The Elon University men’s club ultimate frisbee team hosted the USA Ultimate Division III Atlantic Coast Regional tournament last weekend.
Elon’s team, which goes by Big Fat Bomb, hosted seven other schools over the two-day event with four schools from North Carolina, two from Virginia, one from Maryland and one from Washington, D.C.
As club president of Big Fat Bomb, senior Evan Miceli was the coordinator of the tournament and felt that the Campus Recreation department’s club sports division helped him immensely with running the tournament.
“I’m really happy with club sports,” Miceli said. “They’ve been really flexible and they worked really well with me. We had great communication, and we were able to pull this weekend off. We are super grateful about the fact that they let us play through some rain.”
Though thunderstorms were in the forecast for the weekend, heavy rain only appeared in a few short bursts and no lightning struck, not lasting throughout the weekend as feared. Without a delay, the matches started at 9 a.m. each day, and at least 30 people came out to show vociferous support for Big Fat Bomb.
“It was a very, very different atmosphere, especially for the seniors,” said senior Alexander Taylor. “We knew coming in that it may very well be our last tournament. And so we played a different way, we started the day a different way — it wasn’t casually getting into this, we immediately were able to get people fired up.”
Elon went 4-2 on the weekend, losing to the University of North Carolina at Asheville 14-13 Saturday and getting eliminated from contention for nationals by Davidson College 11-10 Sunday. Both of its losses came on a universe point (UP) — ultimate frisbee’s term for a sudden-death point — and Taylor felt that Big Fat Bomb’s hard-fought losses proved how tough of an opponent Elon can be.
“I think it shows how strong our team is — to be able to persevere,” Taylor said. “We’ve had times where we’re having to work to reach the UP point. And also, we’ve tried to defend that, and it’s so difficult to defend. I’ve been on a lot of UP lines before. And every single time — even when you’re most relaxed — your heart’s beating, you get the crowd going — especially at home. It’s a beautiful moment.”
Miceli added that Big Fat Bomb lost to “two very deserving teams and very good teams.”
Both Miceli and Taylor’s collegiate ultimate frisbee careers ended with Sunday’s loss, but Miceli felt that the season ending at home made it even more memorable than other years.
“It definitely made it more special,” Miceli said. “I’m really happy that we were able to pull off hosting regionals. One of my big goals coming into this year as president was to host more tournaments. It meant a lot to have my parents — and all the parents — come down here, and have all our friends here. That was really good.”