Men's ultimate 5-1 for day

Team wins five, loses final against Ohio State

This weekend is put up or shut up time for the Flying Horsecows. The men's ultimate team faced a wake-up slap in the face last weekend while hosting the College Ohio/Kentucky Sectionals. After being the reigning champions for the past four straight years, a loss to Ohio University in the finals sent the Horsecows off to College Regionals in Minneapolis as the number two seed from their section.

Hosting Sectionals at Oberlin meant a couple of things for Oberlin Ultimate. One was a chance to show a home crowd what the team spent the time from orientation to April doing. Another was finally having the luxury of not driving four or five hours to some nasty part of southern Ohio to play.

So on Saturday, they made it to north fields at the luxuriously late hour of 9:00 (except for the one fool, who had to be awakened by Todd "Twinkie" Daloz at 9:30, muttering something about his alarm clock's volume being too low). First on the list of things to do was pay homage to the weather, which for the first time in the history of Oberlin home tournaments, did not involve rain.

Rumors immediately tbegan to circulate among Horsecows that the Office of Admissions had finally begun sacrificing students to make the weather nice for the All Roads weekend, but focus was quickly shifted to their first opponents. The University of Cincinnati's team was the first to fall to the quick striking Horsecows. Oberlin was able to out run and out-play the Cinnci team, quickly flowing up and down the field for a 13-1 victory which came before the other games going on reached halftime.

Next came the game which Oberlin knew would be the main challenge all weekend. Ohio University's Divine Hammer ran variations on their well known "Itchy and Scratchy" offense, consisting of quick disc movement between two or three main handlers while attempting to set up long strikes into the end zone. OU and Oberlin went point for point until halftime, at which point Oberlin slowly pulled forward, until they eventually fought their way to a 13-10 victory.

Highlights of the game included the requisite and exquisite hucking game shown off by many including junior Jim Woodroffe and senior Tim Learmonth, as well as multiple layout defensive blocks by Johnny "Teflon" Fedota.

The final two games were against Kentucky's Pimp squad and Ohio State University's Lead Belly. Both fell to the Flying Horsecows, by scores of 13-5 and 13-6 respectively. The afternoon ended with Oberlin already looking ahead to performing at Minnesota's tournament.

Throughout Saturday evening, Oberlin tried to talk to other teams into getting a taste of Oberlin by going to the Male Exotic at Stevenson, but the other teams either a) didn't think anyone would throw a party with male strippers in a dining hall or b) were too scared by the prospect of a party with male strippers in a dining hall. So the night was pretty low-key. Sunday morning was, ominously nice (and an altar in the basement of Carnegie was, again, given praise to), as Oberlin waited until Miami of Ohio's Monks showed up. At a previous tournament, Miami was felled by Oberlin's mighty "B" team, so the collective Horsecow team wasn't too worried. In retrospect, a little worry may have gone a long way.

Miami came out fast and Oberlin came out like they were still asleep, which led to a 7-6 score at halftime. Eventually the Flying ones were able to pick up their play and leave the Monks behind, but the final score was still a too-close-for-comfort 13-9. After a very extended bye, Oberlin faced off against OU one last time in the finals. The point-for-point play which existed in Saturday's meeting of the two continued through the final, but this time, the OU was able to pull away and hold the lead. Successful break throws left either side of the field open for OU's offense to strike in either portion of the end zone.

Renewed efforts by Oberlin were not enough, and an 11-6 deficit became a 13-9 final. Oberlin lost for the first time in four years to OU and are subsequently taking a second seed ranking with them to Carelton for College Regionals. The top three teams from Regionals will go on to College Nationals at the University of California, Davis (where the admissions office doesn't have to spill blood for sunshine, it's just always there, honest). Currently Carleton, Madison and Colorado College, all in Oberlin's region, hold the 5-7 spots in the national rankings while Oberlin is hanging out at 21 of the 156 college Ultimate teams in America. To make it to Nationals for the first time in two years, the Flying Horsecows have to, simply put, kick everyone's ass. By a lot.

Lay-out master: Men's Ultimate senior Tim Learmonth dives out on D at the Sectionals. (photo by John Matney)