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