USC Men's Ultimate

Despite it being the middle of finals week, and the destination being 1000 miles away, the Ghettobirds traveled to Colorado to play in the 2010 Southwest Regionals for the first time in recent memory. As the 14th seed, we drew 3rd seeded UCSB as our first opponent as played fairly well against them, losing 15-5. However, we knew the next game was gonna make or break our tournament.

With the loss to the Tide, we were placed in the 2nd place bracket, and played 11th seeded New Mexico, a team unfamiliar to us. Kenny D grabbed the first two scores as the teams traded points 2-2. It remained that way until Ghetto got a break and took half at 8-5 thanks to some unbelievable layout Ds by Grant “Mr. Muni” Houghton and some equally as impressive scores by the same man, our captain. Rookie Chandler “Mutumbo” Shipley played fantastic defense as well as helped shutdown their main deep threat as they soon figured out they can’t huck it deep when he’s on the field.

The first half was long, but the Birds came out and took a commanding 9-5 lead. It looked like we had the game wrapped up but New Mexico wasn’t going down without a fight. They got 3 straight breaks to pull within 10-9 in soft cap. But with the game on the line, the Birds moved the disc down the field patiently and Rui Xu put a perfect inside-out forehand to a diving Kenny D in the end zone that turned out to be the winning score. Ghetto 11, New Mexico 10.

After that game, we knew were still in contention for a 2nd place finish, but we came up against a strong San Diego State team that was the 5th seed. We came out and played with them in the beginning, as the game went 3-3. We destroyed their zone defense they threw and they realized they couldn’t throw it anymore. However, after those first 6 points, SDSU turned up the heat and reeled off 5 straight points to take half 8-3. They scored another 4 straight points after half but then we got some life and got 2 breaks back before they took game 15-5.

With Saturday in the books, we were playing for 9th place on Sunday, which was better than any Ghetto team was done in the past. However, instead of only playing 1 game against UC Irvine, we played an exhibition against Air Force before playing Irvine. Air Force was tough, but we took half 8-6. However, we wilted under the pressure of the moment and they took the game 15-10.

Next up was Irvine, a team in our section that we knew we would need to beat in order to keep climbing up the ladder in the SoCal section. Both teams came out fired up and after a few breaks from both teams, we took half 8-7. It went point for point in the 2nd half until Irvine got a much needed break at 13-12. But we broke right back and received the pull down 14-13. But after a turfed disc near our own end zone, Irvine easily scored to take the game.

Still, we ended up as a tie for 9th place which was better than any season we could have imagined! We met our goal of going to regionals and broke seed which was fantastic. With the bar set, we aim to fly even higher next year. We will miss our seniors, Grant Houghton, Matty “Ice” Erstling, Justin Crawford, Andrew “Ginger” Tomlin and Mike “3D” Alpert. They were a tremendous part of the team and it will be very tough replacing them.

Have a great summer!

-Das Bird