By Danielle Grondin
For The State News
Despite chilly temperatures, MSU's men's Ultimate Frisbee team was on fire this past weekend.
After going 5-0 at the Michigan Sectional Tournament in East Lansing, the team earned a No. 1 seed at regionals in Naperville, Ill., on April 29-30.
The 21-person team consistently started off strong, blocking its opponents' tosses and showing its strength with long passes and diving catches in the end zone.
MSU's team, "Burning Couches," started off the 14-team tournament on Saturday with a 15?2 win over Kalamazoo College and a 15-3 win over The University of Western Ontario.
The toughest game of Saturday's pool play tournament was against the University of Toronto.
Human biology sophomore Phil Sommer intercepted the disc and passed to English senior Ryan Carrizales, leading at 12-8.
Sommer scored the game winning point, defeating Toronto 15-12.
"We didn't really warm up; I guess we got cocky," said international relations junior Jason Schmidt. "We didn't know what to expect with Toronto."
During the semifinals, Central Michigan's defense was strong.
CMU's Kiel Smith closely covered MSU's Pete Gallina, causing Gallina, an English senior, to drop a pass from Carrizales.
Interdisciplinary studies in social science senior Tom Worsfold held off Smith's defense to score at the end of the first half, bringing the score to 8-3. After a collision between CMU's Dan Wesche and MSU's Daniel Thai, a journalism senior, Thai left the field with a shoulder injury during the second half. The Burning Couches defeated Central 15-6 with criminal justice senior Rick Vogelzang's winning save.
For the final game, MSU battled University of Michigan's "MagnUM" team for the No. 1 seed at regionals.
"They are a great team that we are very well matched with, and we know one another very well," said captain Dan Suppnick, a human biology senior.
MagnUM and the Couches matched each other point for point as the game began Sunday afternoon, but MSU quickly brought their offense full force.
Thai leaped for a catch and passed to human medicine graduate student Tony Kokx to score, bringing the score to 4-2. Schmidt ran for a long pass and caught the disc, handing it off to kinesiology senior Craig Forshee to score. MagnUM had possession of the disc late in the first half, but a long pass was intercepted by MSU and Carrizales scored. The first half ended with MSU leading, 7-5.
"Our rivalry with Michigan is intense," said Gallina. "It's a pure rivalry."
The game intensified in the second half as Suppnick narrowly caught a pass for another MSU point. Schmidt scored the game-winning point, defeating MagnUM 15-9.
"This was a good confidence-builder on the way to nationals," geological sciences senior Joe Sullivan said.
Central Michigan, Toronto, Western Ontario, MSU and U-M will go to the regionals at the end of April.
"We have the potential to win at regionals if we play the way we did today," said Schmidt. "Only two teams go on to nationals, and we'll have to face MagnUM again at regionals."
