Club Corner

Oberlin Equestrian Team Takes Several Victories

The Oberlin College Equestrian Team (OCET) had an exciting weekend at the Lake Erie College (LEC) horse show, their third weekend of showing this year. Most readers are probably asking themselves the inevitable question, “Oberlin has an equestrian team?” but the College has indeed had a horse-riding team since the 1980s.
The LEC horse show was the team’s fifth and sixth horse show of the season, each weekend consisting of two shows, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, in hunt seat equitation. At these shows, the team competes both on the flat and over fences (jumping).
Of note on Saturday was a first place ride in the Novice flat division, secured by junior Krista Egger. First-year Gwen Evans, co-president of OCET, won third place in her Novice fences class, and sophomore Margaret Bell rode to the same placing in her Intermediate fences class.
One of the more exciting moments of the show occurred during junior OCET co-president Lis Kidder’s Advanced Walk/Trot/Canter class. One horse in the arena spooked and threw his rider, taking off at a gallop and creating a domino effect. Rider after rider was thrown from her horse. One rider’s horse fell on top of her, after which she was brought to the hospital by ambulance, bruised but otherwise unhurt.
Of the seven riders in the class, five were thrown from their horses, one jumped off, and one miraculously stayed on. Lis Kidder flew from her horse and ate some dirt, but was helped to her feet by LEC President Cute Dan, and won second place in her class. She later commented, “My butt hurts, but I got to talk to Cute Dan,” and then wandered off to get his e-mail address. Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) Regional President, Sue Coen, commented that the class was “the most ridiculous chaos [she] had witnessed in [her] many years of showing.” Oberlin also took a fifth and four sixths during the Saturday show.
During the Sunday show, Egger again rode beautifully, taking a fourth on the flat, and a third over fences. Junior Erin McDonough secured fourth place in her Beginning Walk/Trot/Canter class. Kidder and junior Thalia Torres won fifth in their classes, and junior Anne Royer, Bell and Evans took sixth place.
OCET has another hunt seat show coming up April 6-7, and is looking for riders to compete in their Walk/Trot division. There is also a Western show on March 3, and several openings on the Western team. Headed by Evans, the fledgling Western team was founded in 1999. According to Evans, “The western team’s team kit contains a bottle opener, red lipstick, and fake boobs. We get to look like two cent whores and there are only three of us, so we’re lonely. Desperately lonely.”
Those interested in taking lessons with the team, or showing, should check out OCET’s new website: http://www.oberlin.edu/~ocet.

Junior Elisabeth Kidder is a member of OCET.

Blame it on El Niño: Ultimate Winless in Cincy

Senior co-captain Nate Marsh put it best: “I mean, five games lost by three points? That’s like a naked mole rat fart in New Zealand, chaos effect, equals a couple bad gusts of wind. What were we supposed to do? Send out a shitload of trained rat-eating mongeese? Where would we find this mongeese? How would we train them? Who’s going to pay for that?”
This was the story Feb. 16 and 17 in Cincinnatti, Ohio as the Oberlin men’s ultimate frisbee team, the Flying Horsecows, went winless, with six losses at their first tournament of the spring, Arctic Vogue.
The weekend was an emotional roller coaster for the ’Cows; hats were thrown, heads hung, expletives yelled, but ultimately hope survived. Like in that Morgan Freeman speech at the end of Deep Impact. Oberlin started a weekend-long trend in their first Saturday contest, against a fast-improving Michigan State team: they got behind. But against MSU (who easily win the contest for ugliest jerseys in college ultimate, and are up there for worst ever with the 1970s Chicago White Sox uniforms when they wore shorts), they got behind bigger, and earlier, than any other match of the tournament. It seemed as though the Horsecows simply didn’t show up in the first half on that windy February morning, with MSU leading at the half, 8-1.
Oberlin was able to rally the troops in the second half, and in what was essentially an upwind-downwind game, they were able to break MSU once and hold their own for the rest of the game. However, it was too little, too late, and an 8-7 Oberlin second half still added up to a 15-9 Michigan State victory.
The Horsecows had last faced MSU at regionals last spring, where they sent their opponents home in a blowout in the backdoor semifinal. The flipped results indicate not just how far Oberlin has to go this spring, but also how far large university ultimate programs can come in a matter of less than a year. Especially when they go to a school where the university buys students beer.
Saturday’s second match against a traditionally athletic and impulsive Purdue University team advertised itself as an easier contest; Purdue was seeded fourth in the pool to the ’Cows number two — but MSU had been seeded third and proved a none-too-easy opponent. So the Horsecows made sure to be on their toes for the contest.
On their toes they were, those hyprid ruminate aerial acrobats…um, flying horsecows. The ’Cows came out fired up against Purdue (who — dorky ultimate fact — had lost to MSU at regionals last spring in the backdoor quarterfinal for a chance to play Oberlin), and at several points, seemed ready to break the game open. But the Horsecows would invariably get infected with a common early-spring Oberlin ultimate disease — lazyitis — and let the Boilermakers (or whatever stupid name they chose for the team; seriously, if your college is already the Boilermakers, why would you try to get another name? Except maybe the Boilmakers) back into the game. Leading 8-6 at half, Oberlin was able to stretch the lead to three before falling victim to another common early-spring Oberlin ultimate malady — stupiditis — and really let Purdue back into the game. In fact, Purdue took the lead. And held it. Oberlin was able to storm back and tie it at 14, after falling behind 14-12, but the wind proved too much for the Oberlin offense, and despite forcing a turnover they were unable to convert, fell 15-14 in a time-capped game.
As the Earth continued the rotation on its axis, causing the position of the sun relative to the players on the field to appear in a more overhead fashion, the Horsecows enjoyed a bye. They relaxed, frolicked in the seasonally moderate temperatures (most likely induced to some extent by the largely human-produced buildup of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a greater retention of heat received as solar energy) and prepared for their most psychologically difficult game of the weekend, against hosts 2,000 Drunks (formerly Lemon, Burn, Pumphouse Five, etc.), the number one seed in the pool.

To say the team was salty is like saying your mom is a little promiscuous — while factually correct, it does nothing to speak of the intensity. 2,000 Drunks were salty like the Dead Sea, salty like an old fisherman, salty like Utah (the geographical location, not many people contained therein). Basically, it seemed like the guys (with two or three notable exceptions) had no fun playing ultimate. Maybe worrying about car pools does that to you, I dunno.
Anyways, in a seriously windy game that engendered, yes, a certain degree of sauce from the Oberlin sidelines, the Horsecows got on the board first, only to allow four straight scores (in four of what must have been some of the longest points ever), to fall behind 4-1. After a particularly ludicrous display of assholosity (a 2,000 Drunks player shouted at a player on the Oberlin sideline, “Why are you smiling?”), the ’Cows gained an almost Zen-like focus on offense, and a Golden Horde-like intensity on defense, to score three straight and tie the match at four. Stupiditis again set in, however, and as the spice-filled game drew longer, the captains agreed to a game to eight, hard cap. The hosts pulled away, and took the match 8-5. Whoopee. They still hate each other and themselves.
With darkness and a threatening storm fast approaching, Oberlin then set themselves to play the pool’s fifth seed, Miami (Ohio) University. And the storm — it came, bringing gusts of wind of around 40 mph, sideways sleet, 20 degree temperature drops over 10 minutes and a generally un-good atmosphere for serious frisbee. But Oberlin was able to focus, more or less, and with the ’Cows leading 3-1, Miami was thinking about forfeiting. Um, yeah. Then the weather cleared. And see the quote at the beginning of the article. Miami 13, Oberlin 11. Let’s forget about that one, okay?
Sunday brought more fine weather, and more inconsistent and inexplicable play from Oberlin. The day’s first game, against a South Bend club team, was an up-and-down, upwind-downwind affair. And once again, the Horsecows managed to get the short end of the stick, falling 13-11. Yeah, sucks. Again.
The ’Cows were able to get their one victory of the weekend in the next match when their opponent, um, left. Yeah. So Oberlin’s next game was against regional competitor Northwestern, who — like Miami, Purdue and MSU — the ’Cows had not lost to in recent memory. Until now. Whatever, they have to go to a school with lots of frats and an overrated journalism school — and it’s in Evanston, not Chicago, okay? We don’t say New York City when we talk about Newark, do we?
So Oberlin lost, again. By getting really behind, by being sloppy and making dumb mistakes. BUT...and this is a big but (well, that was a big but, not as big as your mom’s butt, though), they actually came back in this game. Down only 7-5 at half, they managed to fall behind 11-6 before waking up and scoring four straight to make the count 11-10. Poised to tie, Oberlin tried to push in a tight throw, and failed. That was pretty much all she wrote. Northwestern scored to make it 12-10; Oberlin responded, but couldn’t muster the defense necessary to tie again, and fell 13-11.
Pretty depressing, right? Losing to teams we’d made fun of, and going winless for a whole weekend for the first time in lord knows how long. Well, not so much. As senior co-captain Rich Raz put it, “My butt is on you! My butt is on YOU!” Um, wrong quote. Whatever. First tournament, new kids, missing a lot of veterans, new offense, blah blah blah. Talk to y’all in a couple weeks when this all starts to actually matter.

Senior Jacob Kramer-Duffield is a member of the ultimate frisbee team.

Bowling Team Learns From Loss

The men’s and women’s squads of the Oberlin intercollegiate bowling team traveled to Classic Lanes in Rochester Hills, Mich., a suburb north of Detroit, to compete for the 22nd year in the Association of College Unions — International Region Seven Recreation Tournament, hosted this year by Oakland University.
Although both quintets finished in last place, Oberlin was the only small college represented at the competition, every other school having the word “university” in its name. The young Oberlin team, which included only one senior and one holdover from last year’s ACU-I Rec tournament, gained valuable experience, particularly because of the grueling tournament format of six consecutive games on Saturday, followed by three more games Sunday morning, along with unfamiliar lane conditions. That experience will undoubtedly help them perform better in future competitions.
Oberlin’s women finished in third place with 6067 pins for nine games. They were closer to second place Kent State than Kent was to champion Michigan State. Junior Angela Olvitt, the only Oberlin bowler returning to the event from last year’s senior-laden squad, led the way with a 136 average (1241 pins). First-year K Strickler, right behind with 1237 pins, also averaged 136. Senior Kia Treier rolled the highest women’s game with a 173, followed by junior Trish Hinrichs’s 169.
Sophomore Andrew Falk led the Oberlin men’s scoring with a 159 average (1272 pins in eight games), including consecutive scores of 203 and 200 to finish the tournament. Freshman Andy Seidel was next with a 150 standard (1357 pins in nine games). Sophomore Michael Siniscalchi, who averaged 147 (1179 for eight games), rolled two 169 games — the men’s squad’s highest until Falk’s big finish. However, Michigan State also won the men’s division.
Senior Doug Diesenhaus, winner of the campus billiards tournament during the Winter Term Obie-lympics, competed for the third time in the nine-ball portion of the ACU-I Rec tournament, held this year at Main Street Billiards in Rochester, Mich. Diesenhaus won two matches, each a race to six victories, and lost two before being eliminated. One of the defeats was at the hands of the eventual champion, a competitor from the University of Michigan.
Oberlin’s participation in the event was co-sponsored by the Student Union and the Intercollegiate Bowling Team.

Tom Reid is the bowling team advisor.