For “Fugue,” the women’s club ultimate Frisbee team, it was never the ranking that mattered. Though Fugue spent almost the entire season ranked among the top three teams in the nation, its third-place finish at the College Championship tournament proved to be the ultimate prize.
“This year our team has learned that it doesn’t matter what you’re ranked, because that’s how you played yesterday,” said junior co-captain Julia Sherwood. “What matters is how you play today. We went into the tournament with that mentality and expected nothing of ourselves but to play how we know how to play and give all we had.”
The tournament, in Columbus, Ohio from May 22 to 25, began with pool play. Oregon found itself as the second seed in Pool C, and was joined by Wisconsin, Colorado, USC and Dartmouth. Fugue kicked off the tournament just the way it wanted to against USC on May 22 with a solid 15-8 win. Less than three hours later, Oregon faced off with the University of Wisconsin. Though co-captain Clare Gordon managed to score the first point of the game off a put from Bailey Zahniser, Fugue eventually fell to Wisconsin 15-10.
The team bounced back on May 23 with another 15-8 win, this time over Dartmouth. Later in the day, Fugue closed pool play with a dominating 15-6 win over Colorado.
“Coming out of (the Wisconsin game) Assistant Coach Ryann Crowley and I adjusted our line calling a bit,” said head coach Lou Burruss. “The team made a mental adjustment; a commitment to be tougher. No one said anything, you could just feel the difference in the team on Saturday morning.”
The win against Colorado set up a pre-quarterfinal matchup against Michigan on May 23. Though Michigan enjoyed relative success in pool play, it proved to be little trouble for Fugue and lost 15-7. The win set up a key quarterfinal matchup on May 24 with Ottawa, a team Oregon had defeated 11-2 in the preseason. Fugue proved ready for the rematch, and took an early 8-4 lead going into halftime.
“They were overconfident and we were incredibly prepared and focused,” said Burruss. “They made mistakes and we scored.”
The second half was a different story, as both teams hit their offensive stride and found themselves locked in a close battle.
“(It was) kind of like two gunfighters staring each other down, waiting to see who (would) blink,” said Burruss.
Ottawa refused to quit, scoring three straight goals and cutting Fugue’s lead to 12-9 while playing tough defense. As the momentum began to shift in Ottawa’s favor, the Fugue offense finally woke up, and Oregon was at last able to close out the win after Claire Sharman scored the winning point off of a Sherwood put.
“That was possibly the most excited our team has been as a whole,” said senior co-captain Molly Suver. “The whole team was really fired up.”
Fugue’s huge win over Ottawa secured a spot in the semifinals against the University of California-Santa Barbara. Though the team fought hard, it could not find a way to stop Santa Barbara’s offense and eventually fell 15-11, securing a tie for third place in the tournament. Santa Barbara would win the national championship in the final round against Washington, 15-11.
“I hate losing and I really hate losing a game we could have won,” said Burruss. “UCSB was a great team and the team to beat at the tourney, but we could have beat them. I’ve been watching game film all weekend and my mistakes as a coach are glaringly obvious to me.”
“If you’re going to lose, you may as well lose to the best,” said Suver. “We still wish we had won.”
Though the loss was tough to stomach, Sherwood had nothing but positive thoughts about the team’s showing.
“Our team uniformly stepped up to the final challenge of the season and played beautiful Ultimate,” said Sherwood. “We did what every team hopes to do: We peaked at nationals. As disappointing as it was to lose, reaching the semifinals was an incredible accomplishment and we hope to build on that next year.”
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Fugues finish third at College Championships
Daily Emerald
June 2, 2009
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