Chomp! Mantii go .500 in tourney

The women's Ultimate Frisbee team split six games in the season's first tournament last weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich.

All three losses were against club teams, as was one of the victories. And the early-season success has the Praying Mantii eagerly awaiting the rest of the season - and the spring season.

Of the team's 23 players, 15 are new to the team. Even though most of them have been playing for as few as three weeks, those new players are learning the flow fast, according to some older players.

"People who have been playing for, like, three weeks have been laying out and having break-throughs," sophomore Erica Zaklin said. "They don't know the stigmas of what's hard."

Over the weekend, the victories came over Calamity Jane, the team from Indiana University, 15-13, the Paperback Princesses from Queen's College in Ontario, Canada, 15-1, and Hairball, a club team, 15-1.

The trio of losses, all blow-outs, were against club teams: Medusa, Catshit and One Huge Me. The game against One Huge Me was called because of lightning in the Ann Arbor sky.

The Praying Mantii have more than three times as many players for the fall season as they had a year ago.

"Everyone gets in," Zaklin said. "You can start off being an awful player and the learning curve is just huge."

Sophomore Katie Hansen said this year's team is more democratic than it was last year - with a lot more players handling the disc.