This past week, the men and women of Dartmouth ultimate traveled through the southeast for their annual spring break trip. The teams saw a mix of successes and shortfalls but had a blast throughout.
The women's A-team started the 10-day stretch with a trip to Austin, Tex., for Centex, a prestigious gathering of the nation's top teams. The squad spent the first day thawing out and tweaking throws that suffered from winter's indoor practices. Improving steadily through the day, the team suffered losses to Texas, Colorado, Oregon and Iowa -- all top teams in the tournament
On the second day, however, Dartmouth's fortunes took a turn for the better. Going 2-1, Big Green ultimate knocked off both Wisconsin and last year's Nationals finalists, Carleton Syzygy in a pair of very strong showings.
While the women's squad melted in the Texas heat, the men's team -- including 20 A-teamers and another 25 B-teamers -- traveled with the women's B-team to West Palm Beach, Fla., for the Battle of the Beach.
In this tournament, five co-ed Dartmouth squads played against teams from all over the East coast in laid-back games on the beach. The tournament was seen as a reward for the hard work that our players put in during the winter, and it completely served this purpose.
Special mention goes to Dave McCune '05, who had the play of the tournament in the semifinal game. As he jumped out of bounds, McCune threw the disc without looking to a running Tommy Dickie '05, a play that received roars of amazement from the onlookers.
On Sunday night and Monday morning, all 70 members of Dartmouth ultimate converged on Tybee Island, Ga., where they would compete in the High Tide tournament. The men's A- and B-teams and the women's B-team each played every day, while the women's top squad took the week to condition and practice. Unfortunately, much of the tournament was rained out, and serious play was limited to Wednesday and Thursday.
The men's A-team, known better as the Pain Train, made the most of its playing time, going 6-0 for the week, including victories over tough opponents like UVM and Arkansas.
The men's B-team, or the Discomfort Trolley, took it to the competition as well, playing tight games against SUNY-Albany's A-team and Lawrence University.
After receiving the bad news that Friday's championship games were rained out, the team packed its bags and drove to North Carolina. The A-teams competed in Ultimax, a high-level tournament at East Carolina University, while the B-team played in Biohazard, a co-ed fun tournament in Greensboro.
The weekend was again characterized by tough weather, but the teams didn't let that get in the way of playing hard and having fun.
The women's A-team won the tournament, defeating Brown in a tight game and showing that they will repeat as a strong team in the New England region. The women especially benefited from great offensive play by co-captain Lorraine Ferron '05 and solid cutting by last year's all-region superstar Lakshmi Narayan '06.
Meanwhile, the men's A-team played a solid tournament, finishing at 3-3. The Pain Train started with a nail-biter against rival Harvard, losing 15-13 after coming back from a 0-4 deficit. The team recovered, however, with a victory against Clemson, followed by a 15-10 defeat at the hands of Florida, the tournament's No. 1 seed. To finish the day, the Pain Train played a tight game against UVM before blowing it open in the second half and winning 15-10.
The next day, the A-squad came out firing and upset favored Maryland 15-9 before losing to eventual champion Brown 15-10. Highlighting the Pain Train's performance was the shutdown defense of Dan Yi '06 and co-captain Adam Sigelman '05. Craig "Crank" Rubens, despite his torn ACL, provided great support to the team via his telephone in Pleasantville, N.Y.
Meanwhile, the competition at Biohazard challenged the Dartmouth co-ed B-team to pull together despite its relative inexperience. After experimenting with various strategies, the team was able to rival or defeat many of the co-ed A-teams present.
The first debut of the Dartmouth co-ed B-team demonstrated increased team-wide offensive fluency and sharper field sense. Both on and off the field, Dartmouth's teams demonstrated great spirit by singing the Alma Mater for an entire play, lending players to lacking teams and rivaling the play of other colleges' best players.
The tournament capped off a great spring break for a lot of the newcomers to the ultimate team. When asked what he thought about his first ultimate spring break, freshman Watson Sallay said, "Great people, great ultimate, great food. And I got to ride down with John Agan! What more could I ask for?"
