Sports

Earthworms, Warmothers breeze through Sectionals

In print | April 21, 2005

“I bet you 100 dollars that we go undefeated this weekend,” James Crall ’07 said last Friday.

It’s good to be right.

The men’s and women’s Frisbee teams competed at the East Penn Sectional tournament last weekend and turned the event into a mere formality; both qualified to move on to play in the Metro East Regional tournament in Princeton, NJ on May 7.

Crall’s comment before the tournament may appear cocky at first, but, as the old adage goes, it’s not gloating if it’s true. The Earthworms rolled over the 13-team field, going 7-0 and allowing only 4.3 points per game in a sport where 15-13 victories are the norm. “It’s all about ego at this point,” captain Jon Greenberg ‘06 said. "We’re winning and it’s fun, so why not?"

The Worms entered as the top seed in the tournament and bulldozed through Franklin & Marshall B, Lafayette, Haverford B and host team Lehigh in group play on Saturday, posting two shutouts and allowing a total of seven points in the four games. “The younger guys got to play a lot more and they just pounded on some of the other teams,” Greenberg said. “It gives me hope for the future.”

The men slept well on Saturday night, remembering that Penn, the only team left on the schedule that could play a decent game in the face of the grave-digging Earthworm Ultimate machine, had already lost to Swat twice this season. “We hate Penn so much I can’t even tell you,” Greenberg said. “Years of anger get released when we play them — if we’re winning 12-4, we’re not going to put in subs and take it easy, we want to pound them and finish it 15-4.”

Sunday went off like the “Happy Gilmore” script, as the Worms took out the big stick and wailed upon Villanova and Drexel 15-8 and 15-7 before facing, you guessed it, Penn in the tournament finals.

The weekend could have been extremely profitable for Crall — except no one dared bet against him. As expected, Swarthmore ended the tournament by defeating Penn for the third time this season by a wide margin, 15-8. “Our ‘steel curtain’ defense really made the difference,” Greenberg said.

The Warmothers also met with success, qualifying for Regionals despite enduring a six-hour van ride to Edinboro, PA (town motto: “You’ve never been here!”). Playground beatings of Messiah College and Bucknell signaled the start of Saturday’s group play and the arrival of an extremely talented Swat team. The Messiah game proved to be an unusually positive experience. “It was their first game and they were really happy to play Ultimate,” Sasha Laundy ’06 said. “It was really refreshing to see that.”

“At the end of the fall season, we had high hopes for the spring because of all the talent that we were putting together,” Molly Robbins ’08 said. “This weekend we saw what we had been hoping for and expecting — our throws were right on, our cuts were really precise.” A gutsy, come-from-behind performance against Carnegie Mellon/Pitt produced a 6-4 Swat victory before the Warmothers rolled over Edinboro and Haverford. “We just stomped on them,” Laundy said.

Injuries at this point in the season can be costly. Casey Reed ‘05 broke her left hand laying out on Saturday and continued to play in the intense mid-mid position all weekend. "We’re a very accident-prone team," Laundy said. “We were lucky to get away this weekend with only one injury.” Rather than risk another injury, the squad forfeited the subsequent second-place game against CMU/Pitt and got an early start on the long drive home.

With seven teams, the round-robin style of the tournament was unusual. A 4-9 loss to Penn placed Swat in the middle bracket against Bucknell, where a second defeat of the Bison secured the Warmothers’ place in Regionals.

The Warmothers seem to be hitting their stride at the perfect point in the season. “Everyone played the best Frisbee I’ve seen them play,” Robbins said. In qualifying for Regionals, the squad has already surpassed last season’s accomplishments.

After such a non-strenuous weekend, preparing for Regionals should be straightforward. The Worms have scheduled scrimmages with local club teams to refine their execution. The Warmothers have intensified their fitness regimen at practice, completing more running drills than they have all season.

Expectations for Regionals are once again extremely high, but this time the competition should prove a bit less fragile, and Swat’s teams will be in the unusual position of not being among those favored to come away with the title. The teams would need to place at the top of a list of very talented squads to go on to the National Championships in Oregon, which has been the acknowledged goal of the Earthworms since the first tournament of the season.

How do teams like this handle such a high level of success? “It’s almost like we’ve gotten into this habit of winning, so in close games we know that we have to win because of our reputation,” Greenberg said.

Oh yeah, partying helps too.

“Partying is a part of Ultimate,” Greenberg explained. “You play as hard as you can on Saturday, party as hard as you can on Saturday night, and Sunday becomes an endurance match as you fight off your hangover. Dragging the boys out of bed [to go to Layout Pigout] after Sager was horrible.”

Sectionals, Regionals, and Nationals are Ultimate Player Association-sanctioned tournaments. “There’s no partying at them,” Laundy said.

Regardless, if last weekend’s performance is any indicator of what’s to come, there will be plenty to party about.