Four years ago, the Saint Louis University women’s ultimate Frisbee club was more social club than team.
They had no coach to regulate practice or instruct about the intricacies of ultimate frisbee. They had fun, without a doubt-but they were not a team capable of eliciting fear from the opposition.
And they certainly were nowhere near competing at Nationals. In fact, the Ultimate Players Association, which governs the sport of ultimate, had them ranked at No. 111 at the end of the 2005 season.
They’ve coming a long way since.
These days, SLU women’s ultimate Frisbee is achieving what years ago would have seemed like a foolish dream.
This weekend, when the Regional tournament begins, the women’s ultimate Frisbee club will bring with them a No. 21 national ranking and higher expectations than ever before.
Only two teams from the Regional tournament qualify for Nationals and the players think that this year is their best ever shot to achieve that goal.
Seven seniors lead the way for the women’s ultimate Frisbee club: Kara O’Malley; Teresa Ogerinc; Carolyn Beatzal; Maureen Cutrera; Michelle Place; Meghan Welsh; and Tricia Wang. All seven of these seniors have been playing together on the ultimate frisbee team since the beginning of their freshman year.
“Everyone on the team is best friends–we all met through frisbee in the first place,” Ogerinc said.
Most of the players on the team actually had never played ultimate before coming to SLU. O’Malley said that even though they didn’t have Frisbee experience, almost all the players played sports in high school and were looking for competition.
“[Ultimate frisbee] is our unconventional outlet for a sport,” O’Malley said.
This is the first year that the team has been under the tutelage of a full-time coach with ultimate Frisbee experience credentials.
Kevin McGinnis, a former player for the men’s ultimate Frisbee club, took over at the start of the year and has been instrumental in the team’s positive results this year.
“He’s changed our Frisbee lives,” Ogerinc said.
McGinnis and the ultimate frisbee club is often limited in their allotment of practice times and location.
“The first time we ever played on a real field this semester was actually at a tournament-and it showed,” sophomore Kathleen Horton said.
But they have overcome this slight obstacle and are steadily improving as the season progresses, slowly climbing up the national polls.
Perhaps the most surprising performance of the year occured at the Cyntex tournament in Austin, Texas.
“Honestly, I thought we were going to get stomped,” Horton said. “But we actually ended up winning-a lot.”
Though they were seeded at No. 16 entering the tournament, they ended up placing well above their seed at sixth. The highlight of the tournament was a victory of No. 1 Wisconsin and last year’s national champion, British Columbia.
“Players from the other teams were actually coming up to us and congratulating us for how much better we’ve become,” Ogerinc said.
The players are hoping that these results give them momentum coming into Regionals.
“Now we realized that we really can make it all the way to Nationals. Not just to have fun, but so that we can compete against some of the top teams,” O’Malley said.
But even if the team struggles at Regionals, the players on women’s club ultimate would appreciate the opportunity to compete with each other once again.
Nationals will be held after graduation, and it would make for a great reunion.
“I’m not going to be able to play at Regionals, so I’m really hoping we make it to Nationals,” Ogerinc said. “I honestly just want to hang out with my friends again.”
