University Women's Outdoor Nationals 2019
Day 1:
Newcastle: 0-15 L
Despite the early morning and short warm up, we kept our heads up and kept pushing ourselves during the entirety of the game. This showed in our ability to use helpful comments from our wonderful coaches during the time outs and half time. To this end, we managed to understand, realize, and remedy when we were clogging the lanes as cutters and our handler movement improved drastically. In addition, we had several great attempts at breaking several types of zone thrown at us by Newcastle. Therefore, we were able to practice our chiselling through the middle and swinging to the handlers. Overall, we could not keep up with Newcastle’s speed, deep shots, and up the line movements, but this game showed us what fundamentals to go back to and focus on and was a great start to the tournament weekend!
Swansea: 3-10 L
Swansea put a heavy zone defence on us, but using what we learned in the Newcastle game, we practiced and looked great breaking their zone! We were able to successfully connect our handler movements with cuts down the line using spaces that we opened in their cup. Not only did we manage this, but we also practiced putting our own zone on them. We managed to spread them and prevent their deep looks from completing. Additionally, we earned our first few points of the weekend, featuring an incredible trash pick-up by Sophie in the end zone. The first point was actually due to our incredible patience and eventual breaking through of their zone. Swansea’s offense mostly focused on vertical stack and always looking to the main handler for downfield looks.
Strathclyde: 2-13 L
The attitude we put forward in this game was excellent as often teams get psyched out when facing the number one seeded team, but we approached this game like every other and never stopped pushing ourselves. We played a hard person defence while on offense we worked against their zone to get downfield looks when downwind. On the upwind, we relied on patience and slowly working up the disc. We had quite a few chances with many D’s happening in front of the end zone, but we never gave up and managed to earn some points. Throughout the game, we worked on keeping our energy up and having earlier downfield cuts and longer swings between handlers.
Day 2:
Loughborough: 3-11 L
With a much more energetic start to the day, we gave Loughborough a fight for every point. We attempted to shut down their handler movements and reliance on deep shots from talented handlers. We put on tight person defence and had some amazing D’s due to being tight on our marks. With only one foul called during the game, the spirit was good throughout.
Warwick: 10-2 W
With legs starting to ache and energy starting to dip a bit, we picked our heads back up and prepared to take on Warwick. Immediately, we started to connect on offense, everyone trying deep and short cuts and connecting with handlers. Most importantly, we did not let our energy or our determination drop when we started to pull ahead. We stayed confident and spirited, and we challenged Warwick at every opportunity, including playing a strong zone defence. Overall, the win we came out with was well-deserved and every single player on our team contributed.
Durham: 4-13 L
Whenever we play Durham, the game is always challenging and fun, and this game was no exception. Although not reflected by the final score, we put up a fight for every point. In the end, Durham’s speed and flow ended up being too much for our person defence to contain. With the wind picking up and causing issues, patience and determination were on our side, and we did a wonderful job of trying to incorporate more set plays in an attempt to put ourselves in more favourable scoring positions. Overall, we had an incredible tournament with a team of many people just starting to play frisbee, and it was wonderful to see how much the team came together and supported each other on and off the field throughout the weekend.
Final standing: 14th (yay we broke seed!!!)
MIP: Alice Bennett
MSP: Emily Beatty
MVP: Anna Wong
