Six years at UCLA. Four nationals appearances.
That sums up the short history of the Bruin Ladies Ultimate, UCLA’s club ultimate frisbee team, which is traveling to Columbus, Ohio, for its fourth-straight Ultimate Players Association College Championships campaign.
After entering the last three seasons’ tournaments as heavy favorites, BLU enters this year’s 20-team tournament as an underdog with the No. 11 seed. Sophomore cutter Adrienne Baker said that the lower seeding relieves much of the pressure the team has faced in past years.
“It’s a great place for us to be in,” Baker said. “We can go out and just play our own game.”
The Bruins’ lower seeding this season is mostly due to having a younger team. The team lost six players from last year’s squad, and many younger players have had to step up, junior captain Sarah Peters said.
“A lot of people had to slowly take big roles,” Peters said. “They’ve done a great job of doing it.”
Baker, only in her second year with BLU, echoed the same sentiments.
“Because we are such a young team, we can spread our roles out,” she said. “We can all contribute to the team.”
With four consecutive nationals campaigns, the Bruins have significant experience in high-pressure games. They are hoping to have an advantage in keeping their composure over less experienced teams.
“A lot of teams have not been to nationals before and don’t know what it’s like,” Peters said. “(Our experience) is an advantage for us.”
Despite their seasoned team, Peters said other teams have lower expectations for BLU.
“This year, we’re coming in at the middle, at the 11 seed,” Peters said. “We have so much room to exceed others’ expectations. We have very high expectations for ourselves, but I think they’re underrating us.”
TOURNAMENT
FORMAT: The tournament features four pools of five teams each. The results of this pool play determine the 12-team bracket that leads to Monday’s championship.
UCLA’s pool includes No. 2 Washington, No. 7 Michigan, No. 14 Saint Louis and No. 18 Northeastern. Also in the tournament is top seed UC Santa Barbara, which has beaten UCLA during the regular season as well as in each of the last two UPA semifinals.
Pool play will take place Friday and Saturday. The top finishers from each pool receive a bye until Sunday’s quarterfinals. The second and third place finishers compete across pools for the final spots.
The teams that miss the quarterfinals fall into a loser’s bracket that concludes with a series of consolation matches.
After Sunday evening’s semifinal matches, the tournament concludes with Monday morning’s championship game.