S-PRIME URGES ON TO VICTORY
1997 CLUB NATIONALS
OCTOBER 23–26, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

Five teams came to Florida this year in search of the elusive Women's masters title. Boston's Blue Hair came to garner another victory in addition to last year's trophy and were the favorites to win. Texas's Disc—O—Tex, the Mid-Atlantic's S—Prime, Florida's West Palm Plaid and East Jesus's Swear made the trip to wrest away the championship.

THURSDAY POOL PLAY–DAY ONE

There were some great matchups and plenty of close games in the tight race to finals. Close games were de rigeur. If Boston was going to win again it wasn't going to be easy.

Due to the small number of teams there were only four games of pool play on Thursday, with Swear and West Palm getting byes.

Blue Hair started off well against the overmatched Swear and won handily 15—3. That game would prove to be the only easy one for them the entire tournament.

In a show of force, the combination team S—Prime came, saw, and conquered in the first rounds of play. They posted a 15—7 win over the Disc—O—Tex team and never looked back. Against similar competition, they defeated West Palm 15—5.

West Palm may have been off their game on Thursday. They were waiting for players to show up and played with only 8, one with mothering duties in demand. Once the rest of the team showed up they proved to be quite a match. And they did get a chance to re-match S—Prime in the semifinals.

Blue Hair found it difficult to match up with Disc—O—Tex's style of play. Although considered a better team, Blue Hair was unable to stop Disc—O—Tex from scoring. They were finally able to defeat them in a capped game, 17—15.

FRIDAY POOL PLAY–DAY TWO

Blue Hair began the day with the re-invigorated West Palm Plaid team. Again the game was close, but Blue Hair stayed ahead comfortably enough and won, 15—10.

Disc—O—Tex defeated Swear to remain in good shape for making semifinals. Their second game was against West Palm; the winner would most likely finish third and play the loser of the following Blue Hair—S—Prime match.

West Palm style was focused on intensity. They received the bid to Nationals by being the first team to realize that an open spot remained for bids, since many divisions did not send teams to regionals. As the local-area team they gathered enough women over the age of 28 to compete.

Current Master's rules only consider Regionals: players on other teams in the Open or Women's division can compete on one team for Sectionals and still play with a Master's team for Regionals.

West Palm provided quite a test for Disc—O—Tex. The game was time-capped with Plaid pulling out the final point victory, 13—12.

The match of the day featured two Master's teams with plenty of experience. Name changes can either help or hurt a team and both familiars Great Dames and Old and In The Way made the switch. Last year's champion Great Dames became Blue Hair and semis qualifiers the past two years Old and in The Way decided on S—Prime–for Sexual Prime– this time around.

S—Prime hadn't been tested much in their previous three games which featured zone coverage. They also had not gotten together for practices previous to Nationals due to prohibitive distances between players. Blue Hair had already pulled out wins in two tough games and they had a squad that met regularly for practices in the Boston area.

Blue Hair used a tough person-to-person defense that gave S—Prime some difficulty. S—Prime found themselves getting used to playing together, rather than putting points on the board. Still the game was very close. Blue Hair again pulled out a tough win, 15—13, to finish as they were seeded in first place. S—Prime completed the day with a 3—1 record, good for second and a re-match with West Palm. Blue Hair couldn't have been happy to play Disc—O—Tex again. Swear finished out of the running.

SATURDAY SEMIFINALS–DAY THREE

One probably couldn't have asked for better semifinals matchups. West Palm now had their players back, but S—Prime had garnered valuable experience from losing to Blue Hair. Disc—O—Tex was given the opportunity to play Blue Hair after losing by two in the overtime capped game on Thursday.

The games started at 9:00 am. I can't judge what the players were feeling like, but I was tired and I hadn't even played all weekend.

Blue Hair had been tested all tournament, escaping with several hard-earned victories. But they are an incredibly experienced team featuring several Boston-area veterans with years of high-caliber Ultimate between them.

Kris Severson's squad was not planning on losing to Disc—O—Tex, despite the best efforts of Karen Thursby and crew. They sucked it up and punched in a victory 15—10 to return to finals.

Meanwhile, favorites S—Prime were engaged in a heated contest with West Palm. The Palm plaid clashed with S—Prime's hand-crafted tie-dyes. Perhaps the shirts led to the bitterness on the field as the teams did not get along. The game was close throughout, with West Palm amazingly holding on to a late lead.

But S—Prime had too much talent. Several players, ranging from Pittsburgh to Washington DC, had played competitively at all levels of Ultimate. They had gathered together and came all this way–they didn't want to go home without getting what they came for–a Championship.

Featuring Alyssa Schultz on layout offense and Susie Rheinersten on layout defense, captain Laurie O'Donnell's squad fought off the Plaid and emerged victorious, 15—13, to earn a re-match of their own with Blue Hair.

SUNDAY–FINALS

"They seemed tired," commented S—Prime captain Laurie O'Donnell, referring to the Boston competition.

Indeed they must have been. They had gone through too many tough games in pool play and Semifinals and had only brought twelve players to Sarasota–compared to Prime's seventeen. The S—Prime women were just getting into their groove. They were ready and waiting for Blue Hair.

Blue Hair was unable to string together a decent run of completions. S—Prime scored the first goal after receiving the pull. From that point on the Blue Hair offense squandered opportunities while S—Prime continued to score. Ten straight turnovers, all of them before six passes had been completed, led to an early margin of 6—0 for S—Prime.

Blue Hair got it together, put the zone on, and converted some turnovers. They eased up to 2—6 before S—Prime stopped them again. They got three to Blue Hair's two and took half 9—4.

S—Prime was supremely confident. Many of the women had won Master's in 1994 as the Pickled Peppers. They knew what to do. And they were genuinely looking forward to winning again. Superior numbers also helps in the hot Florida sun–including 132 years total of Ultimate experience amongst the group of women.

Blue Hair got the pull and scored the first point to make a go at getting back into the game, 5—9. Inexplicably, another run of nine straight turnovers (compared to five, not in a row, for S—Prime) led to a five-point run for S—Prime and a huge lead at 14—5. Prime was just too good and Blue Hair was just too tired.

Traded turnovers and traded points led to the final score, 17—8, in favor of S—Prime.

The Northeastern flavor of the tournament was quickly reflected in the erroneous reporting of Blue Hair's 17—8 victory. The score was written on the board, copied into a UPA scoresheet, and otherwise promulgated to the masses, including on Rec.sport.disc. Again the un-professionalism of the tournament seeped through the cracks. But make no mistake: the Mid-Atlantic's S—Prime was the clear champion.

Captain O'Donnell expressed some concern over the future of the division. She finds it a great way to meet up with Women players from around a region that would otherwise have difficulty playing competitively due to the lack of teams.

"It's a great opportunity to pull people from everywhere as opposed to isolating just one city," says O'Donnell.

There has been some preliminary talk of disbanding the division and having Master's run separately and not by the UPA. But nobody really knows what to do and it will certainly be a while before anything gets worked out.

I was going to print all the names of the Champions S—Prime, but I was never able to get hold of the Rosters. Herewith the battle cry from S—Prime's bio:

"Abstinence turns desire into obsession, So out of retirement we come with a passion. We are back doing what we love, no matter how much we get, it's never enough. We are here to proclaim: "It's been too long!" It is definitely time. We are women–in our 30's–we are: S—PRIME!"

This was written for the UPA Newsletter.

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