Last Friday afternoon the Saint Louis University Ultimate Frisbee Team packed up their gear and headed down to Baton Rouge, La. for the 15th Annual Mardi Gras Tournament. It is one of the premiere Ultimate Frisbee tournaments in the country. This year more than 90 teams participated in the games.
SLU knew that it had their work cut out for them because of the caliber of teams that would participate. It also knew that it would have to come ready to play because it had posted a 1-3 record last year at the same tournament. However, SLU was confident that it could compete because of its recent success in its previous tournament.
Saturday morning did not start out easily, as SLU was matched up against the University of Alabama in its first game. SLU was down early in this game, as they were struggling to handle the stiff Louisiana wind and zone defense by Alabama. It was able to fight its way back into the game behind the steady play of handlers Paul Grant, Tim Schmitt and Dave Hoban. Because of time limitations the game ended at 11 instead of 13. After an Alabama turnover, SLU was able to march up the field against a tough Alabama zone and put the game away when Josh Cisler pulled in the winning score after it was deflected off his defender.
The next game was against Iowa State, a team that SLU has formed an intense rivalry with over the course of the year. The Billikens had lost two earlier matchups this year and were out for revenge. The two teams were evenly matched, but once again SLU found them down by as many as four points in this game.
Once again the game would need to be time capped and finishing with the first team to score 11 points, thus putting SLU down 7-10. This meant SLU needed to score 4 unanswered points to win. ISU only needed one. SLU was ready for the challenge.
Defense would be the only way SLU would get themselves back into this game. Relentless defense by Paul Grant and Tim Schmitt provided SLU with two scoring opportunities to take the game to 10-10 and play for the game winning point. SLU’s ridiculous defense couldn’t dig deep enough for one more stand as ISU scored the final point on a dump swing to end an exciting game 11-10.
Teammate Phil Thornberry said this about the loss, “We could have won.” SLU’s final game on Saturday proved to be no competition as SLU won easily against Catholic behind an impressive performance by SLU’s B team headed up by rookie sensation Doug Edmonds.
The 2-1 performance on Saturday put SLU in the “C” bracket of Sunday’s tournament format. SLU was pitted against an Indiana-B team that was looking for their first win during the tournament. SLU pulled out to an early lead, but then had a few difficulties as Indiana took the lead by capitalizing on SLU errors. SLU then changed to a zone defense and was able to put the game away as they recovered from a few passes that they dropped down the stretch. Final score 11-9.
Again SLU won their next game against Miami of Ohio 13-6 thanks to some great catches by David Maxwell. The victory of Miami allowed SLU into the semifinals.
SLU’s opponent for the game was the University of Auburn and by this time the wind had become pretty stiff.
Despite some impressive defensive layouts by Donnie Bohnenkamp and overall hard play by the team, SLU was not able to handle Auburn’s tenacious zone defense and sick throwing ability. SLU finished the tournament with a 4-2 record, their best record in SLU Ultimate Frisbee history, topping their previous tournament record of 3-2.
