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TSUnami prepares for nationals
The womens ultimate frisbee team, TSUnami, will be the only Truman State athletic team that will compete for a national championship during the summer. They will do so at the national tournament, which will take place May 19 in Appleton, Wisconsin. TSUnami finished the regular season with a 17-6 record.
The top 16 teams in the region, receive bids to the national tournament. TSUnami was one of seven teams to receive what is the equivalent of an at-large bid to the national tournament. The other nine teams competing received automatic bids for having the highest ranking in their regions at the end of the year.
TSUnami, which last played two weeks ago at the conference championships in Lawrence, Kan., will not play again until nationals.
“We’re kind of at a disadvantage [with nationals being two weeks after finals] because some schools do go a lot longer than us,” senior captain Sarah Warner said. “Our goal right now is to make workouts for people to do on their own after finals. We’ll try to go up early and get a last minute practice before the tournament.”
Although the practice schedule puts the women of TSUnami at a slight disadvantage, the ultimate players think they have a good chance at winning the tournament.
Senior Betsey York said that the way the team was able to compete successfully with upper tier teams gives them confidence that they can win nationals.
Play spans across two days during the national ultimate frisbee tournament. During day one, teams compete in pool play to determine seeding. For day two, the bracket play begins and a champion is determined through those head-to-head matchups. Pool play often consists of four games played throughout the day. The games go up to an hour and a half, so TSUnami players could end up playing six to eight hours of ultimate urisbee. The matches are back-to-back during the day as well.
“The goal at any tournament is to break seed,” said Warner. “Breaking seed means we placed higher than what we were seeded at conference. For example, at conference we placed third, and we were ranked third, so we were happy with how we played even though technically we didn’t actually break seed.”
To break seed, TSUnami will have to place higher than 10th at the national tournament.
Filed Under: Sports
Good lord this article needs some fact checking. Did the author even interview one of the players on the team?