Last month two Valley Ultimate (U20 girls and U20 boys) participated in the 2018 Youth Club Champs!

Here’s the story of those two teams!

YCCs Day 1: Thursday Travel (8/2/18)

There is already a lot of excitement and anticipation for the days to come.  On our way to the houses from the airport, we stopped at a shopping plaza for dinner and some essential breakfast items for the morning.  Players bonded over the cheapest food items they could find and started preparing for the next few days of ultimate. Some players were relieved to realize that we don’t play any games on Friday!

Back at the houses after dinner, we organized our sleeping arrangements and had a team meeting.  We reviewed the Behavior Contract and asked questions. We are focused on getting the most out of this trip.  After the team meeting, there was socializing and bonding till the lights went out at 11pm (11:30pm!)

Wake up and breakfast at the house today is at 9am and already players are up and chatting, putting together their first house meal.

YCCs Day 2: Friday All Day (8/3/18)

This morning the VU group woke up and oriented themselves to Minnesota. After eating an essential breakfast, we went to pick up the rest of our supplies for the week. Lunch food, field, food, breakfast foods are now all crammed into every space possible in the kitchen.

Then we went to the fields to take in the International Club Championships. We saw Denver’s Molly Brown play a team of women from several different Southeast Asia countries called Black Widows. They have traveled to the US for this tournament in an effort to provide exposure for more women to play in their region, and they have 9 different languages spoken throughout their team!

The girls’ team walked through some final strategic elements on the next field over, while the boys’ team continued to bond and mostly goofed around.

Then we all walked a few fields over to the Boston Brute Squad vs. Atlanta Ozone game and saw many old friends on both teams. In a competitive match, Brute Squad won. Everywhere you turn there are high-level games in different divisions. Where we were, the top seeds in the Open, Women’s and Mixed divisions were all playing next to each other at the same time. A very rare spectating opportunity!

After that round of games finished, many teams, including our VU teams, attended the Diversity and Equity Forum hosted by a panel of diverse players. Unlike many equity forums that we’ve attended in the past, the focus was storytelling and listening as the crowd listened to each athlete’s stories of how they got into ultimate. Each athlete spoke on what kinds of challenges they’ve experienced, as well as what their aspirations are for the growth of our sport. We all left the forum with a new batch of perspectives to help form our actions moving forward.

After a quick dinner, we caught the very, very last moments of the showcase game, Minnesota Drag’n Thrust vs. Germany Mixed, before getting caught in a really gnarly thunderstorm on the drive home. Then it was Team Meeting time, and lights out!

There is a lot of tricky weather heading our way for tomorrow!

YCCs Day 3: Saturday Recaps (8/4/18)

Finally it was time for us to play as a team! The boys and girls’ team woke up early to make it to the fields on time for our 8:30 games.

GIRLS RECAP
Yesterday we completed our first day of tournament play! We woke up at 6 AM and players made themselves and each other various breakfasts (eggs, oatmeal, fruit, bagels, yogurt), packed our lunches and headed off to the fields! We started our day playing Texas Tango. They are a skilled and athletic team and ended up winning in hard cap 13-10, and that early-tournament challenge really pushed us to begin the process of coming together as a team and finding ways to best communicate on and off the field!

Next we played the second seed in the entire tournament, Minnesota Superior. The wind really began to pick up as we started our game and both teams were playing a lot of zone. Every point, Dylan and I marveled as the team built more and more chemistry with each other and we used our amazingly deep roster of 20 strong athletes to grind through some very long, windy points, eventually winning 10-4. A great first day of tournament play, beautifully executing our team goal of getting better every game we play together!

Big thank you to Rachel’s Dad, Steve Brown, for being on our sideline and sending score updates!

Afterwards, we ate or bought lunch and headed back to the fields to watch the VU boys team and the U20 BUDA boys play on nearby fields (and some of our Vermont friends that played with VU last year!). Players napped on the sidelines and cheered for friends until around 4:15 PM when we headed to the US Open Mixed Semi-final matchup of Boston Slow White (the team of Hannah Baranes, the Amherst girls’ varsity coach) vs. BFG from Seattle, WA.

After the game, we headed to the tournament dinner and to the GUM Ball! GUM is the Girls Ultimate Movement, an organization that promotes and supports youth girls ultimate and player development. They hosted a meet and greet between the YCC girls players and the top club women’s teams. The players ate their dinners and mingled with Jesse Schofner, Claire Chastain, Opi Payne and Manuela Cardenas – the top players in the world!

After the GUM Ball, some players stayed to watch the end of the US Open men’s semi-finals, while others headed back to the house to shower. All were home by 8 PM, we had our team meeting, and lights out by 10!

Another great day ahead of us today!

BOYS RECAP
In our first game we faced Red Dawn from San Francisco. They were a fast and deep team with good spirit, and our energy was very high with the anticipation of the tournament to come. We scored our first goal of the season to make it 1-2, but unfortunately it would be the only goal we would get. The game was filled with tipped discs, near misses, and a lot of “almost” plays. We lost 1-15, but with a determination that we can do better.

In our second game we faced Carolina Sky. They were an even match up for us, and we seized the opportunity to improve our gameplay. We were getting even closer to playing our game, but we still couldn’t sustain long stretches of good execution. We lost 4-15.

During our Bye we got lunch and refocused. We found our friends on BUDA and joined with the girls’ team who had finished playing for the day.

In our final game we faced Albany Anarchy. They are a first year program and it was clear from the beginning that this game would be a test for us. We scored the first point of the game flowing nicely downfield, with about 5 passes. The game went back and forth. At halftime we were down 5-8, but we mounted a comeback in the final moments. We scored to make it 9-10 in the cap and Albany called a timeout. We used it to recenter our focus on defense. We forced two turnovers that point but couldn’t score the upwind goal to force overtime. We lost 9-11 to a very fun and happy Albany team.

After playing our first three games, we realized that we have the ability to play well even though we didn’t get any wins. Our goal for today is to start the day with that understanding and concentrate on playing our best from the very beginning of the day.

We were served dinner by the tournament while we watched the club men’s semi-final games in the stadium. A truly incredible venue for ultimate! Most of the team stayed late to watch New York PoNY upset Raleigh Ring of Fire in a very exciting game.

YCCs Day 4: Sunday Recaps (8/5/18)

GIRLS RECAP
We started the day playing our last pool play game, matching up against Utah Swarm. Our team picked up right where we left off on Saturday and came out strong. We ended up winning the game 10-9, but we felt in control the entire time and we’re playing confidently and with even more chemistry than the day before.

We had a long break, got lunch, did some yoga and visualizations in the shade, and headed back to the fields for our quarter finals match-up, playing the number one seed in the tournament, the North Carolina Warhawks!

No team had yet to score more than 5 points on the warhawks, and we came out with more energy, positivity and grit than we had in any previous game. The warhawks were clearly an unbelievably skilled team, but our players demonstrated a previously unseen level of tenacity and fire and we made them work for every point. Again, we demonstrated our amazing depth of talent by subbing pretty evenly and ending the game 8-15, scoring more points than any other team yet on the top ranked team in the country!

Tomorrow morning we will compete in the 5th place bracket! Dylan and i were so proud of this group of athletes today, and we can’t wait to keep growing and competing tomorrow!

BOYS RECAP
This morning we faced Colorado Cutthroat. Despite some initial field mix ups (Uncontrollables) we were well prepared to start the day with our best effort. And we did! A tremendous, clean first O point and a layout score by Lukas started the game off. As the wind picked up, and the game required a high level of execution, we had trouble finding our footing. Cutthroat was deep and resilient and eventually walked away with the 15-1 victory.

Next we faced New York’s Little PoNY. After going down an early break, we struggled to convert our chances. The game became increasingly up-wind/down-wind. After some key plays we found ourselves with the disc, down 6-8 needing to convert. After some tipped discs and some drops, it did not fall into our hands and we ended up losing 6-11.

Despite the losses, it was still evident that we improved throughout the day and had energy to smile and enjoy the experience. Next we got lunch and filled the sideline of the VU Girls quarterfinal match against the reigning champion Warhawks from North Carolina.

YCCs Day 5: Recap and Return Home (8/6/18)

Our last day in Minnesota! It has been a tremendously rewarding learning experience and a lot of fun meeting new friends and competing against peers from all over the country. Not only did we improve in our play on the field, but we also learned valuable lessons about time management, cleanliness, working and living together these past several days.

BOYS RECAP
We arrived to our first game late after a longer than expected exit from our house. With less time to prepare than normal, we implemented our first and last Silent Warm Up. We had already discussed as a team how a Silent Warm Up can sharpen the focus on individual tasks by limiting external distractions, thus preparing each player more deeply.

In our first game we faced Nightmare from South Chicago area. Whether the Silent Warm Up helped center our focus or not, the game began like many we had experienced over the weekend, except this time we kept scoring. Seemingly before we knew it, we had won the game 15-3. Some of the things that had doomed us in the games earlier in the weekend were suddenly gone, and our execution of our best strategies shone more brightly.

Our next and final game of our season was against Albany Anarchy. We had lost to Albany on the first day in a close spirited match, and it seemed right that we would close out our season facing them again. In the first half, both teams held brief leads but no team could pull away. A very long point at the end of the half gave Albany the 8-7 lead.

Every other point in the second half made it a tie game and with time running out the score was 10-10. Some exciting plays from both teams kept things interesting, but when we called a timeout on the goal line it was all but over. We were able to score and win the rematch game, and finish 2-0 on our last day as a team.

Photos from the Albany game are online here.

After another spirited exchange with Albany, we packed up and moved to watch the VU Girls’ team in their final game against Cincinnati.

After everyone was finished playing, we all mingled between games in the championship round, spending time with new and old friends and having one last team huddle.
We got dinner on the way to the airport and got everyone on their planes (whew!), and just like that the season and the experience was over.

Thank you to all of the players and parents who committed to this team from the beginning of summer league, or prior to that. Our coaches are eager to keep in touch with all of our players. We wish the best to our graduating seniors and hope that our returning players keep growing and leading their programs during the year. Valley Ultimate is excited to grow with you all!

Enjoy these last few pictures!

–Joe, Chris, Clarissa, Leila, Dylan