If you have never watched an Ultimate Frisbee game, you might not realize how competitive this club sport can be. The design of the game is in some ways similar to football, but "ultimate" (as it is frequently referred to) is a more quickly paced game. There are end zones that the team must catch the Frisbee in to score, but there is no time between plays. Essentially, the field has a football layout, but the style of play is more like the other football -- soccer, that is.
"There's no contact at all," sophomore club president Robert Runner said. "Football is kind of like a stop and start game, where you have time between plays. [Ultimate] Frisbee is constant running back and forth. Our offensive team is the defensive team, and everybody has to be able to play both."
The game, however, is not just a free-for-all of people running around on a field, like the "swarmball" played in many six-year-old soccer games. Much of the game is centered around team plays, organizations and knowing where one's teammates are on the field.
"On offense, we normally run what is called a horizontal stack," Runner said. "You have three handlers who are throwers who don't turn it over -- they don't drop it that much. Then you have four cutters, who are lined up in a line straight across the field. They run through cycles of cutting in and cutting out, trying to get open on offense. On defense, we usually play zone or man. If it is a really windy day, we'll play a lot more zone."
The club Ultimate Frisbee season continues year-round. A grueling spring schedule takes the team up and down the East Coast, including a tournament in Georgia. One factor that held the team back this year during its tournament runs was the injuries that plagued the Cavaliers and prevented them from playing up to their potential.
"One of the big downfalls for the season was that key players got injured," sophomore Tyler Healy said. "We lost two of our captains, which is kind of rough, considering we have three. One of our captains broke his thumb, and we also lost one of our key players to studying abroad this year. In a big tournament in Georgia, right after Spring Break, we faltered ... and that's when we realized the season was going to be rough, due to injuries."
Virginia hosted a small pre-sectional tournament comprised of all Virginia schools: Virginia Tech, Richmond and VMI. Again, injuries hurt the Cavaliers.
"We beat Virginia Tech pretty badly, and we lost to Richmond in a pretty close game," Healy said. "Right after this tournament, one of our guys got a herniated disc in his back. It really hurt the team to lose a really experienced player. With that kind of loss, it started to get kind of difficult to keep a cohesive group, especially on the offensive line."
In spite of these difficult times, Virginia still pulled off a few exciting wins.
"In the fall, we travel to less tournaments, and the most important one is called Wolfpack -- it's at N.C. State," Healy said. "We performed pretty well at that tournament. Our big win was against Florida, who is defending the national title this season, and it was pretty exciting to beat them."
The team recently held elections for next season; Runner will be one of two captains, along with junior Kevin Aha, and Healy will be club president. As they prepare for the 2007-2008 school year, one must wonder, "How do you recruit for a team like this, in a relatively unknown sport?"
"The way that we recruit here is that we have the fall activities fair when we try to get our name out," Runner said. "A lot of times, we'll take people who got cut from club soccer, or cross country athletes, or anything like that. We try to recruit them because of the nature of the sport. It's a lot of running, so we try to get athletes basically."
Attention aspiring club athletes: Ultimate Frisbee is on the lookout.
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