You might not know it, but the best collegiate women’s ultimate team in the nation resides right here on campus.
Fugue, the University’s women’s ultimate team, is currently ranked No. 1 in the nation by the Ultimate Players Association (the sport’s primary governing body), and with good reason.
Competing against a stacked field that featured 20 of the premier women’s ultimate teams in the nation in the season-opening Presidents’ Day tournament two weekends ago, Fugue was nothing short of dominant.
After mowing down UCLA, Claremont, Wisconsin, Stanford, UC Santa Cruz and Carleton College in pool play, Fugue defeated USC 13-9 in the tournament quarterfinals to set up a contentious semifinal match against Washington.
“We’ve always had a strong rivalry with the University of Washington,” co-captain Julia Sherwood said. “We know that they operate through two great players and we worked hard to shut them down.”
Fortunately for Fugue, that strategy worked. The two teams traded goals until Washington player Shannon O’Malley scored to put Element up 10-9. But with the clock running down and fatigue setting in, Fugue began to take over, scoring the next three goals of the game to coast to a 13-11 victory.
That win set the stage for a highly-anticipated final match. Fugue, which finished third in last year’s nationals event, took on perennial nemesis UC Santa Barbara — the team responsible for ending Fugue’s nationals run last year.
Fugue jumped out to an early 4-1 lead, but UCSB was able to regain its composure to cut the Fugue lead to 5-4. The teams traded goals throughout much of the second half, before a late three-goal spurt put the Fugue ahead for good and keyed a 12-10 victory.
“The key for us in each game was depth,” Fugue head coach Lou Burruss said. “When we went to our starters late in the game, they were rested, while the other team’s main players were exhausted. (They were) still able to make plays, but not consistently.”
In addition to providing a measure of revenge for last year, the Fugue’s victory over UCSB served as a confidence boost for the talented women of Eugene.
“It was a big accomplishment for us,” co-captain Tina Snodgrass said. “It kind of showed us the hard work we’re putting in is paying off, and we feel we can do a lot this year.”
With that said, Snodgrass is aware of the tendency to look forward to nationals without paying enough attention to the tournaments that will come first.
“We have been looking onto nationals, but we’re trying to bring it back and focus on the next tournament, or even just the next week of practices,” Snodgrass said. “We have a lot of ground to cover before we get to even regionals, and we have to be one of the top teams at regionals to even get to nationals.”
To make the next few events even more challenging, Fugue will have a big target on its back that comes with being ranked No. 1 in the country.
“A lot of other teams will be coming after us in these next couple of tournaments,” Snodgrass said.
Fugue will get its first chance to fend off its challengers in the Stanford Invitational on March 6 in Palo Alto. The team hopes to use the next few weeks of practice leading up to that event to further improve their conditioning. “We already have a much faster-paced game than most women’s ultimate teams and we want to continue to make other teams uncomfortable with our tempo and fast break,” Snodgrass said. “Even though we beat Santa Barbara, we were tired and we have a long way to go until our bodies are ready for the bigger tournaments.”
And with a burning desire to avoid another disappointing finish to its season, the Fugue is willing to do what it takes to best prepare for nationals.
“We don’t want to settle for third place,” Snodgrass said. “We have fire in our eyes now.”
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