April 25, 2024 | SPORTS | By Nalani Wood
Disclaimer: The writer of this piece is a player on Zenith, Colorado College’s gender-inclusive Utlimate team, which often plays with Wasabi.
Last Saturday, students flocked to Tava Quad to enjoy the 74-degree weather. What many of those sunbathers probably didn’t know was that just a few hundred feet away, Wasabi — Colorado College’s men’s ultimate frisbee team — was competing in their sectionals tournament against the Air Force Academy and the Colorado School of Mines on Washburn Field.
For readers unfamiliar with ultimate frisbee, play begins with the “pull.” The pull is essentially a frisbee serve where one player on the team hucks the disc as far as they can downfield. Players score by catching the disc in the endzone at the opposite end of the field, which is the length of a football field but slightly narrower.
Unlike in football, players can’t run with the disc, so handlers (the quarterbacks of Ultimate) look downfield to the cutters who run to try to lose their defenders and catch throws. Like football, when the disc is intercepted, the other team gets possession of the disc in what’s called a “turn.” While ultimate frisbee has some similarities to other sports, it’s still quite distinct.
Ultimate is self-officiated, so players on the field make foul calls and discuss them with the other team. Sportsmanship and communication, both within a team and with opponents, is a big part of ultimate.
Wasabi’s first game against Air Force was a warm-up for the team. They started hot, winning five of the first six points scored.
Wasabi defensive handlers Matan Fields and Elliot Kirkham made some quick passes back and forth, putting Fields in a good position to throw the disc in an outside-in (OI) arc to Nico Martinez in the endzone to score their fifth point. Wasabi was up 8-3 at halftime.
Late into the second half of the game, Wasabi’s offensive line displayed their team chemistry in a play that saw the disc go to six of the seven players on the field.
“I wish there were more people here!” said Wasabi fan Elise Kavalchek.
Wasabi won 15-8, starting the day with a victory. Even after the victory, they kept their eyes on the prize, spending their 15-minute break between games running some endzone practice while Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” blasted from the speakers (for the third time that day).
“We might be the underdog going into the next game,” Cole Wennrich, a D-line player for Wasabi, said about their matchup with the School of Mines.
In a conversation with Wasabi coaches Jimmy Donnellon and Ben Jelineck, Donnellon explained that “[Mines] didn’t graduate anybody, and they made nationals last year, so they were able to kinda carry that over a little bit.”
Wasabi graduated six starting players last year, including Oliver Kraft and Lincoln Grench, who were both recognized as top players across Division III. An article on Ultiworld called Kraft “an absolute monster” and identified Grench as “the driving force” of Wasabi’s offense at nationals last year.
“We had a great class last year and a great class this year. I think we have like thirty combined freshmen and sophomores, so we’re super excited about that,” Jelinek said.
The Wasabi-Mines faceoff started with a disc flip. To decide who pulls first, team captains flip a disc to determine which team gets to decide if they want to start on offense or defense. Mines won the disc flip and chose to start on offense.
Mines scored first, but Wasabi played a tight game, bringing the score to a tie eight times. By the end of the game, both Mines and Wasabi had scored three break points. A breakpoint is when the defensive team manages to score against the team on offense, breaking their offensive momentum and potentially gaining control of the game.
“Breaks are the currency of ultimate” explained Miles Katzen, a sophomore on Wasabi’s O-line. The final score was 15 Mines-14 Wasabi.
“Honestly, they started on offense, and that’s just mathematically how it goes sometimes,” said Donnellon after the game.
Following their games, Wasabi players Tobin Spiller, Elliot Kirkham, Walker Thompson, Anders Pohlman and Harry Hobin marched up the hill from Washburn for some well-deserved Rastall’s dinner. Even after hours of frisbee in the April heat, Spiller energetically described how he was feeling after their match with Mines.
“We learned a lot. It was amazing to feel super unified and cohesive as a team. It was a really great competition and we’ll likely be seeing them again in a game to go to nationals.”
Wasabi’s win against the Air Force Academy secured their bid to regionals, which will be held at El Pomar Youth Sports Park in Colorado Springs. They will play several teams in a two-day tournament, but their biggest competition is Oklahoma Christian University and Mines. Two bids are offered in the South Central region, so the weekend of April 27-28 will be critical for Wasabi.
Fans will support Wasabi Ultimate as they battle for a spot at nationals at El Pomar beginning on April 27.