want to lastly note again how awesome this year has been so far for CSULB Ultimate. We've grown a lot, with the addition of some awesome rookies who've come to learn the game with enthusiasm and excitement. Our program has matured and our leadership is resolute in making this a huge year for our team. Stick with us, particularly if you are freshmen, because CSULB Ultimate is increasingly becoming a growthplace of champions and continuing as a place to build awesome relationships with your peers.
Dan/Truth/Messiah/Siah/Seahorse Smeltzer
Welcome back to the new year! CSULB is now in its fourth week of school and the ultimate team has certainly grown and acquired some amazing new talent in this year's rookies. Our returners have stepped up, and with our committed practice schedule this will truly be a telling year of great potential for the Long Beach Stalkers. My prediction? Well, I wouldn't be ambitious if I weren't aiming for at least a second place finish at regionals. And I would dare say we've got the talent, the program, and the good looks to get it done. Stalkers for nationals!
So we've decided to host a fall Tournament of Your Life, called the "Worst... TOYL" and the interest for that tournament was so high that the same day we sent out bid requests the tournament was full - 12 teams all told. This tournament will be the counterpart to the spring version -- The Best Tournament of Your Life (BTOYL).
Dan
In a 12 team tournament, CSULB’s Stalkers were ranked 7th and were the fourth seed in the “B” Pool with tough opponents including UCI, APU, Occidental, Berkeley-B, and UCSD-B. Particularly APU & Occidental were games we were looking forward to rematching since we had close losses in previous match ups and our team has definitely improved since those games.
So, our first game which in an interesting time switch by UCI was at 1:30pm. An afternoon start was apparently what we needed to jump start a power D line against APU, and win the first several defensive points. We took a solid 3-0 lead before trading a few points, and winning the first half 7-4. We then shut them out second half with only one “O” line to start the second half. We proved too much for their cut and dump game, and were able to put enough pressure on their main threats that we had the upper hand. We finished the first game with a huge upset victory 13-4!
Our second matchup was a classic one in the making. We were pitted against the top seed, UCI, in their home tournament. We had a lot of excitement following our smashing victory over APU. UCI wasn’t messing around, and they gave us our best game of the tournament, the only team to beat us to the first half, with several key turnovers on our part that UCI capitalized upon. We lost the first half 7-4. After Marcos and I gave the best pep talk we could muster. Our team had a spark of light akin to Thomas the Train’s “I think I can.” We traded points offensively with UCI to give them a hell of a game. Turnovers were hard to come by and both teams played incredibly well. But the score came to 10-7, when the soft cap was blown. We knew we needed to score to keep the game within our reach. We had the disc and were on offense and I remember looking at that line and expressing how badly we needed this point. Well guess what… we flowed the disc right into the goal to make the score 10-8, game to 12. We pulled the disc, and I believe UCI hucked it to Sam who I was guarding (sorry I don’t remember many specifics except for my own plays). He was burning me deep as I stumbled to get my balance. Fortunately, the disc was floaty and Sam didn’t aggressively enough attack the disc. I earned a reputable sky D over his head to stop a sure score to keep the game within reach. We then worked the disc all the way to score and make the game 10-9. We had momentum at this point, and even UCI’s next score to make it 11-9 didn’t completely stun us. We with heads held high walked the disc through their zone defense in probably one of the most fun zone offenses I’ve been a part of and we scored to make it 11-10. Our sideline was pumped, our team was on fire, and UCI was frustrated. I don’t remember what happened, but UCI turned the disc either on a huck or someone got a D, but we preceded to work the disc to tie it up 11-11, game to 12. On double-game point I pulled the disc deep and our D line sprinted down. The first throw went to Box (from UCI) near the sideline at the goal line. Keith was, against his stereotype, on his man and preceded to handblock the shorts off Box. I don’t need to express the uproar everyone was in at this point, but as I walked to the disc, Marcos called for the iso play, and Jacob had his back. We had our endzone play ready to rock and I was excited. Marcos made his cuts, but unfortunately didn’t get open, I saw Jacob start to the break side, and after a big open side fake, I pivoted and let a bending outside in flick go low to Jacob for the wide open goal. Game over, Long Beach takes UCI 12-11!
Our third game was to be against Occidental but they instead ditched the tournament, resulting in a forfeit win for us.
Our fourth game was against UCSD-B and we showed no mercy as we defensively stomped them to take the game 13-1.
Sunday started with another friendly rivalry against Berkeley-B. Now in years past, we always lost to this team, but always had close games. And the last time we faced each other was Vegas where we lost 12-11. So this time we knew we needed to prove ourselves. We dominated offensively and really stepped up on D to shut down their up line cuts and their hucks. We beat Berkeley 13-6.
We earned a bye in the pre-quarters to face San Diego (USD) in the quarters. They were tired from their games, and we took advantage, outrunning, and out cutting their team to win 13-4. They are another team that we up until this year struggled to compete against.
Finally, the finals, pitted us against SF State. They were the only team to have beaten us at SLUT the previous weekend. And they did so handedly. But they played UCI in the semifinals which lasted longer than our game against USD. They were tired, and had a stud cutter injured. But we stepped up our game huge. Davisson was certainly defensive player of the game against SF by gaining some huge poach Ds, skys against their big threat deep cutters, and probably his usual handblock or so. But I finally came into my own with my hucks, completing a very high percentage to Kyle, Marcos, and Jacob. It was a fun game as we out muscled a team that is very talented. The score started out with us winning 4 straight D points to make it 4-0. I believe Mike or Kyle barely missed a pass in the endzone which would have made the game 5-0, but SF squeezed out a huck to make it 4-1. We won the first half 8-3, and then the game on soft cap at 10-4. Our team played out of our minds and everyone was a great contributor to that weekend’s success.
On another note, the women’s team, No Regrets, won 2nd place out of 8 women’s teams the same weekend, with their only loss being their first game of the weekend against the would be first place team, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.
You can check out scores of the men’s team here
-Dan
This last weekend, the Stalkers took central California! We went to San Luis Obispos SLUT tournament and came away with our best record yet! The weekend started off early with a game against Claremont-B. After a slow start we really brought our whole game up a level, running the split stack for the first time in a tournament. We went away from the game with a W, beating Claremont-B 11 to 5. Our second game brought some undesierable wind, which would stay with us for the rest of the tournament. However we continued to play well, beating UCSC-B 9 to 7 and Redlands 13 to 4 and winning our pool!
Our second day saw us back at the fields bright and early (again) to play Cal Poly Pomona. It was a tight race at first and we pulled ahead in the middle of the game, but after the sound of soft cap we unfortunantly turned over several points to bring the game to an 10-10 tie at hard cap. On universe point, our chilly zone offense succeded in breaking Pomona’s cup and secondary, winning 11 to 10 and facing us off against number 1 ranked San Francisco State. We played pretty well, but several mistakes and the persistent wind gave us our first (and only) loss, losing 2 to 13. Our final game was against UCSC-B again, but despite the wind and several calls we pulled another victory; beating them 9 to 6 and winning us 3rd place in the tournament!
Unfortunantly, we saw the injuries of two of our teammates through the weekend. In our first game against UCSC-B, Lee laid for a disc and tore his miniscus (we presume). Lee sat out the rest of the tournament, but stayed with us on our sideline. In our game against SF State Keegan sacrifised himself for a layout D, paying for it with another knee injury. It is believed he hurt his MCL. Our love and best wishes go out to both of them and we hope to see them both ready and on the line at sectionals.
Check out these awesome pics taken by Ryan M. on Saturday. We’ll have to get him in some of them next tournament!Ryan's Pictures!
Practice continues and we get better. Our next contest will take place in Irvine this weekend, let’s go Stalkers!
- Perry
This weekend we went to UCI with a smaller squad than the previous weekend. We lost a crucial game early 11-10 in universe point against Arizona X. We then beat UNLV 13-7, lost to SLO 13-5, then beat APU 13-9. Notably, it was our first time beating APU since our team's inception. We'd played many many close games against them, but never taking a victory, especially by so large a margin. I believe it is due to the loss of several of their stud players to graduation, I wish those that remain the best as they try to fill the shoes of Seth and James as well as others.
On Sunday, we played our first round game against Black Tide B, which is another team we'd never beaten before. And we absolutely crushed them 13-5. Our zone defense in a bit of wind was flawless, and we even had some amazingly patient zone offense for a couple scores that dared the tide to attempt another zone.
Next we played USC in a game we could've taken. But we failed to show up, coming off a bye, we were cold and mentally unprepared. We failed to make passes, and failed to catch the easy passes. With so many giveaway turnovers USC easily beat us 14-8. Then we went on to play UCI in a fun match, we were supposed to play UCSB B again but they "forfeited" to us. We played UCI in a fun match and actually did quite well against them, but just for fun. We ended up finishing 10th place out of 16 teams, but had we beat Arizona in our first game the whole weekend would've been completely different!
I'm totally impressed with our team this year and I cannot wait to test our limits next semester as we encounter more fierce competition at tournaments such as Santa Barbara, Vegas, San Diego, and even our own we'll be hosting!
-Dan
CSULB took its largest ever team to UCLA's Sandwich Day tournament. At this tournament last year we settled uncomfortably with a last place finish, partly due to splitting our men's team with part attending a Fresno tournament. This year was a different story. Seeded at the top of our pool, we had to fight to keep face. We came out strong against a UCLA team (UCLA split its A & B into 3 teams for the weekend). And we had a good lead against them. However, rookie mistakes made by both first timers and even veterans cost us the lead. The game was close with us winning the half 7-6 or 7-5. However, the second half belonged to UCLA as they beat us by hard cap at 12-11.
Our next game was against CSUF which we threw a tough zone defense against and took several points in a row to win the half easily. They came back a few points with offensive points, and I remember I had one of the sickest layout D's I've had in awhile in a pass to my friend Jorge of CSUF. We won the game 13-7.
Then we went on to play a tough San Luis Obispo team who was arguably underseeded. The team played strong with aggressive hucks and speedy, tall handlers controlling their offense. Our zone defense worked well against this team, but they had too many breaks for us to keep pace, and they beat us 13-10 or so.
We won our next game against Occidental, who after a long day had few subs and we outpaced them the whole game. I don't remember the score, but I believe we won 13-9 or so.
We played another UCLA team for our 5th game on Saturday and I believe we lost it in another close bout as well. I have no idea what the score is. I do remember what happened on Sunday quite well however. We started off against University of Redlands and came out huge with several defensive points and I scored a Callahan. Redlands was struggling against our zone defense and was unable to recover even with a few big plays. We won easily 15-6 or so.
The next game pitted us against an undefeated UCLA Alumni team consisting of some bad boy club players and former Smaug all-stars. They had a first round bye and casually strolled in to barely make game time. It showed. We were fired up from our previous game, and started on defense against UCLA Alum. The first pass was to a big guy who Rory was covering for a score but I ended up reading the pass, laying it out for the first D on the goal line. We then turned the disc around and scored the first break point. The alum then put on a huge huck to score 1-1. We scored a sweet chilly O point to make it 2-1. After another sick layout D, I believe this time from Marcos, the score was 3-1. From there we traded points, where our offense had nearly a 100% efficiency rate with very few turnovers. Marcos and I had a combined 6 or 7 layout Ds and Rory threw one into the mix as well. Christian Miehls caught probably 3 scores, two of which came off of break marks, then swings, then easy break scores. We took half 8-6 then proceeded to win the game 12-8 due to hard cap.
From that win we advanced to the semi-finals where we were pitted again against the first UCLA team which beat us in universe point. I don't remember the score except that we ended up losing the game. Then we played SLO again and lost another close game. So we finished the weekend 4th out of 12 teams.
Practice has been moving along at full steam with new people picking up skills very quickly. Our first scrimmage against other schools is Oct. 21st. We will be playing against UCI, Clairmont, and USC. I believe we have an excellent change of winning all three scrimmages! Look for more tournaments in November!
Go Stalkers and No Regrets!
The college year has begun officially. Now CSULB Ultimate is running in full gear with easily 50 attendants at most practices, it really is exciting to be a part of this young team. We have a lot of returners and freshmen this year who show phenomenal potential and talent. Our teams will be tested soon, as our first scrimmage is next month and the first tournaments are in early November!
Anyway, War Horse, captained by Rory and Dan, has ended its season 4W-8L and qualified for regionals where we lost all four games to incredibly talented teams. Next year War Horse will be recruiting and starting a bit earlier, so look for it as a contender for the club scene.
See you on the field Stalkers and No Regrets!
Summer's end is in sight. College Ultimate is already beginning at some schools. And CSULB will feature it's first practice Friday, September 7 @2pm at the USU pool.
Several of our men's team players are playing Club Open, particularly with a team captained by Dan and Rory called War Horse. We are playing in San Diego the weekend of Sep 22-23 if anyone wants to watch, we feature the following Stalkers: Dan, Rory, Marcos, Uni-Dan, Will, Ben, possibly Christian, Mike, and Landry.
In other news, there will be a historic Disc Golf Tournament hosted by the Stalkers and all are invited. Participation is free, and it is taking place all over campus on Saturday morning, Sep 8. Check out this thread on the forum to read about it and sign up.
The Stalkers joined the No Regrets for some fun in the sun in good ole Arizona! After a 6 hour drive across the desert plateau, we escaped the city to Cory's aunt's place. There we fit 27 players into a 3 bedroom house with about a dozen in the living room and a handful sleeping outside under the stars. Cory's aunt treated us with breakfast and love, homebrew style. And she even watched us win some games! We played well, despite the intensely windy circumstances. We ended up losing most games easily, but we had one very close game against Arizona State that could've gone either way. Irvine also gave us a close game, but our only clear victory was against our friends at Cal Tech, who also were accepted because of open bids from teams not able to attend Regionals.
As for the women, they took a tiny band of warriors to face some intense women's competition. Ask anyone of them, they'll tell you they had No Regrets playing and having fun. We cheered each other's teams on when we had downtime, and the win was so strong that the ladies games in particular ended up being hilarious at times. The wind was at least 25mph with stronger gusts here and there, and it was difficult for our men's team to score upwind, but unfortunately I don't think the women had developed those throws yet. They ended up winning one game, by another team not showing up and then defeating them in roshambo later!
The finals were the most exciting piece of this tournament. Because of the way the UPA assigns bids for Nationals, only one team from the SoCal region was able to advance. We didn't have our usual "Strength" bid because none of our region's teams placed well enough in last year's nationals tournament. So UCSB and Colorado were scheduled to battle royale and everyone was watching. With only one team advancing, and both teams clearly were Natioanls caliber teams, the game was sure to be exciting. And it proved exactly that. With full sprints, and crazy layouts to start the game, UCSB on a ridiculous bid got a D and scored the first point of the game. Colorado was stunned, and lost the next point to SB's wild D line. However, Colorado recovered nicely with their offense to put one on the board. Following that their psyched up D line came out and tied it up. The game remained nearly point for point until Colorado established a two point lead 12-10. The game was to 15, win by 2. And both teams were fighting tooth and nail. The score ended up tied at 14s with Colorado starting on offense. Santa Barbara wanted the D and proved it with intensity, but couldn't cope with the skies and speed of Colorado. Colorado went up 15-14. Then SB tried a fast desperation huck to no avail, and Colorado worked up the disc for the victory in the greatest game I have ever watched. Colorado then went on to Nationals and placed 2nd in the nation, losing to Wisconsin in the finals.
Well the official season is over. The Stalkers went to the world's largest beach tournament, an Italian Tournament called Paganello. We showed up with low expectations which were blown away by the intensity, immensity, and propensity of the games, and especially our team. We went 7-3 over the four days of games and finished 10 seeds better than we started. We took 11 teammates to the tournament. You can read a full write up about Paganello on our forum, here the Stalkers went two days later to play in the Southern California Sectionals tournament. Our first game and most important one was against APU, and after pulling ahead 6-5 we lost our cool, the half, and the game against an arguably inferior team. Life goes on... we finished as was expected with 2 wins and 2 losses on Saturday, with crushing victories over Pomona and UCSD C. We were beaten by UCSB 13-3.
On Sunday we faced UCLA B in our first game, a team which we have always had close games against. Yet again, we managed to lose the first half by a wide margin and have an amazing come back in the second half, but this time to get to universe point, 12-12. UCLA put a floater in the endzone into traffic and came down with the swilliest of swill catches to score the unfortunate game winner.
Our road to sectionals was forfeit from that loss. Next we played USD who had crushed us everytime we played them simply because of their experience. This time they did more than that, beating us 8-2 at the half and then scoring the next two points. I was convinced if we could beat their cup/wall defense we could pummel them with our zone defense. That proved to be the case as the most unprecedented come back ever occurred and the CSULB Stalkers scored point after point after point. We in fact scored three in a row, two of which were Callahan goals, one by Keith, then a regular D point, followed by another Callahan goal by Trevor who skied two people for the catch. He reported later that Craig told him to get a Callahan earlier in the game (Thanks Craig!).
With the score tied at 12-12 and the game being played to 15 win by 2, we knew it was going to be hard fought. We traded points until the score was tied 14-14. USD took our pull, worked it up, and scored on us to make the game 15-14. We had a good chance to return a score, but had a fatal mistake near our own endzone gave the Flat Tax Ballers the disc with only about 30 yards for the goal. They again worked it up, and took home the win. It was an amazing come back of epic proportions. This game placed us at 12th place, seemingly without hope for a bid to regionals. However, with APUs graduation date the same as Regionals they gave up their bid, and USD was too stunned from playing us and injuries that they chose not to attend. So the Stalkers will be making their first ever appearance at Regionals this year, 2007!!!
If you are reading this, you should join under our Stalker banner, because next year we are definitely going to regionals and beyond! Join us for an amazing semester in the Fall of 2007 as we travel and play in Ultimate tournaments. Contact us here for any questions about the team.
Over 30 of our team members, the biggest showing ever in CSULB Ultimate history, participated in tournaments this last weekend. We split ourselves into Fresnoregrets and UCLA-OK squads. At both tournaments we were royally stomped on, but much less so at the UCLA tournament. Our goal, evidenced from splitting our team, was to gain valuable playing experience which all of us achieved that were at the tournaments. We played tough teams and put numbers on the board against them. At UCLA we managed to win our first game, which is the second time we've ever accomplished that. And we did it against APU. We then lost a heartbreaker against UCLA 9-8 and then dragged our feet against UCI and Berkeley. Sunday we lost a close game to UCLA Y 10-8 and another close one to Berkeley 15-11. Had our teams not split, I think we could've really stomped on these teams. But we will test that theory soon.
I was proud of our play for the weekend, I definitely saw areas we need to improve skills-wise as well as athletically. We had awesome flow at times, and strangled disc movement many more times. Our team is developing and I am excited to see its growth in the face of adversity. The San Diego tournament is going to be a great test of our team and its unity. And it will be so much fun. Roadtrips rule, isn't that right Fresno?
-Dan
Let me start off with the very first tournament of our very first womens team, No Regrets. The ladies, with a median average playing expierence of about a month, played amazingly well. I saw hard running, spectacular defense, organized stacks, and tremendous spirit out there. No Regrets finished their first tournament 1 win and 3 loses, almost upsetting San Diego in a universe point. Slow Jams displayed some superhuman ability with upwards of a million D's and a few very impressive hucks (all while being an idiot). No Regrets, I'm looking forward to seeing what you are capable this year. I couldn't be more pleased with the Long Beach women, fantastic playing!
So the Stalkers had their first tournament of the 2k6-2k7 school year. We came out strong and hard against APU X in a very hard fought battle that went down to universe point. After about three endzone drops and misreads, Adam f@cked up and threw the disc away for the final turn. APU gained their composure and put the game away 10-9. All in all a decent first game of the year. Next up was Cal-Tech, a team the vets are very familiar with. The Stalkers put on a fabulous show including a bitchin' zone, dominating handler weave, and of course a gorgeous geatest by Will to Dan Landry in the endzone for a point. Stalkers walked away with the first win of the year. With the wind picking up and legs growing weak, Long Beach set out against UCLA X. Turn after turn put the Stalkers in an irreversible deficit. Spirits were low and the our point total was even lower. Until a wee man that answers to Yahtzee stood up. Rory (hopped up on 'roids or something) yelled, screamed, dry heaved, ran his ass off, and brought the team a much needed spark. We came back and put a few scores on the board to make a respectable final score that I've since forgotten. The day was highlighted by some great first appearances by our noobs, impressive D from some particular players (H.I.A.Q.I.), and marvelous turns by Adam... the most handsome boy on earth. Day 2... Sunday began with an infamous game against Arizona. Trading marathon point after marathon point the two teams were neck and neck. Then some jackass cleated me so hard it broke one of my metatarsals. Long story short... I'm out 6-8 weeks, and I spent the rest of the tournament on the sidelines. I had a blast on the sidelines however, but that's the end of my recap. Great tournament, and way to duct tape the poor kid with a broken foot… jerks.
-Adam Raty>
Some of you may have recieved that last notice a little late concerning the scrimmage. If you missed it, the scrimmage was on 10/1 and it went pretty well. We played CSU Northridge, a new team that has a lot of potential for a first year squad. I learned that we need some work as well. So I hope everybody's excited for Friday (10/6), I think we may shake things up slightly and teach you vets a thing or two. In conclusion, there is nothing going on this sunday (10/8). See yah soon.
xoxo
-adam
In less than two weeks we are going to UCI to play some hardcore college Ultimate. There, most of you will be exposed to the college level Ultimate competition. You will have fun, you will play hard, and CSULB will succeed! Please buy yourselves cleats before you go or borrow someones you love.
You aren't obligated to go, but going will be the greatest thing you can do for the team and for yourself. The cost is $20 and gets you
Women's fees may be slightly more or less, email Rikki or talk to her if you want to know the details.
We will have sign-ups for the tournament at this Friday's practice, additionally we need some volunteer drivers and everyone going will need to fill out waivers to attend the tournament.
-Dan
Thank you to everyone who came out this weekend to watch some high level Ultimate Frisbee competition! Thank you Kevin, Kyle, Sean, Paul, Itunu, Theresa, Rikki, Rory, and Craig who all came and cheered on Wepwawet (Dan, Adam, Will, Trevor from the Stalkers)! Also Christian, my suitemate Joe, and his girlfriend Jenna came to watch a little of the finals game on Sunday.
Our team finished the weekend 3-3 with tough losses to Faded, USD, and the Condors. We never were closed out, we fought every game with intensity and even crushed a couple of opponents. Overall we had a lot of fun and we qualified for regionals in Scottsdale, Arizona, October 7 and 8!! Some photos from the event can be found here: Yuriy's Photos
I think I speak for Will, Adam and Trevor because this was some of the most fun I've ever had playing Ultimate and I cannot wait until our team is ready to play at the competitive level. The Stalkers are going to be unstoppable this year!
See you on the field,
-Dan
We're now entering our 4th week of school and Ultimate Frisbee is bursting with zeal and energy. Thank you to everyone who has come out and decided to try a new sport or develop a greater love for a familiar sport. We have attracted 40 our first week and 43 people last week at our Friday practices!!
Many of our newcomers have never played at this high level of competition, but everyone is seeing a goal and passion for the game. We've created a unique niche, a home for all sorts of personalities who play the greatest sport, and also love to hang out. Thanks to everyone who is joining our home, all are welcome! Just be ready to play hard and give everything you've got. Don't forget our first real tournament is October 14th-15th at UCI!
Welcome new visitors!! Please take advantage of our club's website and its officers, any questions you have may be forwarded to our contact link at the bottom of the home page, or to csulbultimate@gmail.com. Check out the practices page and if you want to view pictures from last year, and already some from this year check out our gallery in the media section under pictures.
Hello to everyone new and old. If you came to the Ultimate Frisbee Clinic on Sunday you know how amazing it was! I personally was pleased with everyone's enthusiasm, and I believe we had between 30-40 people at all different levels come out.
The dorm BBQ was a success as well! We had good interest shown in our club with about 10 new faces signing up to hear more about the club. We played Goaltimate in between greeting new students. This year is going to be sweet! Get involved, play ultimate!
This Thursday night we have pickup from 6:00-8:00ishpm. We will be at the Rugby Field.
This Friday we will be at the USU Pool (in the student union next to round table pizza and the bowling alleys) from 2pm-we get kicked out and/or 5pm. It's a special kickoff practice, come out and join.
-Dan
Welcome to the new page! I know there are broken links and things not completed yet. Be patient as the website continues to be built. But the design is mostly final as well as the layout. Enjoy!
One important thing to note of course is the start of school on August 28th. We will have our first official practice that Friday September 1st at 2pm AT THE STUDENT UNION POOL. But the Sunday before classes big things are going on:
1, Sunday, August 27th @10am (ish) is the Ultimate beginner's clinic. If you are interested in going email csulbultimate@gmail.com