The men’s and women’s club ultimate frisbee teams both traveled to Houston on April 14 and 15 to play in the DIII sectional tournament. While neither team qualified for the national tournament, both gave strong showings in the final tournament of the season.

Sophomore Maddy Walshak is the president of the women’s team, Altitude. The team placed fifth of six teams and she said she is impressed by the team’s performance this season.

“Since we did not have any seniors graduate last year and have had six new players join this year, we are having an especially strong season,” Walshak said.

During the regular season, Altitude racked up wins against huge schools, such as Baylor University and the University of Texas at Austin.

“This year, there has been just an overall sense of trust and respect for each other that has grown exponentially since last year, and it’s really helping us on and off the field. I think our skills have developed a lot as well as team chemistry throughout the season, and I’m excited to see where this energy takes us,” said Mia Loseff, a junior on the team.

The team also improved their record on paper, going 4–6 on the season.

“This season we almost doubled in players and focused a lot more on having fun and building chemistry within our team rather than putting our record first. And I think it paid off, because we had a blast at every tournament we went to, and our record improved,” said Sydney Kuhn, a senior.

As the final tournament, the sectional tournament was extremely sentimental. The team has six seniors that will be graduating in May.

“The last game on Sunday against Tulsa was so much fun,” Kuhn said. “We fell behind in the beginning, but everyone’s energy was surprisingly high for the sixth game of the tournament. We had our boys team there to cheer us on along with our alumni player, Marissa Torres, to coach us through each point. We came back and won and celebrated all the seniors who were playing their last game.”

The men’s team, Turbulence, has also had a competitive season. The team snagged the No. 2 seed at sectionals and was focused on preparing to take on the No. 1 seed, Rice University.

“This fall, we beat Rice 10–9 in a huge win for our program, so we will have to beat them again to advance to the next level of tournament play,” says Brant.

Turbulence fell to Rice, placing third of four teams. The season started out a bit shaky according to junior Axel Anderson, one of the team captains.

“We’ve had a mixed start to our season. We kind of got clapped the first tournament we went to this semester, but in the [last] tournament we had a much more competitive showing,” Anderson says.

Both programs are young, and ready for next year’s season.

“This team has gone from the ground up during my time here,” said Kuhn, who will be staying on the team as she pursues graduate studies at Trinity. “Altitude started out with just a few motivated girls, and now we have almost 20 players, and we are all great friends. Ultimate is about having fun and competing with spirit and when that is priority number one, everything else falls into place.”