Back to Ultimate

This past weekend, Carleton’s Division III ultimate team, the Gods of Plastic, traveled to North Carolina for our first tournament of the season! Over the two-day tournament, we played against several Division I teams, likely the best competition we’ll face all season. The trip was so much fun – playing high-level teams makes us better, and being in sunny North Carolina with friends is just a bonus!

We flew out to Raleigh on Friday evening, arriving after midnight. Most of the team went to the house of one of our captains, Abe Eichner ’18, who lives right next to the UNC campus. Other players stayed at his friend’s house nearby. We originally planned to get to the fields early for our 9:00 AM game, but a recent snowstorm had blanketed the turf fields. Players from UNC spent the morning shoveling the fields to make them accessible, and games started at 1:45 PM. We lost our three games on Saturday to teams ranging from pretty good to great, so we were fairly happy with our performance. After all, they were our first three games of the season.

The next morning, games started at a more normal 10:45 AM, and we played against the University of Central Florida, a good Division I team. We played well, but went down 5-2 early in the game. With our spirits up, we scored three straight to tie the game and went into halftime down only one point. We scored out of half to make it 7-7, and a grueling, ugly 10-minute point followed. After several turnovers from both teams, I threw the assist to give us our first lead of the game. Both teams held on their next points, then we scored again to win the game 10-8. Beating a good team in our first tournament of the year was a great achievement for our team, and a really fun experience. Even though it was the only game we won all weekend, everyone on the team left North Carolina happy and proud of the way we played.

GoP assist to take the lead against UCF!

While I was abroad in the fall, I missed playing with GoP. This weekend was a great way to return to the sport and be with my favorite team!

Jacob is a junior physics major interested in environmental science, which he is currently studying in Costa Rica (along with Spanish, of course). At Carleton, Jacob enjoys going on outings with CANOE, the outdoors club, and playing ultimate frisbee with the Gods of Plastic, Carleton’s Division III men’s ultimate team.