Over 25 men’s and 20 women’s teams descending on UCSD to compete in the largest ultimate disc tournament on the West Coast, the UCSD President’s Day Competition.
Far-flung schools such as the University of British Columbia and Harvard University journeyed to UCSD and threw, dove and played hard for three days.
Teams started play Saturday, and both UCSD teams availed themselves well.
The teams were split into pools and for the first day, the UCSD Squids were in a pool with UC Davis, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the School of Mines from Colorado and Clairemont-McKenna College.
The first three games of the day went by fairly easily for the Squids. UCSD defeated UNC, Mines and Clairemont-McKenna while playing good defense and offense, although at alternating intervals.
The team’s last game, against UC Davis, was arguably UCSD”s biggest win of the tournament. Davis was ranked No. 1 in its pool and was playing excellent frisbee coming into the tournament.
The Squids came out fast in the game and built a huge early lead. The Aggies eventually woke up and made an attempt to pull out a late victory. They came up short and UCSD escaped with a one-point victory.
“”We had a huge lead which dwindled toward the end of the game,”” said Squid co-captain Brian Chen, “”but we still won, taking first in our pool.””
The UCSD women’s team also advanced from day one.
Sunday proved more relaxed. After a couple of games had been played, rain inundated the fields. Many teams left early. There was not enough playing space or time to make up all of the games, so teams that had traveled the furthest were given preference and local teams were sent packing.
Lucas Benhke, a member of the UC Santa Cruz team, commented on the rainout.
“”It is really too bad that the rains had to come down today. The fields were just not able to suck up the water,”” Benhke said. “”It would have been nice to stay around and finish the tournament, but it is understandable what UCSD had to do.””
Much of the credit for getting through the rain delay smoothly goes toward tournament directors Chris Stotts, Jake Chang, Alicia White and Laurel Fiske.
Play resumed on Monday as the championship pool began to play out. While Saturday belonged to the Squids with their huge upset, Monday belonged to the Harvard team.
The UCSD men built a 9-6 lead in their first and only game of the day against Harvard. Critical mental mistakes doomed the Squids and allowed Harvard to come back. Harvard emerged victorious with a 10-9 overtime victory.
The women had no such letdown. They fought their way through the competition, making it all the way to the finals where they met up with a very strong team from the University of Colorado at Boulder. After a hard fight, UCSD just did not have enough left and Colorado capitalized, taking home the tournament trophy.
Colorado also won on the men’s side, defeating Humboldt State and Oregon State on its way to victory.
