Shelly Grostefon
Senior Sports Writer
Betty Gone Wild, the women’s ultimate frisbee team at The College of Wooster, participated this past weekend at a tournament in Cincinnati, hosted by Xavier University. There, they found success both in their fourth place finish, as well as in their overall improvement as a team.
Betty sent two teams to this tournament: the A team, their more competitive team, and the B team, the team geared more towards learning, improvement and shared playing time, especially for the team’s rookies. The A team beat their seed to place fourth overall in the tournament, beating Xavier.
In addition to their competitive spirit, the team focused on enjoying the game at Xavier. “Very high spirits were present this weekend,” said Hallie Scanlon ’17.
Scanlon, Thea Kwan ’17 and Emma Brinton ’18 serve as captains of the team as a whole. Leading the B team were Elena Soyer ’17 and Emily Partika ’19.
The team has benefitted from the contributions of each member, and notably from rookies Kayleigh Dietz ’19, Ellie Kahn ’20 and Mara Sheban ’18.
Looking ahead, the team hopes to improve. Ultimate frisbee at the College is played all year round, with fall being the team’s season for learning the game and improvement. Scanlon is confident in Betty’s work so far. “We are very excited to have such a strong foundation at the beginning of the year, because we only intend to improve from here,” she said.
The team is unique in that there is no coach. This is not an issue as the team encourages strong communication between team members and captains. Strong communication on and off the field helps Betty with any issues that may arise.
Also unique about ultimate frisbee is that the game is played without any referees. How do the Betties deal with this? “We try to reward our opponent at the end of each game by showing them how much we appreciate their energy, skills and honesty,” according to Scanlon.
In the coming months, the team will continue to work on the basics of the game, especially throwing and catching the frisbee, but also on more advanced skills, such as developing a strong defense. This plan for improvement will also include more rigorous conditioning work.
The team’s largest focus is to keep spirits high throughout the season. Scanlon said, “One main goal this year is to stay committed and focused, but also to have as much fun as possible …While our A team does focus on winning, we are not driven by that as a whole, because that’s not what Betty is about.”
As far as intricacies of the game goes, the team also wants to focus on smart decision-making and flexibility in competition.
Even with their success in competition, Betty’s emphasis is on enjoyment of the game. “Betty really focuses on the spirit of the game and trying to have fun,” Scanlon said.