Blues Romp in Frisbee Comp
WOW (Oxford University's Ultimate Frisbee Women's Team) had a bad start - Turner didn't turn up. Having completed a crystal maze style challenge of extracting the over-sleeper from her bed we headed on our way to Talybont Leisure centre in Cardiff for the tournament we had been training for all year - Indoor Student Nationals. Oxford were seeded 4th out of 16 teams.
We had decided that there would be no team selection but that everyone that wanted to come to the tournament should be encouraged in order to promote Women's Ultimate. The consequence of this decision was a huge squad of 12 lovely ladies (for a 5-a-side game!) of very wide ranging ability.
Some of the newer players had been trying to develop WOW at open tournaments which often meant a day with no win. So when, in our first game at Nationals we beat Exeter's Uriel team 14-0 many of our players would have been happy with that achievement alone. Our game against Nottingham University (Random Fling) gave us the chance to put into action all the practice we had done in playing against a zone defence and both this game, and the Brunel game we won comfortably.
Our first real challenge came against the home team - Cardiff Angels Eÿ but even with their secret weapon, GB player Taz, they were no match for WOW. The next game against 15th seed Bath (BLT) was a calm game before the storm game which we feared most against 2nd seed Warwick Bears. We needn't have worried though because after gaining an early lead they could not rival us, despite valiant efforts.
The final game of the day against Portsmouth (Sublime) we made a real meal of, finding it impossible to score against their endzone wall. We finally won 3-1 after an 8 minute point. So after the first days play we had convincingly won all of our games and were top of our pool and had obviously impressed the organisers who had allotted us comfortable sleeping space because, they said, 'You will be in the final'. Tee hee!
The next morning saw us playing a hybrid Manchester - Liverpool team (Slippery Nipple) in the quarter finals. We knew them to have 2 strong players but shutting those 2 down meant they only scored one point all game.
The good news was that we would re-meet Bears again in the Semi-Finals since which meant, we thought, that we had the psychological advantage.However Bears came out storming and quickly gained a 4-0 lead. At this point we got scared and decided 'we really need to score some points'! So we turned up the defence and managed to come back for a 8-5 win. Phew - WOW was in the final!
We were up against Ro-Sham-Bo of Edinburgh University, a team we had lost to at last years Nationals quarter final. However our team was stronger and theirs was weaker than the previous year so we felt confident.
The final was very exciting (much more so than the men's) with us going up 7-0. However, the crowd was definitely not behind us (probably because we had taken out one of their players when frisbee is supposed to be non-contact) and Ro-Sham-Bo pulled back 8 points so that our final victorious score was 10-8 but the best thing was that every member of our huge squad had played at least one point in the final. After getting over the disappointment of the size of the women's trophy compared to the men's we happily accepted our cup as official National Student Champions of Frisbee. So WOW had a brilliant finish despite their sleepy start. Unfortunately Oxford University's mens team (OW!) lost two sudden death games to finish 4th when really they deserved a place in the final too. But the success doesn't stop there...this weekend WOW! took the varsity match narrowly winning, again, 10-8.
Team: Caroline Bampfylde (c) (St Cross), Lucy Moore (c) (Worcester), Lauren Cappell (Lincoln), Emily Lyons (St Catherines), Helen Turner (LMH), Khitanya Petgrave (St Hughs), Elizabeth Hunt (Queens), Rebecca Markovits (Keble), Michelle Lam (Hertford), Sylvie More (Wadham), Amelia Smith (Brookes), Mariya Ermolayeva (Hertford)
27th Feb 2003