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Four area men have
spun, flipped, backhanded and hucked
their way into the record books after
competing in the Ultimate Frisbee
Association’s national championships
Oct. 26-29 in Sarasota, Fla.
South Tempe
resident Jack Smith is a captain of the
Ultimate Frisbee Masters Ironwood
team. Russ Trotter, also a Tempe
resident, is a co-captain.
Ultimate Frisbee is
played on a 70-by-30-yard field, and
each team's goal is to advance the disc
into its end zone with a series of
passes upfield to teammates.
Running while in
possession of the disc is prohibited,
and the sport is non-contact. Each team
fields seven players at once.
The local team’s
goal was to revitalize itself after
taking a break from competition last
year with newly eligible masters
players—competitors 33 years and
older--while utilizing key veterans to
help guide and lead the team.
The team faced
tough competition from local open teams
in Phoenix and Tucson during early weeks
of the season, as well as challenging
results at early out-of-state
tournaments such as the Colorado Cup in
Denver.
However, as their
athleticism improved and a core group of
players began to bond, the team began
looking up.
They had a
challenging initial day at the Cooler
Classic in Wisconsin, but the final day
of the tournament set the stage for the
rest of the season. They played at the
regional tournament, which was held in
north Scottsdale, and suffered their
only loss to the then-national champion
ultimate masters team, Old and In the
Way from Colorado.
The team placed
second, which gave them a spot to play
in the Sarasota competition.
Ironwood made it to
the quarter finals before losing to the
Number 1 Seed in the Tournament, Old and
In the Way. Ironwood ended up placing
seventh in the nation in the masters
division.
Kyrene Corridor
players, in addition to Smith and
Trotter, were Chris Gutman and
Tom Polakis.
Ironwood was the story of the
masters division. Never had a team done
so well as bottom seed. They worked so
hard within the tournament to become a
better team and made constant
adjustments to each situation. Even the
games they lost were positives in the
learning curve for them. The leaders of
this team stayed positive and the
players stayed with the plan all the
way. Ironwood got beat by Above and
Beyond first, then forgot about it and
moved on.
They played Rust in
the last game of the pool and just put
it on Rust. They were up 7-2 and played
awesome all game. Iron was a machine by
the end of the game. They won going away
15-6. Ironwood, bottom of their pool,
took fourth and made the quarters. It
was a really impressive job by the whole
team. |
