Big Muckamuck: Stanford Superfly

16 college alumni teams representing the best Open and Women’s teams from the past decade square off for the title of the best of the best. The Big Muckamuck will find the likes of the Hodags, CUT, Superfly and Burning Skirts competing on July 2nd-3rd at the annual Potlatch tournament in Redmond, WA. As part of our ongoing coverage of the event, Skyd caught up with Superfly to find out more about historically dominant squad.

Roster:

Name – Grad Year – Club Team
Elaine Hart – 2011 – Zeitgeist
Caitlin Rugg – 2011 – Slackjaw
Jennifer Schmerling – 2011 – Mischief, Slackjaw
Emily Damon – 2010 – Fury
Rachel Habbert – 2010 – Mischief
Krystal Barghelame – 2009 – Iceni
Liz Cassel – 2009 – Zeitgeist
Danielle Platt – 2009 – Underground
Rachel Dyke – 2008 – Slackjaw
Christina Contreras – 2007 – Showdown, Zeitgeist
Alicia Dantzker – 2007 – Fury
Ruth Emerson – 2007 – Slackjaw
Julia James – 2007 – Schwa
Katie Berk – 2006 – Slackjaw
Lauren Casey – 2006 – Fury, Brass Monkey
Enessa Janes – 2006 – Molly Brown, Fury
Jessica Guh – 2005
Gwen Ambler – 2004 – Riot, Fury
Karen Milch – 2004
Rosaleen O’Gara – 2004 – Mucho Gusto
Erin Percival – 2002 – Nemesis, Fury
Delia Chiu – 2001 – Schwa
Robin Davis – 2001 – Fury
Jocelyn James – 2000 – Zeitgeist
Dominique Fontenette – 1997 – Brute Squad, Godiva, Fury
Jennifer Donnelly – 1994 – Fury, Felix, Maine-iacs

Briefly share the history of your school’s Ultimate program. How it started/developed into a competitive program:

Superfly preparing for the finals at Nationals in Spokane, WA in 2002

Stanford has had a women’s program for a long, long time. In the early ’90’s a young player, Jennifer “JD” Donnelly joined the team as a graduate student and helped transform the team into the national powerhouse that it has become. Once JD’s own eligibility ran out, she began coaching the team and lead Stanford to its first appearance at Nationals in 1995. Superfly lost in the finals of Nationals on its first two trips before going on a three year winning streak where the team not only won three titles in a row, it also didn’t lose a single game to another college team. The 106 game streak was broken in 2000, bookended by losses to UNCW, but the team re-loaded and made it back to Nationals and the finals the following season. 2001 and 2002 saw Superfly beat expectations and make it to the championship game, only to lose in rather one-sided affairs to Georgia and UC-San Diego.

Superfly winning the Spirit of the Game award in 2004 (Photo by Bil Elsinger)

JD had retired from her seven-year coaching post after the 2001 season and Robin Knowler Davis and Karen Hyun took the reins. With a year under their belt as coaches, things all came together for the 2003 season and Superfly only lost one game all year (a one point loss to Cal in the finals of Regionals) en route to another championship. 2004 ended with a semifinals loss to Carleton, but Robin had developed a strong core of players that strung together their own three-peat from 2005 to 2007. With semifinals appearances in 2009 and 2011, Superfly remains in the top tier of college programs. Robin has had a number of co-coaches through the years, but her 10-year tenure has been a big reason that Stanford has been able to churn out top players every year.

What are some of your school’s biggest victories/games in the past decade?

• 2001 Championships: Upset win in pool play against UCSD (2 seed overall) that set us up to go all the way to the finals.
• 2002 Championships: Comeback win over favored Colorado in the semis
• 2003 Championships: Comeback win over MIT in the finals
• 2005 Championships: Win in the finals over Washington after losing to them in pool play
• 2006 Championships: Win over UCLA in the finals
• 2007 Regionals: Back-door qualifying win over UW after being down 12-10, 30 seconds before the hard cap went on
• 2007 Championships: Win over UCSB in the finals after losing to them in pool play
• 2009 Championships: Quarterfinals win over favored Wisconsin
• 2011 Championships: Quarterfinals win over UNC-W

Who on your roster will be making some of the big plays at the Muck?

Superfly after winning the finals of Nationals in 2005 (Photo by Andrew Davis)

We’ve got a lot of talent on this roster. A huge percentage of the team was recognized in college in the Callahan and All-Region voting and almost everyone has gone on to play club on competitive teams. Big plays could come from seasoned veterans like Dominique Fontenette and Gwen Ambler, or from big guns more recently out of college like Caitlin Rugg and Emily Damon.

Which match-ups are your team most looking forward to?

We haven’t seen the rosters for the other teams, but we expect Carleton to be a hard-fought grudge match for the first day, especially with the heavy Fury/Riot contingents from our respective schools. We’re also looking forward to seeing some teams from the other pool, which has the most dominant teams from recent years. It will be a lot of fun to see how teams like us and Carleton, who had a bigger presence in the early 2000s, match up with these programs.

Why is your team going to win the BM?:

Superfly posing after winning Easterns in 2003

Superfly is showing up in Seattle with a deep roster of wiley veteran talent coupled with raw, young-guns athleticism. We’re willing to bet that we will have more current club players on our roster than any other team. With the bulk of our team having gone on to play for some of the most competitive club teams in the country — including Fury, Riot, Godiva, Zeitgeist, and Brute Squad — Superfly has a mental toughness that few other teams at BM can match. Almost everyone on this roster has a college championship ring to her name, so this is a squad that knows how to win. Moreover, we are a team that loves to play in front of a crowd. The Stanford program was built on defense so look out for big defensive blocks and skies all weekend. (We are also the best looking team at BM, hands down). Sorry ’bout it.