Ty CUT and Syzygy,two Carleton ultimate frisbee teams begin the pool play portion of the UPA Collegiate National Championships held in Boulder, CO. Both teams qualified for the tournament by finishing in second place at the Regional tournaments in Decorah, IA two weeks ago. CUT is heading into the tournament seeded 6th, while Syzygy locked up the 11th seed. Both the men and women tournaments have the same format, with pool play today, followed by bracket play tomorrow. The championship games are held on Sunday. After today the top teams from each pool will advance to the quarterfinals while the second and third place teams will play pre-quarter matches. The last place finisher in each pool will play consolation games to determine the number of bids each region will receive to nationals next year. CUT is in a pool with Colorado, UC-Santa Cruz and Dartmouth. The men have split their games this season with Colorado including a close universe point loss at Centex. Santa Cruz won the Northwest region while Dartmouth won the Northeast region. CUT first plays Dartmouth followed by Santa Cruz and then Colorado. In an interesting note, Santa Cruz and Dartmouth have CUT alums who play on their rosters due to the unique five years of eligibility in college Frisbee. On the women’s side, Syzygy is in the tough pool, pool B, having to face University of British Columbia, Oregon, and Northeastern. The women were seeded low due to their poor showing at Centex, but that was early in the season right after many key components had returned from off campus programs. Both Carleton teams are prepared to play well and try to pull of a national title.