<ast weekend the Carleton Ultimate Team (CUT) made their annual midwinter trip to the charming city of Las Vegas a three day of reprieve from the brutal winter of Northfield, only to be thwarted by a few raindrops, which managed to cancel the tournament, Trouble in Vegas, after one day.
Despite the setback, CUT did get three quality games in Friday before the tournament was called off and was able to find another field site to play some unofficial games on Sunday.
Friday started off with a very close game against the University of Oregon Ego. CUT and Ego battled all game with teams switching leads multiple times.
Ego’s feisty handlers initially had their ways, throwing to all parts of the field, but Carleton’s offense was flowing nicely after they shook off the rust from weeks of practicing inside. The game came down to a universe point, where Oregon had their chance for the win, but CUT got a huge block in the air and converted for the win.
Next was Stanford Bloodthirsty who was looking to avenge their loss to CUT in the national semifinals from last year. But CUT’s speed was too much for Stanford as players were getting open on virtually every cut. Carleton took half 7-1 and continued their dominance in the second half winning, but an impressive 13-1.
After a bye round CUT would face a rematch of last year’s national championship game against University of Colorado Mamabird. At this point the weather began to deteriorate as the wind picked up and the rain began to fall.
CUT came out strong and took half 7-5, but as would be the story all weekend, CUT would have trouble finishing teams in the second half. Colorado broke out of half and began their crawl back into the game, eventually taking a lead 12-11 before CUT forced a universe point at 12-12. But Carleton’s defense could not stop Colorado giving CUT their first loss of the season.
CUT came to the fields Saturday prepared to play three more games against Cornell, Florida, and another team after reseeding, but due to the inclement weather the field site was shut down, this was most likely due to the fact that the fields had been virtually destroyed last year from playing in the rain.
Bummed, CUT followed the lead of their geology-major-captain Sam Kanner ’10 and took a trip Red Rock National Park where they were amazed by the rock climbing genius of Adrian Chow ’10.
Thanks to senior Adam Fagin’s social skills and knowledge of additional field sites around Las Vegas, CUT managed to play Cornell, Wisconsin and Tufts on Sunday. Although not officially sanctioned, CUT used the games as additional experience and another chance to play outside.
It was a beautiful day and CUT took advantage jumping out on Cornell and cruising to 15-7 victory.
CUT opened strong against their archrival Wisconsin Hodags, starting off with two breaks and taking a half-time lead, but again Carleton’s offense was not strong enough in the second half and CUT ended up losing another universe point game 17-16.
Despite the disappointing loss, CUT came out against an overmatched Tufts squad winning 15-8. Unfortunately towards the end of the weekend CUT could not stay injury free Chow sustained a concussion in one of the last points and Simon Montague ’13 pulled his hamstring.
CUT will be back in action 9th weekend when they attend the Stanford Invite but two of Carleton’s six other teams (in case you haven’t heard, Carleton now has three men’s and three women’s teams) will be in action this weekend. Syzygy and GOP will be attending PresDay in San Diego as they see their first action of the 2010 season.