By Matt Washco, staff writer
The entire Prospect Ultimate Club was gathered around one field watching the #1 ranked Bees play #4 ranked Fantasy Frisbee on Oct. 19 at Melas Park. The game had just gone to overtime, and was now sudden death.
After a Bees’ pass flew just long of the end zone, it was Fantasy’s turn to attack. After working to move the frisbee quickly up field, Junior Matthew McAleer attempted to slot a tough pass into the end zone.
The pass falling just short, the Bees were now on the counterattack. Moving the frisbee up field with quick short passes, Fantasy’s defense could not get back in time to stop the Bees from edging out the overtime win. However, the chaos was far from over for the day.
“We thought we could’ve won that game,” McAleer said. “We matched up with the Bees well.”
The weather was cold and windy for the final week of the regular season of Prospect’s Ultimate Frisbee Club. Going into this week of frisbee, upset was imminent due to John Camardella’s (Cuba’s) decision to make a “bracket buster” week.
The week would entail a schedule handcrafted by Cuba himself in order to see teams of similar skill compete for higher seeding in the upcoming tournament. This choice pitted Fantasy against the five other highest ranked teams in the league. The results of this week were shocking.
With #1 ranked Bees losing to #2 Dream Team and #3 Juice, upsets were coming in every round of games. Juice was able to squeak out a 2-1 win, as the Bees started out slow and never could recover. Juice jumped out to a 2-0 lead, and Bees were never able to catch up, with the game ending 2-1 Juice.
Overall, both teams played sloppy and failed to convert many attempts. This chaos served to show the closeness of skill between the top five teams, and is promising for the coming week of frisbee as any team could beat another.
“Upsets are the best in frisbee,” Junior Brennan Woodle said. “It gives confidence to all teams that they can upset better teams too.”
The need for such a hectic week of games was due to the constant weather challenges that Prospect Ultimate has faced this year.
With the fields at Melas being too wet for play, the season was nearly chopped in half. Due to this, the final week needed to have more meaning, as Cuba had not seen as many games as he’d like to make rankings. By making a week designed for the best matchups, the rankings going into the tournament can be much more solidified.
“The good news is we get a second chance at playing them [Bees] this Friday,” McAleer said.