The Newcastle Pies, Newcastle University Ultimate Frisbee Club, has recently made history as all of their teams have qualified for the Ultimate Frisbee Outdoors National Championship being hosted in Nottingham during the first week of April. The Pies are coming into the tournament as the underdogs, but will they be able to bring home a medal?
I had the opportunity to speak to the captains of all of their teams to learn their expectations for the tournament and what it means to them to have three teams in it.
Aaron Hume, M1’s captain said that despite their BUCS league results not going in their favour, this hasn’t reflected on the level of effort and improvement shown by the team: ‘A lot of games have been competitive, particularly our match against Durham was a great showing of how much we have developed as a team this season.’
Even though having placed last in their division (Men’s Northern Tier 1), Hume told The Courier that ‘whilst the losses have been frustrating, they have provided us with a lot of experience which, going into Nationals, will help us greatly’.
Whilst Nationals is less than a month away, Varsity is happening on March 26. When asked about how they have mixed the preparation for both, Aaron stated that ‘Having varsity the week before nationals aligns well because it gives us a high-intensity game to prepare our fitness, tactics, and management, giving us momentum going into nationals’.
One of his main goals as captain is to make sure that the team puts a good performance and see every person contribute to the best of their ability: ‘We’re not setting fixed expectations and pressure going into nationals, however, if we are able to reflect our performance for the indoor season that would be great, however outdoors is a completely different game.’
We’re not setting fixed expectations and pressure going into nationals.
He also stated that Nationals is a great chance for all of the players to show their quality and for the newer players to make a real impact. Aaron said that they ‘will go into each game with confidence and belief in our ability, and if we do that then I’m certain we can leave nationals proud of our performance.’
On the other hand, the M2 had to play a qualifier to go to Nottingham and compete for the National Shield. They played against both Durham teams and Benjamin Sayer, M2 captain, states that they ‘lost quite heavily to Durham M2 at the start of the year and so that did hamper the confidence a little bit.’
When asked about the mindset when playing Durham, Sayer said that they ‘knew that, even though they had beaten us before, we had come along immensely as a team.’ Having played Durham plenty of times over the year, they became apparent a weakness in all of the Durham team, so they were certainly optimistic, but Benjamin confessed that their ‘mentality during the game was one of focusing and limiting silly mistakes. It was important to not get distracted by the occasion.’
The beauty of nationals is playing teams and people we haven't played before.
The Pies M2 are considered one of the major underdogs of the tournament but Benjamin states that ‘the beauty of nationals is playing teams and people we haven't played before so whilst we don't know what to expect, we are certainly confident in our ability to get some results.’
Whilst the M1 and M2 are competing for the National Trophy and National Shield, the W1 will be competing for the National Trophy, the second-highest category of the tournament. To qualify, they had to wait and see who scored the highest points out of all the 4th places and unfortunately, they fell short by only a few points.
Rosina Cook, W1 captain, stated that ‘whilst it would have been great to get to the top division, I am really proud of all of the team for making it so close, and developing from our performance last year.’
A lot of the players this year are new to the sport and are quite inexperienced and Cook stated that ‘Frisbee is one of those sports that not many people play before coming to university, so it's really great that we have performed as we have, considering most of our players had never played before September. I'm excited to be able to build on this and continue our growth as we compete in the national tournament.’
When asked about what they were looking forward to the most, she said that she’s looking forward to having a fun weekend where everyone plays their best: ‘It's always exciting to play at a competition where all of the best university players are taking part and you can push yourselves and learn from what other teams are doing.’
It's always exciting to play at a competition where all of the best university players are taking part.
She also believes that it will be a great learning experience for everyone on the team as well as an opportunity to showcase how much they have developed this year.
Similar to her teammate Aaron, her aim for the tournament is that everyone performs to their full potential. She said to The Courier that she thinks that ‘having goals you can't necessarily control makes it difficult to stay motivated when things go wrong. We can't control how good the competition is, but we can control how we respond to it.’
She also stated that the women’s team is ‘such a kind and supportive group because the sport isn’t the most well-known, you do end up spending a lot of time together.’
Aaron, Benjamin and Rosina agreed on one thing: their reaction to qualifying for Nationals. Aaron said that ‘this achievement speaks volumes about the strengths of our club. We are known to have an amazing atmosphere, and this season has been no different.’
Benjamin said that their celebrations started by ‘spraying prosecco on the grass outside.’ As a captain, he stated that he felt a mix of ‘joy and pride in how far the team had come over the year summed up by our historic achievement.’
Rosina was also really proud of everyone: ‘It's an amazing part of frisbee, the fact that people can be brand new in September and have developed the skills to compete at a national tournament by March and is probably one of my favourite parts of the sport.’
Nationals weekend is slowly approaching, will we see more celebrations by the end of it?