The Claremont Colleges’ Men’s and Women’s Club Ultimate Frisbee teams kicked off their spring 2000 season at the Santa Barbara Classic tournament on January 22 and 23.

The Women’s team, only in its second year of existence, and went 2-2 in pool-play on Saturday, but declined to stay for Sunday due to the small size of their team. Ranked #5 in a pool of six, the team lost to #3 UC-Santa Cruz, 11-4, in its first game.

However, the rest of the day looked up for the team with a win against a young UCLA team, 11-6, and a tight win against #4 UC-Berkeley, 11-8. "We were really excited about the win against Berkeley because they’ve had a pretty good team for a while and we played them last year and lost in a close game," co-captain Shelley Kunasek PO ’01 said. "We only lost two players from last year and our team this year is looking really strong."

The most exciting game of the day for the Claremont women was against #1 UC-Davis. Claremont pulled ahead to an early 3-1 lead. But, Davis came back tying the game at 5-5, then took a crucial lead at 6-5. Due to a late start, the game was capped at seven and Davis quickly capitalized on a turnover to score the game winning goal. "It was really a close game and if we hadn’t had to cap it early, I think we might have been able to win. They were getting a little sloppy with throws and we had a lot of opportunities to score. I hope we get to play against them later this season," Becky Prechter, SC ’02 said.

The team’s offense was led by Kunasek who had 17 assists and three scores throughout the day while rookie Torrey Shelton PO ’02 led the scoring with nine goals. Other strong offensive players were Ellen Lin PO ’01 with seven assists and four scores and Whitney Weitzel CMC ’01 with four assists and five scores.

On the men’s side, the team (also known as the Braineaters) went 4-3 for the weekend. Two early losses against Idaho and UC-Berkeley A, 11-3 in both games, did not phase them as the team came back to win their last two pool games on Saturday against UCLA B, 11-1, and UCSD B, 11-4.

After Saturday’s re-ranking, the Braineaters found themselves in the quarterfinals of the B bracket. They beat UCSD B again 11-4 to advance to the semifinals against Stanford B. During the game, Josh Tulkin ’03 performed a "world’s greatest" as he caught a throw when he was stepping out of bounds, and while still in the air, threw the disc back in to teammate Nick Brezany HMC ‘02.

The Braineaters then beat Stanford B 11-6. "Our sweetest win has to have been against Stanford," co-captain Josh Seamon said. "After going into the half up 7-6, we put the foot down and didn’t allow any points scored against us in the second half."

The Braineater’s win against Stanford B sent them into the finals against Utah. Both teams played extremely well and the spirit of the game was excellent, but the Braineaters came out short, losing 11-8. "Overall, everyone played hard and it showed. We didn’t drop the disc, we played the clam flawlessly, and never gave up. We are all ecstatic about how things turned out," Captain Seamon said.

Seamon led the offensive with 29 assists and eight scores while Breznay had the most scores with 11 goals. Other strong offensive players were Jake Wolman ’03 with 10 assists and nine goals and Josh Tulkin with a total of ten assists and goals. Strong defensive players included Dan Morgan ’02, Andre Verner ’02 and Michael Grass ’02.

The Braineaters are fairly young this year. Having lost nine seniors last season, Seamon and Co-Captain Sven Moller ’02 have had to do a lot of recruiting. In addition to the solid recruitment of Pomona and Harvey Mudd underclassmen, there has been a recent addition of several CMC players. The team has not had much experience playing together, but will surely be a dominant force in the nation in another two years.

The Women’s team is young as well, so young that the team name has not yet been set. Last year, the team wore distinctive yellow shirts that said "green shirt" on them. Despite the marketability of the shirts, which are also worn by a number of adoring fans, the team is contemplating adopting a new, more descriptive name. The Women’s team only lost two seniors last season and has gained a number of talented and enthusiastic Pomona and Scripps women. Captain Ellen Lin hopes that the team’s growing experience will make the Green Shirts a powerhouse her senior year.

Both teams next tournament will be the San Diego President’s Day Weekend Tournament on February 19-21, 2000.