The University men’s ultimate Frisbee club wrapped up its season at the 2006 Ultimate Players Association College Ultimate Championships May 26-28 in Columbus, Ohio.
The Ducks were eliminated from the competition in the quarterfinals by regional rivals Stanford.
Oregon began the 16-team tournament as the No. 1 seed in Pool D and matched up against UC San Diego, defending national champion Brown and Georgia. The Ducks started their campaign early on Friday against San Diego. Echoing its success at the Northwest regional tournament the previous month in Vancouver, Wash., Oregon put up the first three points of the match and never looked back. The Ducks used defense to spark their offense, converting several interceptions into a 9-5 lead. San Diego mounted a comeback late in the game, but Oregon held on for a 15-13 victory.
“We pulled it together at the end,” Oregon co-captain David Berney-Needleman said.
The second match of the day, against Brown, contained more of the same, with the Ducks taking an early lead and marching methodically to dispatch the defending champions 15-11.
Oregon’s final match on the first day came against Georgia. The Ducks and the Bulldogs had split their two previous meetings this season.
“If any team was gunning for us, it was them,” Berney-Needleman said.
The Ducks looked to have the game in hand with a 10-7 lead, but Georgia came back to tie the match at 10-10. The brief spurt proved to be all Georgia could muster; Oregon scored the final five points in the match for a 15-10 result.
“They were all good teams. At nationals there are no easy games,” Berney-Needleman said. “We played hard and well all day long. We were never not confident we were going to win a game.”
Because they went undefeated in pool play, the Ducks received a bye to the quarterfinals. The luck of the draw pitted Oregon against Stanford, which had previously defeated Michigan in a play-in game to advance to the last eight. The Ducks defeated the Cardinal 15-10 in the Northwest Regional tournament, but Stanford also registered a win against Oregon at an earlier tournament in Palo Alto, Calif.
The quarterfinal began evenly. The first break wasn’t recorded until the 12th point, which gave Stanford a 7-5 lead. The Cardinal slowly widened the advantage to 11-8 and 13-9 in the second half before closing the game out at 15-11.
“Stanford played the best I’ve seen them play,” Berney-Needleman said. “They came out with all the 50-50 discs, and we made too many mistakes and a few execution errors.”
Stanford was defeated by eventual champion Florida in the semifinals, but the Ducks weren’t done. After the loss to Stanford, Oregon participated in a wild card game against San Diego. At stake was a second bid to next year’s nationals for the Northwest region. The rematch unfolded much like their first encounter on Friday, with the Ducks coasting to a 15-11 victory.
Oregon will lose five players from this year’s squad, including one of its co-captains, Aaron Bell.
“In a lot of ways, he’s the heart of our team,” Berney-Needleman said.
Despite having some big shoes to fill, majority of the Ducks will return next season, 19, opposed to only 10 veterans this year.
“We are in a great position,” Berney-Needleman said. “Now we have the experience of being regional champions and going to nationals. We’re pretty excited about next year.”