Martin Laird Nominations

Every year the Australian University Ultimate community come together to recognise the people that spend hours promoting Ultimate within their communities, through the Martin Laird Awards.

The Martin Laird (Encouragement) and The Martin Laird (Achievement) Awards are awarded each year at the medal presentation at Australian University Games.

The encouragement awards are given to one male and one female; while the achievement award is given to one person, who have worked tirelessly for their University Club all year. They drive hard to recruit new members, they attend every session the club runs, they are interested in the Uni Ultimate commuity and they wear their team's colours with pride. The difference between the encouragement and achievement award is to be eligible for the encouragement award, the recipient must not have played at an AFDA National Championship event (including AUC, AMUC and ABUC) or a WFDF event.

I'm very pleased to announce SUUFA's nominations for the Martin Laird Awards in 2013:

Encouragement Award

Eunice Cheung

#7

In her first year of ultimate with SUUFA, Eunice has quickly established herself as an integral part of the club, on and off the field. She has served as team manager for both our EUG and AUG teams, ensuring that no important deadline is missed due to a frisbee player's lax sense of time. When teammates run afoul of the law, she is the one rescuing them from gaol. Further, she was recently elected to the Executive as Treasurer for 2013-4, guiding the club's finances through a key period of growth with the upcoming restructure of AUGs.

As a player, Eunice is rapidly developing into a key handler with an intuitive understanding of space and swing passes. She was a key member the SUUFA team which took silver in Wollongong at EUGs this year, as well as playing in numerous local leagues and tournaments (including a tremendous performance at Eastern Regionals without subs). She is a delight to play with, constantly smiling and bringing a refreshingly positive attitude to the game and her team. 

Achievement Award

Tamara Schai

#9

Tam's commitment and dedication to SUUFA and the ultimate community cannot be understated. She served on the Executive as President for the past two years and Development Officer before that, overseeing tremendous growth in our club's recruitment and training, as well as founding the Gnarly 9s tournament. In addition, Tam also found the time to establish her own Women's club team, Phoenix, which has competed at the last two Australian Ultimate Championships. 

On the field, Tam is an inspiring leader who refuses to let the team down, frequently playing without subs even when injured or sick. She is our Vice-Captain, helping lead the team to bronze and silver at EUGs in 2012 and 2013 respectively, while also running extra training sessions to develop new players. Further, she was selected to represent Australia for the Stringrays at the WFDF World u23 Ultimate Championships in Toronto, Canada, earlier this year.

Andy Wood

SUUFA President

EUGs Results

Eastern University Games was held in Wollongong this year and yet again it was a successful campaign for the Sydney Uni Ultimate Frisbee Club, bringing back silver medals!

We were placed in a difficult pool with some tough opposition. Many universities, including USYD, were missing players due to the U23 World Championships in Toronto. Medals were up for grabs and the telling factor between most of the top unis was the quality of their development and the new players.

Pool play results:

Beat UNSW 14-5
Beat Newcastle 12-8
Lost Mac 7-11
Beat Gong 15-2
Beat ACU 13-9

Macquarie beat us in a hard fought pool match. Key to all our victories were our new players Sarah Perkins, Eunice Cheung, Erin Hebblewhite, Charlie Roth, Erik Sesselmann and Rob Andrews.

Perhaps our hardest pool match was against ACU, who surprised us and came out strong to take half. USYD fought back to take the game.

Our semi-final was against our favoured opposition UTS. Reminiscent of 2012, USYD started the game like a bat out of hell. UTS stuck with a pommey zone defence and USYD took no prisoners when they sliced it and diced it like a TV commercial.

Going into the final, USYD were a changed team from the start of the tournament. Every navy and gold player was confident and capable, and they should be proud of their performance. In the second half USYD played a new zone named the ‘Train Wreck’ because of how it tested Mac the rest of that game. Eunice and Sarah worked themselves to tears and the rest of the team had their backs.

In the end there was one point in it, but there is no doubt that USYD gave nothing short of a gold medal performance.

Finals results:

Beat Canberra 15-5
Beat UTS 15-3

Lost Mac 10-11

Brett Latham 

SUUFA Coach 

Bluebottles and EUG Team Announcement!

Congratulations to current Sydney Uni students Alex Peters, Christine McBride, and Yixuan Tan who have been selected on the Australian u23 Mixed Team - The Bluebottles - to compete at Worlds in Toronto! The team was finalised pretty late on and is entirely self-funded so they'd really appreciate it if you head over to their fundraising page and make a donation; they're offering a bunch of cool merchandise and exclusive social media if you help out!

We're also excited to announce the SUUFA team competing at EUGs in Wollongong from July 7-11:

Arun Sharma
Allana Hearne
Charlie Roth
Erin Hebblewhite
Eunice Cheung
Erik Sesselmann
Hayley Lambert
Janek Savage (vc)
Kate Chamberlain
Lachlan Munro
Lucas Nicholls
Nathan Stacey (c)
Olivia Hedge
Rob Andrews
Sarah Perkins
Tad Nolan
Tamara Schai (vc)

We wish the Bluebottles and EUG team the best of luck, bring us home some medals!

2013 Rep Squad

Hi everyone,

Firstly, I was truly astonished at the amount of interest we received for the Rep Squad. It's a testament to the quality of players that are at Sydney Uni and it's going to be a great year.

Congratulations to the following players who will form the Rep Squad that will attend additional training on Wednesdays and Sundays - as well as NSL and potentially Uni Games.

Girls:

Amanda Ang

Allana Hearne

Ally Catterson

Ema Karavdic

Erin Hebblewhite

Eunice Cheung

Hayley Lambert

Kate Chamberlain

Maxine Rees

Olivia Hedge

Sarah Perkins

Sylwia Skoczylas

Tamara Schai

Boys:

Andrew Wood

Alex Ladomatos

Arun Sharma

Charlie Roth

Danny Marks

Darren Zomar

Dave Manescu

Erik Sesselmann

Janek Savage

Konrad Chan

Lachlan Munro

Lucas Nicholls

Nathan Stacey

Peter DeBartolo

Phil White

Rob Andrews

Sam Schrader

Sean Eggleston

Tad Nolan

Yixuan Tan

The selection was incredibly tough, and based upon a number of factors including:

• Ability/Desire to improve
• Commitment to training
• Availability for tournaments/leagues
• Performance at the tryouts

Also note that there will be additional spots for people who show improvement during Thursday practice and tournaments/NSL, and spots will open up next semester also - keep throwing!

If you have a question or concern, or would like feedback please email me and I'll be happy to help!

On behalf of the selectors,

Brett Latham

Coach

u23 Representatives!

Over the weekend the AFDA announced the Open's and Women's teams which will compete at the World u23 Ultimate Championships in Toronto, Canada in July. We'd like to offer our congratulations to everyone who made the squads, which include a number of current SUUFA members!

On the Women's side, Club President Tamara Schai and new recruit Kim Spragg will seek to defend Australia's gold medal at the last u23 Championships, while Alex Ladomatos and Andy Wood will compete with a recently re-enrolled Phil White to do the same for the Men.

SUUFA coach Brett Latham was also appointed an assistant coach of the Women's team so further congratulations to him!

AUG Results

We came second last; so much for #norelegation...

This was a pretty frustrating tournament for SUUFA. Coming into Adelaide we were feeling optimistic about medal chances and were certainly determined to prove Force Sideline and their relegation predictions wrong. Despite having a full line of experienced players opting to play Mixed Nats (in Perth; we're poor students) over AUGs we still had a wealth of experience and some talented rookies.

Things started perfectly as we picked up early wins over Adelaide, ANU, and Monash in a nailbiter. Unfortunately Janek was injured in the process and we were soundly beaten by Mac late on Day 2. We were again sluggish against a small Newcastle roster on Day 3 and couldn't muster anything further against UWA. This left us needing a win against a strong Melbourne team on the morning of Day 4, who we never looked really looked like breaking.

A relegation rematch against Mac thus loomed in the afternoon. Things started well, with Kate triumphantly calling her first in-game foul and the team holding an early 4-3 advantage. Unfortunately we completely collapsed in the face of Macquarie's zone, giving up 9 straight points to bow out of Div 1 with little dignity. Some consolation was achieved in the 7/8 playoff game as we beat Adelaide in a windy (and hungover) affair.

Personal highlights for the week:

• Taro winning every party
• Tad: "Maxine, darling, you're super poached". *Maxine cuts to the endzone and scores*
• Scoring a Callahan with my first touch of the tournament
• Madam President Tam's cutting
• The Pedo Wagon

Cya on the Gold Coast!

Andy Wood
SUUFA Communications Officer