Last Saturday, Trinity Ultimate Frisbee Club (DUUFC) women travelled down to the Mardyke Arena at University College Cork with two teams to play the first tournament of the college year, Women’s Indoor Inter-varsities. Twelve teams from all over the country played five 20 minute long games each in the one-day competition.
Trinity’s second team was mainly made up of beginners and so the focus was on development and finding out their strengths throughout the tournament. They had a shaky and late start to the day after some bus trouble resulting in a penalty and a loss in their first game against UL 1 (0-13). Their next game against UCC 2 was much closer, as they shook off the nerves, increased their intensity and played better offensive tactics, still losing however (4-6).
By the third game, after learning from errors and gelling as a team, Trinity 2 gave rise to one of the most exciting displays of beginners Ultimate many on the sidelines had seen before against UCC 3. Trinity supporters and coaches looked on in disbelief at their aggressive defence and hammer after hammer into the end zone.
This led the ladies to their first victory of the day (13-3). On the back of this game Trinity 2 fired ahead to beat UL 2 (13-0) and UCD 2 (9-6) winning them the plate- the first of the second bracket of teams. This moved them up a seed to 9th and not only that but they took home the Spirit Award. As the sport of Ultimate is self-officiated spirit marks are given to teams by their opposition after every game. The team with the highest average takes home the Spirit Award representing a good understanding of rules and fair play.
Trinity’s first team, conversely made up of very experienced players, came with intensity and had gold in their sights. They had a ferocious start winning against UCC3 (13-0) followed by DCU1 (7-5.) The following UCD1 game was nail biting to the end as UCD won 5 consecutive points after the buzzer while Trinity tried to gain one more point to end the match.
Trinity kept their mentality and powered through winning (10-8) but were shaken enough to make sure they re-grouped before the semi-final. The semi-final was against UL 1 was close with many foul calls. Trinity had more success in converting their turns giving a final score of (9-5.)
Trinity 1 met UCC1 in a battling final. UCC upped the pressure with their tactics of a tight wall defence at the end zone line. Nevertheless, Trinity persevered and made good decisions without panic. The final score of the grueling game was 11-9 to Trinity 1.
This is the first time UCC Women have lost an IV final in 5 years (that’s 10 in a row with outdoor season). The last time Trinity had won was in 2012 when their six-year indoors winning streak came to an end. Trinity’s clean sweep of cup, plate and Spirit Award is the result of years of hard work and effort put into the women’s team.
This tournament was full of fierce and aggressive play in high scoring games from all teams. It went to show the depth of the college scene with so many close games at all stages of the Saturday. Irish Flying Disc Association (IFDA) President and Trinity Ultimate coach Jen Kwan announced that the tournament was a great day for women in Ultimate and it was “the best IVs I’ve been to over the past few years.”
This huge win sets Trinity Ultimate up nicely for Mixed Indoors IVs this weekend. Three teams will be journeying to NUIG for the two-day long tournament.
