Praying Manti breeze through Sectionals

Ultimates hopes to qualify for Nationals

Drenched in the freezing rain last weekend at sectionals the Praying Manti took first place at Sectionals to qualify for the Regional tournament.

They beat the University of Michigan 13-5 and Ohio University 13-1 in a tournament in Versailles, Ohio. The tournament also included Miami of Ohio who played their first game ever against the Praying Manti. The Manti slaughtered them 13-0.

"They were not that bad," said sophomore Abby Sullivan, "considering it was their first game ever."

Sullivan said the season has been difficult for the team. With so many new players, team members do not know each other as well as Sullivan believes they should.

"Some of the club teams we've played know each other so well, how fast they are. They know exactly how to play each other," she said.

The team went into last week's game with a whole new offense. "We played extremely well and brought it to the next level," senior Karin Kettenring said. The offense was implemented by captains junior Lisa Novins and sophomore Suzzy Walsh.

In one of the team's most spectacular plays against the University of Michigan, Kettenring broke open in the end zone. She jumped for the throw but it was too high. First-year Tori Johnson just happened to be at the right place at the right time and made a beautiful grab for the point.

"The team fell apart for a little bit," Sullivan said, "then we got back on it."

The Praying Manti want to focus more on defense. They were having no trouble scoring but the only reason their opponents weren't scoring wasn't because of good defense, but because they couldn't complete passes.

This tournament follows a Spring Break trip to the Carolinas. At the University of North Carolina at Willmington, March 22-23, the Praying Manti found themselves in the loser's bracket where they became the "Chumpions" as they beat University of Colorado, Columbia and Penn.

At Clemson, March 28-29, the team beat University of California at San Diego but lost to East Carolina, UNC-W, Duke, Colorado and Special Sauce, a club team from Orlando, FL. "This was a surprise because the West Coast is usually much more competitive," Sullivan said.

This weekend, the team makes their way to the Midwest Regionals at Ann Arbor, MI. There, they'll play top teams like Carleton College, University of Colorado and Indiana University. If they beat one out of the three and everyone else, they will go on to compete for national recognition at Nationals in Minnesota the last weekend of May.

"I'm going into this with high hopes, because I feel if we bring ourselves together and play as well as we can, we can definitely make it to Nationals," Sullivan said.

"We'll be facing our toughest competition," Kettenring said. "We must play better than we've played before." According to Sullivan, the team has been losing a lot more than they expected. Women's ultimate is becoming much more competitive, she says, a lot of teams are getting a lot better and the Praying Manti need to get better as well.

Sullivan said, "We have a lot of really, really good first-years who have amazing potential and I'm confident, by the end of next fall, our first-years will be a lot stronger and so will our team."