Manti Finish in Second Place
BY ALYSON DAME

Oberlin�s women�s Ultimate Frisbee team won three of their four games at Sectionals last week, coming in second in the five-team tournament. The Praying Manti traveled to Athens, Ohio for the one-day tournament last Saturday, and will compete in Regionals next weekend.

Despite losing their last game, the Manti were the highest scoring team at the tournament. They first beat Ohio Wesleyan 13-0, then beat Ohio State 11-3 and nudged out Case Western 7-6. In their final game, they lost to Ohio University 12-9. Senior co-captain Sarah McKeever was positive about the team�s play in the OU game, despite the loss. �We played well against them. One of the highlights of that game was playing a 25 minute point and scoring,� she said.

(photo by Tom Shortliffe)

The tournament was arranged in a round-robin style, so after all teams played one another the team with the best record won. �We played the teams in increasing order of difficulty, with our last game against the number one seed, without a bye,� sophomore Molly Guidette said. 
Sophomore Claire Jahns was impressed by the team�s endurance. �The team really pulled it out and played intensely all day. We were all psyched that we were able to keep up our energy for four games,� she said.

The Manti have been plagued by injuries this season, but were nearly in full force this weekend. �What was great was having almost the entire team present, healthy after a bunch of injuries, surgeries, et cetera, and fucking busting their asses. We were out to have fun, not intimidated, and so played our game,� Guidette said.

The night before the tournament, the Manti slept and conspired in the economical Sunset Motel. According to junior co-captain Josie Ferrel they awoke to �spit and rain, but that went away pretty quickly. The sun came out and by the third game it ended pretty nicely.�
Wind was a factor all day. �It was quite windy, meaning closer games because going upwind was difficult. So you�d have close games but more due to the wind than the ability of the teams,� Ferrel said.

Regionals will pose a bigger challenge than sectionals did. �We�re going to have to come out even more strong in order to upset the teams at Regionals,� Ferrel said. 
Sophomore Becky Hempel cited Ohio University, Michigan and Notre Dame as teams to beat, and said the team needed to �pull our shit together for Regionals.�

Because of the size of the region, two teams will advance to Nationals, but that means a full weekend of frisbee. �Two days of play will be exhausting, we�ll just have to keep summoning up energy reserves,� Guidette said.
No matter what happens this weekend, the Manti future is bright. Junior Katie Spiess is looking forward to next year. �I think we�re going to be fucking hot, we�re only losing two seniors,� she said. 
Guidette said that first-years Lyricca Hammann and Sarah Fannuchi and sophomore Katie Gass were players to watch. Hempel was also positive. �We have kick-ass freshmen,� she said. 

Alyson Dame is a former member of the ultimate frisbee team.