S-Y-Z-Y-G-Y Go!

Okay so the title of this blog may be a bit confusing, but be confused no further: I play on an ultimate frisbee team called Syzygy (aka Syz), and one of our cheers is to spell out Syzygy and then yell “go” at the end (it’s all very team spirit-y and heart warming etc).

Recently Syz hosted sectionals here in Northfield and wow was it exciting! Not only did Syzygy play, but other club ultimate teams from Carleton played too (all six of us!). It was especially cool to be on our home turf because usually we play all over the US (from California to South Carolina) and rarely do we get to be so close to home.

What is Syzygy?

Syzygy is the D1 ultimate frisbee team that plays in the women’s division at Carleton. We have 6 total frisbee teams including CUT, Eclipse, Chop, Nova, and Karls (if you could’t tell by the shear number of teams, Carleton is really into frisbee). The word “syzygy” means three heavenly or celestial bodies in a row (which I believe is based off the dominant offensive strategy at the time when it was named). We are a mix of people who have been playing for most of their life and a couple of players who started playing in college, myself included.

How did I get into frisbee at Carleton?

Well if you want the truly long story you can check it out (here), but to spare the boring details I ended up trying to find an activity that could keep me active during my college years. After being a three sport athlete in high school, sports have always been a huge part of my life, and sophomore I was looking for something new. A lot of my Carleton friends were already playing frisbee so after playing a bit of intramural for fun, I decided to give something more competitive a shot, and I tried for Syzygy in the fall of my second year.

Evidently it went well enough because here I am playing for Syz! While it certainly has been a learning curve, I really love my team and playing this new sport (new to me that is).

What does a tournament look like?

Depending on the term, tournaments can look pretty different! In the winter we often fly to our tournaments because they are pretty far away, but when we enter spring term the regular season ends and we start playing to try and go to nationals. Now that we have made it past Sectionals (yay section champs) we will play in Des Moines, Iowa for Regionals. Hopefully we will move on to nationals and get to play teams from all over at Nationals.

This particular weekend, the tournament was only three games on Saturday which is quite lowkey for our typical tournaments. Often we play four (more or less) games each day on the weekend–that’s a lot of frisbee when you do the math. Usually tournaments result in a bit of sunburn, blisters, pickles/tournament snacks, and a lot of fun (though maybe a bit less homework completed than ideal).

Favorite part of frisbee?

My favorite part of frisbee of course is the time I get to spend with my teammates (aw how nice). Even outside of practice we occasionally get meals together, study together and hangout. Some of my best friends at Carleton have come from frisbee–which truly is the last thing I was expecting.

Hannah is a junior majoring in Geology and minoring in Classics. As a Minnesotan she considers herself somewhat of an expert on MN winters. At Carleton, she fills her schedule with writing for the Admissions blog, working as a CCCE Communications Fellow, doing geology research and TAing geology classes, and increasing voter engagement on campus. When Hannah isn’t in class, she can be found tossing a frisbee with Syzygy, crocheting, reading, walking and skiing in the Arb, thrifting, and hanging out with her besties. Meet the other bloggers!