USC Men's Ultimate

For the first time since 2004, and only the 2nd time in the program’s history, the USC Ghettobirds are going to the regional tournament. At the beginning of this season, 9 months ago, the team set a goal and embarked on a long, hard, tiring but also promising quest to make it to regionals after coming tantalizingly close for the past two seasons. But this year was different. With the majority of players returning from last year’s squad that narrowly missed out on regionals last year, and an influx of talented and committed freshmen, the team looked better than ever. They proved it this weekend at sectionals by playing Ghettobirds Ultimate- fun, fast, loose and most importantly, as a team.

However, we didn’t make it easy on ourselves.

After going 3-1 on the first day, the Birds got 2nd in their pool and set themselves up with a promising scenario for Sunday: win one of the first two games, and you go to Regionals. That turned out to be tougher than it sounded. Ghetto drew UCSB, a notoriously gifted program, in the first game and hung in there for the first part as we were only down 4-3 thanks to an assist and score by Kyle Obergfell. However, we must’ve caught them by surprise as they amped up the pace a little bit and threw a zone at us that we couldn’t quite figure out, and ended up winning 15-3.

With that loss, we had 2 scenarios to make regionals- win the next game of if not, win the last 2. The next game was against UCSD-B who beat us in sectionals last year. They jumped out all over us and drew a couple breaks to go up 8-4 at halftime. They came out firing after halftime and took a commanding 11-6 lead and it seemed all but over. But using a 9 man rotation, we clawed our way back to 14-14 with universe point to go to regionals. We played some great defense and had the disc, but turned it over on an errant pass and the Squids converted for the heartbreaking loss.

After putting all our energy into coming back in that game, we were exhausted, burnt out and mentally drained. But we knew that there were 2 games left that we had to win against teams we’ve beaten before to still have a shot. The first team was Redlands, a very unconventional team who we beat 13-7 just the day before but also who we lost to last year on the second day of sectionals. We took an early break to go up 1-0 and from there we traded points back and forth. The game hung in the balance late as we were up 12-11 with the disc and managed to score 3 straight points to put it away. Fittingly, the game ended on a 20-yard backhand put into the endzone by 3-D (Mike Albert) that Kenny ran down and caught just inches from the ground on a bid.

So we put ourselves into a do-or-die situation. We had already used 2 lifelines and there were no more left. We played Cal-Poly Pomona, a familiar foe, who we have beaten and lost to in the past. But we have been in this situation before and lost, and we weren’t going to let that happen again. Pomona came out with a trap-zone that we easily broke and worked the disc downfield for a score the 1st 2 points and that they quickly abandoned. Even though we were tired, they were exhausted and we were able to do anything we wanted to on offense. We traded points to start off after getting the quick 1-0 break but then the crucial break came at 4-2 and then again at 5-2 and we took half at 8-3. From there we didn’t let up as the team played as one and earned our spot to regionals when V-Neck put it to Rui in the end zone for the game winning score, 15-10.

Overall, it was a great tournament for the Birds. We set out to achieve a goal we set after sectionals last year, and through the team’s hard work and dedication, earned that goal. Now, it’s time to see what noise we can make in Colorado during Regionals May 8-9.

-Das Bird