The USA Ultimate Championship Series starts this weekend at various Conference Championships around the country, and while it doesn’t really heat up until regional tournaments start in two weeks, there’s a lot of action worth paying attention to over these first two weekends.
In college, every year of Sectionals (it’s going to be hard to stop calling it that) was an important stepping stone on the path toward the ultimate player that I am today. In the fall of 2005, I packed into the back UVA B-team captain Jason Heuay’s two-door Acura and headed to B-Deviled, the first tournament of my ultimate career. On the way, Jason told us about Sectionals the previous spring and how Mary Washington’s Connor Maloney snagged a layout callahan on universe point in the game-to-go against William & Mary– a team that was at Nationals the year before. In 2007, UVA’s season ended at Sectionals after Virginia Tech sent us and our overconfident asses to the backdoor bracket and Connor ripped down a hammer from partner in crime Andrew Eaton in the final game. In ’08, winning Sectionals was our season-long goal, and when we beat William & Mary and the zone that had given us fits in the fall, the entire team felt a sense of accomplishment. And in 2009, the year we made Nationals, Sectionals got us back on track after we had fallen short in the finals at Southerns and Easterns.
A stepping stone, yes. But Sectionals Conferences is just kinda cool. Over the next couple days, we’ll take a look at some of the noteworthy Conference match-ups that the best college teams are up against. Stay tuned…
Comments Policy: At Skyd, we value all legitimate contributions to the discussion of ultimate. However, please ensure your input is respectful. Hateful, slanderous, or disrespectful comments will be deleted. For grammatical, factual, and typographic errors, instead of leaving a comment, please e-mail our editors directly at editors [at] skydmagazine.com.