The women's Ultimate Frisbee team, the "E-Wo," began its run at the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) national tournament two weeks ago when it competed in the Boston Sectional Tournament in South Boston against seven other local area teams, including MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, Wellesley, Brandeis, and Harvard.
The Jumbos finished the tournament with a 6-1 record, earning second place in the section behind MIT (7-0) and a bid to the regional tournament on May 8 and 9 in Newport, Rhode Island. MIT and Tufts will be joined by four other teams, BU, Northeastern, Wellesley, and Harvard, in representing the Boston section in two weeks. The top three teams from the Northeast Region will advance to nationals at the end of the month.
"I think we played really well, it was our first time really playing all together in a long time because we had been missing various people for whatever reason," junior Lauren Fein said. "But we came together real well, and I'm really hopeful for what we can get done at regionals."
The squad started out strong on the first day of play, winning all four games in its pool play against BC, Northeastern, Wellesley, and Brandeis. The E-Wo, who were seeded second in the section, held their seed and qualified for regionals by going undefeated on day one. The other top four seeds, number one MIT (4-0), and seeds three and four BU (3-1) and Northeastern (3-1), also qualified for regionals after play on Saturday.
"We played really well together, we came together as a team and showed what we could do," sophomore handler Julia Hallman said. "Our biggest problem this season has been losing close games, so our goal for the next few weeks is to work out winning close games."
The weather came much more into play on Sunday, as the swirling winds increased turnovers and made the games a lot longer. The two semifinal matchups featured MIT and Northeastern, and Tufts and BU. MIT handily defeated Northeastern in the first game, while BU pulled off a tough upset over the E-Wo, 11-9, in a long, hard-contested game. Fein observed that the difference in playing style between the two teams is what allowed BU to pull away with the win.
In the next round, Tufts was pitted against Northeastern for third place while MIT and BU battled for the top spot in the region. The E-Wo easily defeated Northeastern 13-5, while MIT held off BU 13-8 for the top seed. With the win, MIT expectedly earned the top seed in the section, while Northeastern's two consecutive losses relegated it to fourth.
In the day's final game, Tufts was given a second shot at BU for second and third place heading into regionals. BU's young squad, clearly showing signs of fatigue from the tough game against MIT, was no match for the vengeful E-Wo, as Tufts pulled away with a 13-2 win to take second place.
"[Beating BU in the final game] was great," Fein added. "I'm not really sure what happened to them between the two games, but we came out with a really fierce desire to reseed ourselves. I wish we had beaten them the first time we played, but it was definitely good to see that we could come back and put our heads together and play really strong against a team that had previously beaten us."
Coming off the second place finish at sectionals, the E-Wo team is confident that it will be able to turn some heads at the Northeast Regional Tournament. Of the top three teams that go to regionals, national runner up MIT is almost a shoe-in to qualify as the number one seed, while Brown will likely earn the second of three bids. However as Fein notes, any of five teams could find its way to the third bid to nationals.
"Yale, Tufts, UMass, Williams, and Dartmouth are all similar teams, and even though we've been losing to some of them, they have all been close games," Fein explained. "All of the teams have very similar skill levels, so it's going to be interesting to see who comes out in that third spot at regionals. And obviously, we'd like it to be us."
One of the highlights of the E-Wo this year has been the presence of the B-Wo, Tufts' B-Team. This is the first year that the squad has had a B team, which will undoubtedly improve the E-Wo in future seasons. While the B team did not win any games at sectionals, it faced some of the Boston areas top teams and gained valuable playing time.
"Its amazing that we have a B team, just the fact that everyone can get that much more playing time," Hallman said. "We have a great bond as E-Wo, and each team has its own bond. We probably would have lost a lot of girls if we didn't have two separate teams."
Regionals are set for May 8th and 9th in Rhode Island.
