Ultimate Frisbee has been growing, and the Fighting Hellfish, Eastern Michigan University’s Ultimate team has taken the sport by storm.
Through the fall and winter semesters, the Hellfish compete in several tournaments and regionals. At the end of the 2011-12 regular season, the Hellfish compiled a 8-2 record.
This weekend the Hellfish will travel to Kalamazoo, Mich., to compete in the conference championships, hoping to make it to the regionals.
Pinpoint precision, intense cardio and soccer-style offense matched with basketball-style defense, creates this sport that is simply called “Ultimate.”
“Offense has to make their play and defense is always on,” team captain Evan Priest said.
Priest continued to explain the rules, “It’s like football to an extent, we have end zones and kickoffs, but if the offense drops the Frisbee once then it’s defense’s turn.”
The game of Ultimate lasts about an hour and usually goes up to 13-15 points during championship games.
“We try to work on their cardio along with their awareness so we know where our players and the disk is at all times,” Coach David Wozniak said.
Players on the team acknowledged the keys to playing the sport of Ultimate Frisbee.
“We have to run a lot, there are extremely fast players out there and you have to know how to communicate,” junior Alex ‘Scuttle’ Theiss said.
Priest commented on the difficulty of the sport.
“You have to know what to do without thinking about it,” Priest said. “If you don’t then you will usually be ran over or make a crucial mistake.”
Coach Wozniak, an accounting professor at EMU, holds two practices, typically on Mondays and Wednesdays, preparing for windy conditions. He also has a playbook consisting of 40-plus plays. Preparation for the games usually takes place on Fridays.
“Practices are more than intense at the moment because we know it’s crunch time,” junior Daniel Boynton said. “We give each other a lot of crap because we know we have to win.”
“We usually play 7-9 games and depending how well you do, you either go to the championships bracket or the chumpionship bracket,” Priest said of the upcoming tournament.
Hoping to stay away from the “chumpionships” bracket, the Hellfish have practiced on an intense level.
The team will look to pick back up where it left off in its previous tournament, where the team was 7-2 during the Chicago Invites.
The team acknowledged how badly it wants to bring a championship back to EMU.
“I try to keep people playing hard because that’s what we need most out of our players,” Boynton said. “We know we have to buckle down more having the championships come up, and practice is the first place to start.”
The Fighting Hellfish have a 10-4 record within its previous two tournaments.
Priest had little words to say to anyone interested in joining the team.
“There is no tryout process really, but if you’re interested in joining the team, just come to our practice,” he said. “Monday we’re at Frog Lake Park and Wednesday we’re at the Bubble.”
