History: 2004 – 2005 Season

Regular Season Record: 22-9
Series Record: 9-5
End of Season Standing: Tied for 13th at College Championships, eliminated in pool play

Roster:

Freshmen # 3 David Vatz # 0 Jake Symoniak Sophomores # 29 Evan Jenkins # 8 Josh Suskin # 4 Reed Verdesoto # 21 Robert Dulabon # 6 Stu Kellner # 13 Wes Shonk Juniors # 14 Andrew Willment # 16 Ben Ristau # 10 Brent Bellinger Seniors # 22 Mike LoPresti # 37 Rich Coker # 2 Sean McComb* # 23 Tony Oliva 5th Year/Grad

Head Coach: David Lionetti* denotes team captain

Awards:

Metro East Freshman of the Year: David Vatz

Tournaments:

3rd Annual Rookie Game against CMU: Pittsburgh – August 30th, 2004
Founder’s Club Sectionals: Turkey Swamp, NJ – September 18th – 19th, 2004
Fall Phling: State College, PA – September 25th – 26th, 2004
Skylander IV: Edinboro, PA – October 2nd – 3rd, 2004
Brian Lo Memorial: Rutgers, NJ – October 16th – 17th, 2004
Alumni Weekend/Game: Cost Center, Pitt Campus – October 24th, 2004
Danse Macabre: Rochester, NY – October 30th – 31st, 2004
Fall Scrimmages: Cost Center, Pitt Campus – November 1st – December 2nd, 2004
Turkey Toss: Latrobe, PA – November 13th, 2004
Joint Summit Classic XXI: Clemson, SC – January 29th – 30th, 2005
Spring Collegiates: Greenville, NC – February 26th – 27th, 2005
Spring Break and WUFF Camp: Wilmington, NC – March 4th – 11th, 2005
College Terminus: Cumming, GA – March 12th – 13th, 2005
Ultimax XXXV: Greenville, NC – March 26th – 27th, 2005
Spring Phling: State College, PA – April 2nd – 3rd, 2005
West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 16th – 17th, 2005
Metro East Regionals: Princeton, NJ – May 7th – 8th, 2005
UPA College Championships: Corvallis, OR – May 27th – 29th, 2005

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Pittsburgh-B

Regular Season Record:
Series Record: 9-4
End of Season Standing: 8th at West Penn Sectionals, eliminated in quarterfinals of 4th place bracket (8-15 to Shippensburg)

Pittsburgh-B Roster:

Freshmen # 99 Abram Rodd Adam Kunes # 33 Ajeet Mehta Amar Mehta # 33 Bailey Roche Chris Winschel # 9 David Ninaci # 74 Eric Sabey Greg Sinn # 12 Jon Kurss # 11 Nick Kaczmarek* Sam Nelson Sophomores # 11 Camilo Ward # 0 Daniel Slipakoff # 20 John Scheeser # 5 Jon Harden # 7 Justin Krebs Juniors Seniors 5th Year/Grad

* denotes team captain

Pittsburgh-B Tournaments:

Bowling Green: Bowling Green, OH – February 26th, 2005
SteakFest ’05: Shippensburg, PA – March 19th – 20th, 2005
Maryland B Team Tournament: College Park, MD – April 9th – 10th, 2005
West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 16th – 17th, 2005

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3rd Annual Rookie Game against CMU: Pittsburgh – August 30th, 2004

This tournament gave our rookies a first taste of what competitive Ultimate is all about. They also had a chance to witness what level of play then can expect to achieve when the veterans took the field to play a half.

Team Rookies:

Team Veterans:

Pool Play: Carnegie Mellon rookies
Both Veteran and Rookie alike were ready to get out on the field and show
off what had been learned over the past week of practices. However, the
CMU rookies seemed to be much more formidable this year than last year.
Successfully capitalizing on early mistakes and utilizing the skills of
their new rookie and member of the 2005 US Worlds junior team Tommy Hendrickson and new graduate student Ben Lawson the CMU rookies took the half 6-4. After half Pitt focused on correcting previous mistakes and worked hard to close the gap to 10-7. The cap was on making it a game to 12. The rookies fought hard showing some great defensive skills and closed the gap to tie the game at 10’s. It was only two short points later and Pitt took the game on two quick CMU turns. The rookies showed a lot of heart coming back from a huge deficit and ended up squeaking out a victory. While wining with a higher margin would have been fun it was very telling of the character of our rookies. Judging by this game, both Pitt and CMU have bright futures in the college series.

Pool Play: Carnegie Mellon veterans
Knowing full well that the CMU Veterans would want revenge, we headed into the Veterans game determined to have a repeat En Sabah Nur victory. We came out on fire the first half really having great flow on offense, this is a great feat considering we hadn’t played together as a team since sectionals last year. We were hot and took the first half with a 4-1 lead. CMU proved in many prior meetings that they were not the kind of team to lay down and give-up. CMU fought hard as the time apart took its effect on Pitt. CMU eventually caught up and took the lead. Some mistakes on our part came late in the game and seemed too much to overcome in a short game. CMU pulled out the victory 8 – 6. While being excited for our rookies this game proved to the Vets there is still a little rust that needs shaken off and there are still many areas where we need to improve individually and as a team.

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Founder’s Club Sectionals: Turkey Swamp, NJ – September 18th – 19th, 2004

This weekend Cheese was behind the wheel with his first mate Slip leading and intrepid group of rookies on a quest for eternal glory. Attendees: Vets-John “Cheese” Scheeser, Daniel “Slip” Slipakoff. Rookies-Bailey Roche, Same Ginsburg, Abe Rodd, Jake Symoniak, Pat Duffey, Jon Kurss, Ben Spager, Phil Kuhn, David Ninaci (Where’s Bill?) Good times were had by all! Fine tobacco was smoked, puke went out the window, urine hit a Nalgene, we had fine food at Bailey’s rather moderate house (just kidding), all in all a very productive and fun tournament.

Pool Play: Swarthmore
With wide eyes and beating hearts, an excited En Sabah Nur squad took the
field for what was the first real game of their young ultimate careers. Although the players were not always fundamentally sound, they were carried by their enthusiasm and adrenaline. The true meaning of “team” was on display as Sabah’s
zone defense completely stifled a Swat B team that was very unaccustomed to such an aggressive yet strategic system. The individual talents of the players were also shown through the numerous lay-out d’s and catches. This was a big win for the team and a sign of things to come for the rookies.

Pool Play: 2-Bit
In our 2nd game of the tournament, we took on 2-Bit, a club team from Johnstown, PA. While not the best club team out there they are filled with many people who have been play the game for a long time. During the game the rain started to come down pretty hard, but that didn’t keep us from putting up a hard fight. 2-Bit started off with a favorable lead and throwing a pretty tough defense at us. We continued to hustle and lay out on both offense and defense, coming up with some hot plays and a few scores to keep us going. One such play, that proved to work well throughout the tournament, was a break-side cut by Abe in the endzone to completely blow 2-Bit’s mind for a score. Though we came up short in the game, plays like this one, and the overall willpower of our team made this bout feel a lot closer than the score makes it appear.

Pool Play: Cheltenham High School
Pool Play: Cheltenham High School (Loss 13-5)
The game got off to a bad start early. We lost track of fundamentals and had a few turnovers deep in our zone, making it easy for them to score. Everyone kept their heads up, and we started to move the frisbee well in the stack. Soon after, they switched to a zone D and we picked the zone apart very well. Too little too late, because we gave the disc up too many times, but we learned a lot about how to play a solid man d, how to better run a man O, and how to run a zone O. On a whole, even though we lost, it was a good game. We learned a lot and nobody quit.

Pool Play: Highland Park High School
Our game against Highland Park was the last of the day and unfortunately, we did not pull out a win. However, all throughout this game our players showed intensity and heart by not giving up. This game had some really hot layout Ds and some hot offensive catches by ESN. ESN made some fundamental mistakes including but not limited to turning the disc over 5 yards from the goal line. HP capitalized on our mistakes and ended the game with the final score at 13 – 6. Our zone offense and defense seemed to get better as the tournament went along. It was a good game and showed us that our fundamentals are not mastered yet but they are improving. As a team, we played well but it was not enough to come out with a win against a seasoned Highland Park team.

Pool Play: Carnegie Mellon
We entered the second day of Club Sectionals pumped up and ready to prove ourselves against some college level competition from our region. The match against Mr. Yuk started off rough, and we found ourselves trailing going into half-time. However, we weren’t about to be blown out. In the second half, we started using a very effective zone defense, and began to mount a comeback. As the second half went on, we closed the gap and almost caught up to Mr. Yuk. Unfortunately, the hard cap gave them a 12-10 win in what turned out to be a very close game.

Pool Play: Pennsylvania
U Penn started out strong, going up 3-0 really quick. We switched from a
man defense to a zone defense and completely shut them down, we pulled out
an 8-0 run and took the half at 8-3. After the half we went man D for a while and got crushed by a very adept Void offense the cap went on making it a race to 13 with a score of Void 11 En Sabah Nur 7. Void scored, they needed only one point to close out the game and our day. En Sabah Nur wasn’t ready to go home yet! We capitalized on an O point and then threw on our zone D. We just plain stifled the Void offense and were able to get a lot of turns closing in on the game En Sabah Nur 11 Void 12. Void then made an excellent huck play before we could set the zone catching our deep off guard taking the game 13-11. The Highlights of the game were Pat Duffy (aka Step-by-Step) going up for mad Ds all day, and Jake sporting some really good chasing in our zone defense. The big problem in this game was the fact that we gave up way to many turns right near the goal line early in the game, leaving U Penn with only 10 yards for a score. When we actually made them work the whole field for a point it was a totally different story. All in all, the team showed a lot of heart, coming back twice and showing the U Penn team that we weren’t going to lay down and hand them the game.

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Fall Phling: State College, PA – September 25th – 26th, 2004

En Sabah Nur hit the road again heading up to State College to match up against area college teams that we would be seeing through the remainder of the year. We had a roster of 23 which is one of the biggest turnouts ever for En Sabah Nur. This allowed us to split into two teams, X and Y, on Saturday after our first pool play game. We recombined on Sunday.

In attendance were: Veterans – John “Cheese” Scheeser, Justin Krebs, Reed Verdesoto, Ben Ristau, Camilo Ward, Wes Shonk, Tony Oliva, Josh Suskin, Stu Kellner, Robert Dulabon, Mike LoPresti, and Evan Jenkins. Rookies – Sam Nelson, David Vatz, Bailey Roche, Steve Sapienza, Ryan Snyder, Matt Clinger, David Ninaci, Pat Duffey, Chris Winschel, Greg Sinn, and Nick Kaczmarek. Brody attended on Saturday as our coach.

Big thanks go out to Greg Sinn’s family, who opened their wonderful home (and kitchen!) to the members of our team!

Team A:

Team X:

Team Y:

Pool Play: Maryland C
We set the tone early in this game, with the first point featuring a
beautiful layout D by sophomore Josh Suskin. Following that D, we were able to perform very efficiently in the first half on offense, with freshman sensation David Vatz scoring 6 points in that half alone. After taking half 8-2, we let up a bit in the second half, allowing them to get a few more points than they deserved, but ended the game as a 12-6 victory, and overall, a very solid performance.

Pool Play: Delaware
Our game against UDel Sideshow was a great game. To start out, UDel Sideshow displayed teamwork and built up a lead on ESN. However, as the game continued to progress ESN started to slowly but surely come back. UDel Sideshow players were becoming frustrated from not being able to tear out a win. ESN players showed lots of fire and will to win during this game. Through guidance from a few Rage players, UDel Sideshow came out with a win in the end. ESN proved that ESN is a team not to be taken lightly.

Pool Play: Penn State X
Coming off a disappointing loss to Maryland and still wearing fresh
war paint, En Sabah prepared to vent its frustration on rival Penn State.
Highlights of this game include Tony making Foss, Penn State’s best
handler, his bitch by continually shutting him down, especially during his
one hand block, Krebs doing the impossible with a beautiful huck, layouts galore and a much improved offense. While the score showed a loss, the hustle and determination of En Sabah was definitely something we could all be proud of.

Pool Play: Maryland
During this game against Maryland, the rookies got much more playing time.
Since we beat Maryland the day before, the veterans decided to sit much more and let the rookies get some experience against a very good team. In this game the rookies played their hearts out and showed some excellent skills and pulled in some excellent catches. Our defensive game was also excellent. But due to the lack of experienced players our game just didn’t click and we lost 12-6, but it was a hard played game and all of the rookies show some great talent.

Pool Play: Penn State Y
Pitt came out fast and mounted a solid lead before they threw a zone on us and slowed our momentum. They came back to make it a 7-6 half. After half, we jumped out to a 10-6 lead before squandering yet another lead. The game ended close, but we pulled it out. Sweet stuff: nice continuation cuts. Bad stuff: pivot not swinging fast enough/not getting it off the line. Mediocre stuff: dump status was kind of weak.

Pool Play: Delaware
This was our first game as a split team. We had to move to fields that
were really hard and terrible, while team one got to stay on plush grass,
those bastards! It was pretty windy for this game and UDel out matched us athletically and skill wise, scoring easy huck goals time and time against. It was a frustrating defeat, but we took solace in our improvement over the course of the game.

Pool Play: Carnegie Mellon
After a tough loss to Sideshow, we took our strong second half from that game and followed it with a solid team performance against Mr. Yuk. Facing our local rivals, we knew we would have a tough game with really only half our team present, but we put everything we had left on the line. We hung with them the whole entire game and really played our hearts out. Everybody played at the top of our games and unfortunately we came up a little short in the end. There were many great plays from the whole team on both offense and defense and we could tell that Mr. Yuk was a little worried about our late push at the end of the game. It was probably our split team’s best game on Saturday and even though we lost, our performance was definitely something to be proud off. We learned a lot about the importance of sticking together as a team and really showed just how good of a team we can be.

Pool Play: Penn State Z
This team had a number of players that we got to know at WUFF Camp last year. This was the fourth game for most people, and the third with a very small team. We were pretty exhausted. Even though we lost all three games as a split team, all the rookies got a lot of experience and we really improved and got closer as a team

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Skylander IV: Edinboro, PA – October 2nd – 3rd, 2004

Due to bad excuses and some early morning Jeep vandalism En Sabah Nur headed up to Skylander savage (only 7 players strong). But by the end of the weekend our roster blew up to a plump 12 on Sunday due in part to RUN dropping on Saturday at Club Regionals. All in all this was a mediocre showing, we could have done better with the personnel there and there were only a few positives that came out of this weekends games. Personnel in attendance: Veterans – John “Cheese” Scheeser, Evan Jenkins, Tony Oliva, Andrew Willment, Josh Suskin, Rich “Fraggle” Coker, Brent “Easy” Bellinger, Daniel “Slip” Slipakoff, Mike LoPresti, and William “Brody” Brotman as coach. Rookies – David Ninaci, Sam Ginsburg, Ben Spager, Adam Kunes, and Jake “Kitten” Symoniak.

A big thanks goes out to the family of David Ninaci who played host for En Sabah Nur this weekend and to Mrs. Dulabon for providing a spread of tasty treats for Sunday’s games.

Pool Play: Buffalo
This was our first game of the Skylander tournament. We came out savage
with no subs whatsoever. However, this did not dampen our spirits during
this game. We played with much intensity on both offense and defense.
However, we made some fundamental mistakes that cost us a few points leading the final score to be 12(Buffalo) – 10(ESN). Tony Oliva arrived late to the tournament despite an unfortunate event that involved his car being vandalized. Tony’s arrival even through hardships was a big moral booster for the En Sabah Nur team in attendance. A notable perforce for the game worth mentioning was Josh Suskin’s 6 goals, 3 layout D’s, 1 near concussion, and 3 point blocks, one of which was then caught by Tony Oliva for a layout Callahan.

Pool Play: Allegheny
Ready to avenge the loss to Buffalo, ESN came out fast against Allegheny. We built a quick lead and never looked back. The veterans exhibited great leadership and used the game to teach the rookies new concepts. Although Sabah got sloppy with the disk at the very end, after the outcome had become inevitable, they learned from their mistakes and finally punched in the final point. This all in all was a very cold and wet game but also was a lot of fun, playing against a very spirited Allegheny team.

Pool Play: Ithaca
This game was quite memorable simply for the spirit of the game that was
shown by both competitors. As usual for this tournament Nawshus took an
early lead quickly. Nawshus then decided to throw on a zone defense that was shredded by a superb popping job of Andrew Willment and Adam Kunes. Even though we beat the zone up and down the field for 50 yards we got way to risky with the disc and threw it away within yards of the endzone. The game looked out of reach when the soft cap on making it a race to 11 with Nawshus at 9 and En Sabah Nur somewhere near 7 points. We made a valiant comeback reaching within two points of Nawshus when the hard cap went on, by the tournament rules the game was over at the conclusion of the point making it impossible for us to win, Sabah Nur finished the point with a score and the game ended at Nawshus 9 and En Sabah Nur at 8. Nawshus proved to be tough competitors and a very spirited group of guys by lamenting that they wished we could have finished out the game so that a clear cut winner could be decided. But tournament rules dictated that game was over with us holding the bag and a one point deficit.

Pool Play: James-Madison X
In our last game of the first day at Skylander, we faced off against JMU Hellfish X. JMU had a big jump early. Unfortunately, due mostly to our mistakes, JMU kept a commanding lead for most of the game. We kept our spirits up, though, and fought the game out until the end. We would only have to wait one day for revenge would be ours on Day 2…

Pool Play: Edinboro Alum and Friends
Although ESN was re-energized by the arrival of Brody, Fraggle, Brent, Dulabon, and Jake, the team seemed to get lost in the fog. Pitt underestimated this very experienced team, as they came out to a quick 3-0 lead. It was then that we took a deep breath, calmed down, and started making better decisions and battled back. Unfortunately the comeback was cut short by the hard cap, we actually won the second half 8-6, but our first half deficit was just too much to overcome. The fact that we settled down and made a real game out of the match-up said a lot about the composure of the team.

Pool Play: Rochester Institute of Technology
The game started out extremely well. We scored the first three points,
and absolutely dominated of both offense and defense. Unfortunately, we
started playing down to the level of the RIT team, which certainly wasn’t
high. We did take half 8-3, but it certainly could have been a shut-out. Our less then par play continued into the second half, but we were able to hold on and win with the hard cap. While we didn’t play our best, a win is a win and there were some flashes of brilliance. All and all, it was a decent performance.

Pool Play: James Madison Y
For the last game of the Skylander tournament, we played the JMU Hellfish Y team, which was made up of many of the same players we played on their X team in Day 1. To the casual observer, it looked as if the game was very close, when in fact, Sabah took a commanding lead early by taking advantage of any mistakes that the Hellfish made. Great zone offense and many defensive goal line stands ensured that JMU was never given a chance to even get into the game. Sabah kept up this level of play until the end, with a final score of 15-7. On a selfish not I (Cheese) as web master would like to pimp my performance during this game in which I scored 3 times in a single game. It is a feat that has never happened before and it may never happen again, so I just want it recorded here for posterity’s sake.

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Brian Lo Memorial: Rutgers, NJ – October 16th – 17th, 2004

En Sabah Nur visited the Garden State for a second time this year competing in the Brian Lo Memorial tournament at Rutgers. In attendance this weekend: Veterans – Andrew Willment, Bailey Roche, Ben “TallE” Ristau, Brent “Easy” Bellinger, Camilo ward, Evan Jenkins, John “Cheese” Scheeser, Jon Harden, Josh Suskin, Justin Krebs, Mike LoPresti, Reed Verdesoto, Rich “Fraggle” Coker, Stu Kellner, Wes Shonk and William “Brody” Brotman as coach. Rookies – Bailey, Roche, Chris Winschel, David “the Rookie” Ninaci, Dave Vatz, Greg Sinn, Nick Kaczmarek, Sam Nelson
View Stats

A special thanks goes out to Josh Suskin and his family for housing us this weekend and introducing us to the “Grease Trucks”.

Pool Play: Delaware
This was truly a game for the ages. We started on offense against a UDel team that went to nationals last year and had many strong players. We drew first blood, going up 1-0. Following this, we traded point a bit, but UDel got a few breaks and ended up taking half 8-6. Both teams traded points once again until the score was 11-9, when we clamped down our defense, and got back the breaks that they took from us in the first half. The score was 11-11 and cap went on, which at this tournament meant +1 hard – game to 12, universe point, we’re on Defense. A strong zone defense was able to create yet another turn on a good Delaware offense, and allowed us to go on to win the game 12-11. This game was Pitt’s first ever win against a team that was at nationals the previous year, and is certainly a game that will go down in history as one of the most exciting games played during the 2004 fall season.

Pool Play: Columbia
We were only able to get only three points played of this game before it was called due to the weather. The three points that we did play were really hot and we easily managed to score on every O point. It is important to note that because of wining this game and the game against Sideshow we were able to break seed up to the #1 spot in our pool!

Pool Play: New York University
This was the final game to finish out pool play for this tournament. NYU seemed to be a dedicated yet somewhat “young” team. Rather than running with this team and playing down to their level we were able to keep this game in hand and never let them get into it. We were able to easily force turnovers in the first few passes and then convert for the easy 30 yard score. While there were no stand out performances this game it was very much a team effort. We were able to be a commanding force on both man and zone defenses while keeping offensive mistakes to a minimum.

Pool Play: Pennsylvania
The wind was howling and this was an upwind/downwind game from the very start. The turning point was when we were within yards of scoring an upwinder that might have been the difference, up turned it over. Also factoring into this game was the hard cap. Hard caps really suck in close games.

Pool Play: Drew
Drew Blood came out and played an aggressive zone defense the entire game,
crunching their cup tight around our handlers along the sidelines. Most
of their points came from turnovers within thirty yards of our own goal
line. Our defense which was also mostly zone, was intense and during one
point, they only managed to score by throwing up a blade fifty feet in the air and magically came down with it. Coming out of a time out though, Pitt showed how to rip up a zone D by slicing through it with brisk direct passes flowing all the way to the goal line. Andrew made some sweet plays in the end zone even with Blood players hanging on his arms. But with time winding down to the cap, and down 10-8, Blood called a time-out and Sabah needed to score within a minute before the cap. We marched it down to the goal line but got D’ed and Blood scored one last time to rub it in.

Pool Play: Brandeis
This was our final game of the Rutgers tournament, against Brandies, aka
“Tron.” Everyone was pretty cold and tired by now, but fired up and ready to win our last game. ESN came out strong, but Tron fought back, and kept us on our toes the whole game; it was close down to the very end. The cap came on with the score ESN 11, Tron 10, with ESN in possession. All we had to do was score once to win, but we couldn’t get the goal, and Tron caught up, 11-11, universe point. The point was long and intense, with both teams coming close to a score multiple times. ESN couldn’t quite put it in, but with the momentum from Camilo Ward’s two point blocks we drove it up the field, and put a short pass in for a layout goal by Greg Sinn, to win the game.

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Alumni Weekend/Game: Cost Center, Pitt Campus – October 24th, 2004

A great afternoon spent playing ultimate with a great group of former En Sabah Nur players with a pre-game “King of the Mats” blade fest up at the Cost Center. En Sabah Nur Alumni in attendance – John “Doughboy” Bain, William “Brody” Brotman, Chris “Youngblood” Tabakin, Jay “Whitey” Paulonis, Mike Yanchak, Mike Finnerty, Aaron Paulos.

Pool Play: En Sabah Nur Veterans
The Classic Old School vs. New School Battle This contest of new versus old turned out to be pretty exciting. The alumni showed a lot of heart and determination by playing hard even though they were savage. Some of them had not played ultimate for years, but they quickly found their old skills. Early on we had to play on a small field due to a baseball camp, and the old guys took advantage of not having to run as much by grabbing a lead. When we moved to the full-size field we started to make a comeback, but this game was destined for overtime. The alumni at one point had the lead 15-14, but we put on a hot line and were able to pull out the victory by a score of 18-16. This game was a great opportunity for our rookies to play and see some of the past stars of En Sabah Nur. On behalf of the entire team, I would like to thank all the alumni who came out for this game. See you next year!

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Danse Macabre: Rochester, NY – October 30th – 31st, 2004

A productive outing into upstate New York yielded another winning streak in pool play on Saturday, a hard fought victory against section rival Edinboro and a “Lost Boys” costume theme from the movie Hook. In attendance this weekend: Veterans – Brent “Easy” Bellinger, Camilo Ward, Daniel “Slip” Slipakoff, Evan Jenkins, Josh Suskin, Justin Krebs, Mike LoPresti, Reed Verdesoto, Rich “Fraggle” Coker, Robert Dulabon, Stu Kellner, Wes Shonk and William “Brody” Brotman as Coach. Rookies – Abe Rodd, Ajeet Mehta, Alex Heitman, Amar Mehta, Bailey Roche, Dave “the Rookie” Ninaci, Dave Vatz, Jake “Kitten” Symoniak, Jon Kurss, Nick Kaczmarek, Pat Duffey, and Sam Ginsburg.
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A big thanks goes out to the families of Jake Symoniak and Jon “Bacon” Selig for providing housing for us this weekend.

Team A:

Team Stu:

Pool Play: Buffalo
After a short delay buffalo showed up on the field having a good time.
Intoxicated as they were, they still came out strong and were ready to
pull down some swilly hucks. One thing we decided that we needed to work on was to have all of our players sprinting under those hucks, so that we can put a stop to that non-sense. Despite that fact, Stu Kellner came up with a couple of huge skies to shut down the other team. Our man defense improved throughout the game and by the end we finally stopped getting beat in. Brent Bellinger came up with a nice layout catch for our last goal and the game ended 8-7. Distracted as we were by the partying Buffalo team we somehow avoided staring at the half-naked women and ignored the vulgar display of the male anatomy to come up with a win.

Pool Play: Rochester Institute of Technology B
In this game, we tried to play our rookies as much as possible in anticipation of the following vet-heavy game against Edinboro. We took a quick, small lead to start off the game. But we soon began throwing away the disc and dropping easy passes, giving away unforced turnovers. Our intensity dropped and the score quickly swung in their favor. Brody was forced to call a timeout and told us that our rookies had much more potential than what we were showing on the field, and that we were playing down to their level. We needed to step up our game and show some heart. In the second half, we did just that. Sabah rallied back into the lead and took the game 13-7. Perhaps more important than the win, our rookies obtained a lot of game experience during this match.

Pool Play: Edinboro
The game took off quickly. We took a three to nothing lead and our intensity and team moral was soaring. However, we got hit with a case of the nerves and we made a bunch of mistakes and turnovers that let them back into the game. They took a 5-3 lead. We swapped points and they took the lead to half time, 7-4. In the second half, our zone D came out flying. With a series of great stops and points, we tied the game 8 and then again at 9. Somewhere in there, Stu had an amazing catch on the goal line that he quickly threw for a goal to Wes. The final score ended up being 11-9, Sabah.

Quarterfinal: SSPL
Our final game was against a Rochester club team. These guys were
experienced, and guys who knew how to play ultimate. They had handlers, and some were actually fast. Being that it was a windy day, and they were old, they of course threw a zone that at times we were able to shred. However, we too often threw discs into the wind, turfed our throws, or just were not paying attention and turned over the disc (this lack of attention cost us two Callahans, one of which was game point and ended the game). They put up swill, came down with it time and time again. Our amazing ability to play as a team was not present at this game. Granted, they were some good players, but we didn’t play with the intensity or the heart of the previous day. That was our first and final game of the day. We then decided to scrimmage ourselves. Color was decided by a pokey match pairing Krebs and Dulabon against each other. This was the most ridiculous pokey match all year, and even after no up call was made and infuriated Krebs, he still lost to Rob, and Rob’s team stayed dark. At least our spirits were back up, and were able to play as a team again, if not against another team, but against ourselves. Overall, Dance Macabre was a great tourney. Since we were dressed as Lost Boys from Hook, the only way to really describe the weekend is BANGARANG!!!!!!!

Pool Play: Olive Garden
Stu decided that his ridiculous catches during the day weren’t enough, he
had to be the star at Olive Garden too. When he sat down, he looked to the table next to him and noticed a large plate of uneaten food. Being the good, conservative man he is, he couldn’t let the food go to waste. He proceeded to take the plate, put it on his lap, and commence the eating of someone else’s food. Slip even fed him a noodle. Brent them suggested that they may come back, and Stu tried to put the food back, but the lady saw him and hit him with her food box. She then cried to the manager like a little bitch. The manager approached Stu and repeated the exact same thing over and over, despite Stu’s apologies and the fact that he offered to pay their bill. She tried to blame Bailey too, insisting he fed the noodle to Stu. The confrontation ended with a stern warning that Stu would be watched for the remainder of the night.

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Fall Scrimmages: Cost Center, Pitt Campus – November 1st – December 2nd, 2004

We are using the indoor Cost Center to its full potential by hosting a series of indoor scrimmages. Teams that have done battle late night at the Cost Center include – Duquesne University, Carnegie Mellon, and Edinboro.

Scrimmage: Duquesne
This game took play on 11/1/04.

Scrimmage: Carnegie Mellon
This game took play on 11/8/04.

Scrimmage: Carnegie Mellon
This game took play on 11/22/04.

Scrimmage: Edinboro
This game took play on 12/02/04.

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Turkey Toss: Latrobe, PA – November 13th, 2004

With a rather long break between the Fall and Spring seasons, many Sabah players were itching for a chance to get outside and play some ultimate. Along with a few ladies from Pansy, we packed up our cars last minute and took a road trip up to St. Vincent College for this one day tournament. After the day was over we came out with a tournament victory. For many of us, it was our first tournament win EVER!!! While the competition wasn’t always of the highest caliber, we still managed to play some hot ultimate with many spirited and fun games.

Moments of Greatness: Cheese catching his first ever Callahan! DTR’s finals winning falling backwards catch. Andrew’s freaking sick layout grab in the endzone. Stu’s last minute layout for the goal. Wes’ brother PJ jumping on the line to play a few points with us.

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Joint Summit Classic XXI: Clemson, SC – January 29th – 30th, 2005

Pool Play: Clemson Alumni
En Sabah Nor started the tournament off right with a win. Right form the
start, we set the tone, taking a 2-0 lead. The cold may have had
something to do with our play, because our fundamentals seemed to be lacking. However, this was made up for with a lot of intensity (after all, without it, we would have been to damn cold). Hot Ds from Suskin, Andrew, and Brent stood out in a win for Sabah. The final score was 13-5.

Pool Play: South Carolina
We played pretty crappy in this game and had trouble scoring when they went zone. I think it was less what they did, and more the fact that it was 31 degrees and sleeting.

Pool Play: Appalachian State
They had a player in jeans. Enough said.

Pool Play: Radford
Another bad southern team. (Yes, there are some.)

Prequarterfinal: Appalachian State
See above. I don’t understand why we had to play them twice… This game did mark the return of Sean McComb, who played with us for the first time since November, 2003.

Quarterfinal: South Carolina
It’s not often you get a change at revenge like this, but the tournament was poorly organized. Conditions were a little better and we played a little better and showed that we were a much better tea

Semifinal: Pennsylvania
UPenn was a good team and they played well. That is the most significant
thing I remember about this game, because it was the first time this team ever did that. Penn was good, we were better, they played well, we played better. Very cool. The highlight of this game was Sean nearly killing a UPenn player in a fit of rage after that player laid out into Sean.

Final: Clemson
This game was Ugly. Both teams looked exhausted and neither played well. One 15 minute point stands out as an example of how bad the play was. Clemson tried to pull some BS by claiming that there should be no mirror half because the cap was about to go on. We eventually convinced them to give us our disc. We scratched and clawed out the victory. This was the first En Sabah Nur tournament championship at a major tournament ever! (Though JSC is not as major as it used to be, we took our place among the great teams that won that tournament when it was the southern Spring Break tournament.) This also meant that we accomplished Evan Jenkins’ goal of “winning or doing moderately well at a tournament.”

Post game highlights include: Brent asking Kitten what color his urine was. Answer: red. Sean, Fraggle, Wes, TallE, Josh, and Andrew all went with Brent to the ER, where he was diagnosed with a renal contusion. (That’s a bruised liver.) Majority vote decided that Brent really didn’t need a liver, but we stayed in Clemson an extra day anyway. Super thanks to Blake Joy who brought us food and put us up in the motel an extra night. If you want to have a good time, hang around Brent when he’s got a lot of morphine in him, and give Wes some XL latex gloves

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Spring Collegiates: Greenville, NC – February 26th – 27th, 2005

Players in Attendance: Tony Oliva, Josh Suskin, Reed Verdesoto, Rick “Fraggle” Coker, Robert Dulabon, Jake Symoniak, Camilo Ward, Evan Jenkins, Brent Bellinger, Mike LoPresti, Ben “TallE” Ristau, Wes Shonk, Stu Kellner, Sean McComb, David Vatz, Andrew Willment

Pool Play: Tennessee
The orange demons plagued us from point one, quickly scoring with superhuman athleticism and great skills. The defending champs went up to a 5-0 lead on us, taking advantage of our miscues on offense and played chilly on offense. Also, they had pointy horns and fork tails. They let up a little in the later parts of a game, allowing us to score a few points, and the game ended with them winning 13-8.

Pool Play: North Carolina State
The last time we played NC State (2 years ago), it was a chance for us to measure ourselves against a nationals caliber team. We were defeated in that game 13-3. This game was a bit different, but not by much. State came out with quick athletic plays on offense and hard fouling marks on defense and took half 7-2 very quickly. The white whales splashed us with more hucks and good defense in the second half, and ended the game beating us 13-6.

Pool Play: Mary Washington
Ya, we won. Sean had a really sweet flick huck to end the game with a 13-10 victory. Prior to that, Mary Washington’s offense featured one guy throwing to another guy repeatedly. Those two guys were good. But most of the other guys weren’t good. Mary Washington went up 10-8 after some sweet hucks from Connor to Mighty Duck Man. Tony Oliva got a Callahan because of Sean’s sweet mark and Sean yelling “catch it” to Tony so he wouldn’t mack it into the ground as his style traditionally dictates. Sean’s pull to start the game split the air like the thunderbird out of ancient lore, and with a mighty crack, the game began. In the beginning, there were just seven on each line.

Pool Play: Elon
They weren’t that great, except for Ryan Conboy. We love him. We won. By a lot (13-5).

Pool Play: Syracuse
The O line scored its first two points in this game with a total of 5 throws. Good defense allowed us to go up 4-2 early on in this game. The isolated a great receiver in their offense who would come down with these blading away throws every every every time. Unfortunately for Syracuse, there weren’t a lot of supporting players. The game really wasn’t that close, although Syracuse made it closer by adding “phantom points” to their score, helping them where their offense could not. Poor Syracuse. We won, 13-8. I mean 13-7. I mean 13-6. I mean 13-5. I mean 13-0.

Pool Play: Case Western Reserve
A wise man once said “if you
a Pittsburgh fan, you ain’t shit.” It is unfortunate for Case that they journeyed to North Carolina from the mistake by the lake, or else they may have had a better chance in this one. All told, we came out strong and we finished strong, with a strong 13-7 win. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to my sister who goes to Case. What up?

Quarterfinal: Virginia Tech
The last time we played Virginia Tech, we came out with a decisive
Roshambo victory, which when you think about it, is really freakin’ impressive. We continued our dominant ways in this game with a 15-5 victory. One of their standout players was a girl. Sweet.

Semifinal: Indiana
At the beginning of the game, a comment by IU was made to the extent of
“let’s get this game over fast so we have time to rest before finals.” “In fairness, the game was over quickly…” Dave Vatz couldn’t have said it any better. Some of the game highlights were our ability to run this team into the ground. Our zone d was tight and on fire. Rob Dulabon was cleated while in the wall and knocked over by a player, buck-twenty, who made it known to Rob that he had been knocked over by him and that he only weighed 120lbs. Lucky for us, that pissed the hell out of Rob who caught the point and spiked it for buck-twenty. After trucking this team, comments were made by the other team as to “they made us play their game”… damn right we did. This was by far our most intense game and our best effort all weekend. We showed heart and a whole lot of intensity. Thanks to that intensity, we devastated IU, won the semis 15-4, and sent them packing.

Indiana, prior to the first pull, was heard to say “let’s get this game over with quickly so that we will have time to rest before finals.” Somebody should have warned Indiana to be careful what they wish for. Needless to say, Indiana got their wish, but unfortunately for them, they were on the losing end. We ran out to an early 4-2 lead, and continued on a 5-1 run which lead to what MikeG called the “play of the weekend.” Says MikeG, “Indiana got a nice D on a down the line pass towards the endzone, but the block advanced the disc down the sideline out of bounds but had it heading towards the very back corner of the goal, the offensive player’s momentum going for the initial catch, sent him out of bounds but he chased the disc back towards the deep endzone where he pitter pattered his feet to re-establish himself inbounds, and did a hip slide as he grabbed the disc for a goal to give Pitt the 10-3 lead” A few points later, the game was over, with Pitt beating an Indiana team who has had some big wins already this season 15-4.

Final: Mary Washington
It was really windy. Game 9 after a long weekend, having clawed our way back from a disappointing start, we had made it to the finals of the CHUMPionship bracket. We were faced with an opponent that we had beaten earlier in the weekend. Unfortunately, the result of this game was opposite of the first. We came out playing them close and had some fantastic plays, including Vatz’s layout D on Connor on a defensive box and 1 on him. However, we were unable to match their intensity down the stretch and ended up on the short end of this battle, losing 17-13.

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Spring Break and WUFF Camp: Wilmington, NC – March 4th – 11th, 2005

Over spring break En Sabah Nur made its third trip to Mike Gerics’ WUFF Camp for a little spring training to prepare for the upcoming college series.

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College Terminus: Cumming, GA – March 12th – 13th, 2005

Pool Play: Wake Forest
We came out strong in this game, going up by a few breaks early on, and didn’t turn back. Quick, easy first game.

Pool Play: LSU
This game was similar to the Wake game. We went up big early on, and
didn’t turn back. LSU was better than Wake, but really relied on one guy
who just couldn’t get it done all by himsself.

Pool Play: Purdue
This was an interesting game. There were observers!!!! Just as a little
side note, for anyone who hasn’t played in an observed game, it freakin’
rocks. No stupid arguments, no BS calls…it’s really great. Back to the game, it was a hard fought game the whole way, with strong winds that made it an upwind downwind battle. We were up 8-7 at half, they were able to get back two breaks and went up 10-9. We battled back, keeping it close, but ended the game trading points with them until they won 13-12 downwind on universe point.

Pool Play: Indiana
A rematch of a 15-4 Pitt win at Collegiates two weeks ago, this was sure to be a good game. Didn’t end up being that way. We beat them pretty badly…and if not for a late 5-3 run by them, the score would have been even more lopsided.

Prequarterfinal: Boston University
Boston U went undefeated in the power pools the day before, but we definitively removed all doubt that we were in that caliber by winning this game by a considerable margin. Going up early 4-0, all our pistons were firing. Our D-line’s offense was unstoppable as they got turn after turn, and our offense never allowed them to get a defensive score in reply. Our intensity and focus won this game, while Boston was distracted and unable to regroup.

Quarterfinal: North Carolina State
We were up 11-9 when the final cap horn blew. By the rules of the tournament, this means you finish the point and the game’s over unless it is tied. NCSU scored that point, made the score 11-10 in favor of Pitt. The observers then incorrectly ruled that it should still be a game to 12, and despite our protests, forced the game to continue. We failed to put it in the endzone and win the game….but afterwards the TD came and told us that we had actually won the game based on the rules of the tournament. Not wanting to win that way, we respected that NCSU had won based on what the observers had ruled and they won the game…and then went on to win the tournament.

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Ultimax XXXV: Greenville, NC – March 26th – 27th, 2005

This weekend En Sabah Nur traveled for the third time to North Carolina to compete in yet another high level East Coast tournament.

Pool Play: Tennessee
This game was another opportunity to avenge an ugly performance earlier in
the season at Collegiates. Tennessee plays the beutiful game, they play
hard and physically, but they play fair: they battle. This makes them one of our favorite opponents to play against. This game was a heck of a battle itself. We went up a couple goals early with the D-line scoring a few upwinders. But we stumbled and lost the half 8-5 looking a little dazed after the hot early start. We came out in the second half and clawed our way back into the game. We were forced to score the final goal of the game four times before it counted, but in the end we pulled out a nice win 17-15.

Quarterfinal: William & Mary
The W&M game was weird…we went up 4-0, then they went on an 8-1 run thanks to some really crappy offense on our part, then we traded for a while (with a break from each side here and there) to make it 13-10 W&M. We then went on a little run to tie it up at 13’s, cap went on, game to 15 hard. They scored the next offensive point to make it 14-13, then we answered with our own O point to tie it up and take the game to universe point. On universe point they worked it down the field against our zone and scored on a nice grab in the endzone on a huck.

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Spring Phling: State College, PA – April 2nd – 3rd, 2005

This tournament looked to be a Metro East battle royale with many of the top teams in the region making the trip out to compete in State College. However, due to foul weather the tournament was canceled and only a few rounds of play were completed.

Pool Play: Ohio
This was an ugly upwind/downwind zone-filled game. We were down a couple at half (7-5) and came out with some energy in the second half. Ohio had some good size and some athletes, but once we stopped giving them the disc back again and again, we did well.

Pool Play: Maryland
This was a game that we really wanted. Maryland is a regional rival, and a
team that a lot of people are predicting to make nationals out of our region. We’ve gone to a lot of tournaments that they’ve been at, but haven’t matched up head to head until now. This game was a great battle. Plenty of huge bids, controversial calls, big puts and exciting play from both sides- exactly what college ultimate is all about. They took half on us again, but we made some adjustments, came out and got to universe point, after earning a block, Josh Suskin got open on a great cut to give us the win.

Pool Play: Queens-Kingston
This was a depressing game. Queens is also in our region, and is surely a
favorite to get to nationals at this point. Some factors may have been
that this was their second game of the day (Swat never showed) and so
weren’t as worn from running through the muck and we had some injuries and hands that couldn’t really grip the disc. But excuses aside, they beat us pretty bad. We’ll be working our tails off for the next month to prepare to face them again (hopefully) at regionals.

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West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 16th – 17th, 2005

The Western PA section was the first step in the College Championship Series. Overall this was a highly productive weekend for Pitt Ultimate. Pittsburgh A beat Carnegie Mellon in the finals to win first place in the Western PA Section.

A big thank you goes out to the families of Dave Ninaci and Robert Dulabon for opening up their homes and providing the team with food for the weekend.

Pool Play: St. Francis
The Metro East and the West Penn Section in particular have a large number of not very experienced/competitive teams. A lot of people in other regions like to hate on us for that fact, but I am proud to be part of this region. It’s great that so many small colleges can have ultimate teams. It behooves us not to forget, that not long ago we were a fledgling team with no realistic shot at even Regionals. It is also important to recognize that without the huge number of teams in the Region, we would not have made nationals this year.

That said, our biggest enemy in these games was our concentration. We mustered enough to roll to easy wins.

Semifinal: Bucknell
You can believe that we had our 11-1 loss at Sectionals last year in the forefront of our mind for this game. We came out with unbelievable fire and intensity. There was simply no way that Bucknell would even compete in this contest. Our defense rattled off three or four to start the game, and the game was basically over when the o-line simply destroyed their zone. The question was not if we were going to win, but if we would be able to duplicate the 11-1 score from last year. Unfortunately, they scored to make it 10-2, but this was a very exciting display.

Final: Carnegie Mellon
Many of us remember a time when we were a rug for CMU to wipe their feet on. Because of this, we will never play them without a great desire for victory. In fact we don’t want to just win, we want to crush. For this reason, we stymied them on both sides of the disc en route to our first sectional title. For some of us, 15-3 was not enough. For all of us, West Penn was not enough. NOT DONE YET.

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Metro East Regionals: Princeton, NJ – May 7th – 8th, 2005

By winning the Western PA section Pittsburgh earned its second ever bid to the Metro East regionals tournament. After doing battle all weekend Pitt won 2nd place in the region and its first ever trip to the College Championships!
Regionals Picture Gallery

Prequarterfinal: Columbia
Okay, two seed versus fifteen seed. This should be easy, right? Well, not exactly. It was windy and we started the game with some uncharacteristic errors. Columbia fed off of those mistakes and gained a lot of energy at our expense. They had confidence and we looked shaken–we realized a lose here would be a huge blow. We stepped up the pressure late to regain the lead and it looked like we would win on D but CU scored to take it to universe point. It wasn’t pretty, but we punched it in for the win, our first ever at Regionals. There is a key lesson that we should all remember from this game–there ain’t never no sure wins.

Quarterfinal: Carnegie Mellon
After the never-to-be-talked-about Columbia game, we got a bit of a break against Carnegie Mellon, who upset Delaware in Pre-quarters. Whether they didn’t play their best players, or just didn’t have the confidence or the fire, we stuck to playing our game with all the intensity that we can bring to the field. They only went zone against our O line, which some might say was a foolish move, and their offense was never really able to get past our D.

Semifinal: Rutgers
Rutgers pulled off a surprising upset against Swarthmore to face us in the Semis. With Mio and a couple other strong players, this was a team whose offense was much more difficult to stop than we expected, but our D line went out there, got us hard earned blocks, and converted them into points in our column. The offense did its job, and at the end of Saturday’s play, we celebrated making the finals of Metro East Regionals.

Here is the Rutgers take of the game with only their highlights:

Final: Queens-Kingston
This game could have been the heartbreaker. Feeling strong after our 7-0 run in the College Series, we faced in the finals the last team that had beaten us. We came out strong, and they underestimated us at first. Our offense scored and our defense got blocks. They woke up quickly, however, and took half 8-7. The decision was made to put making Nationals before winning Regionals, and when Queens came out scoring two defensive breaks in a row, we rested on our laurels and got ready for the Backdoor Game.

Final: George Washington
Two years ago, George Washington was our first game at Regionals. This year, they were our last. In 2003, they outlasted our squad with a larger roster and better conditioning. In 2005, though their team was still larger, they had fewer members actually playing, and we ran them into the ground. A tight game almost the whole way, in the last few points we simply had more gas in the tank than they. We scored the winning goal twice, once on a push pass from Brent to Josh, then on a much more characteristic needle threading break from Sean to Andrew. Natties. Bitch.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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UPA College Championships: Corvallis, OR – May 27th – 29th, 2005

This was the prime goal all season was to make it to Nationals and due to the hard work and dedication of a whole team we earned our trip to Corvallis.

From our Captain Sean McComb:
We wish we were given the chance against Queens and that we had pulled out the win against CUT. But no matter the record that we left the weekend with, our team as a whole left with an even greater resolve to challenge ourselves to improve on our weaknesses and hone our strengths during the “off-season”. Given the improvement of our players in the past year, this is a very exciting possibility. We got our feet wet at nationals this year. Next year, after some heavy recruiting and training, we’ll be aiming to make a big splash.

I’d like to once again thank all of those who donated to our team so that we could travel and compete this weekend. This was a necessary building block to making the University of Pittsburgh one of the dominant programs in college ultimate, which will benefit the community tremendously. I’d also like to thank those who made the trek to nationals to watch our team play. Next year the UPA College Championships will be in Columbus OH, so getting there will be much easier, and hopefully more people will be able to make it out to watch us start to take it to the nation’s elite teams. Additionally, the tournament was simply tremendous ultimate played by incredible athletes…so exciting. If you haven’t heard, the final was 15-14 Brown over Colorado, with Brown coming from behind getting two breaks in their final three opportunities when they had only gotten two previously in the entire game!!

Finally, I would like to once again thank our “cooooach”, Dave Lionetti aka Deidra Lionheart. Weasel was a great fit for our team. He added a great deal to our team strategy, allowed myself and other team leaders to focus more on simply playing the game rather than running a team, and had a lot of fun along the way. If you notice Weasel being a little less mature and a little more crazy/zany this summer and on, there are 15 guys, 6 or 7 road trips and a whole lot of fun this spring to blame. To quote the man himself: “I was normal in February.”

Everyone on this team was much different in February. It has been a very long and very rewarding season. But most of all, it has been a season that has made all of us a little hungrier to get back to the show to do battle, to win, and to bring more pride to this city.

Pool Play: British Columbia
Pool Play Game 1: British Columbia (Loss 15-5)
This was a classic “first game at nationals” marked by a defense that was afraid to pressure and take risks and an offense that did not dictate play and work with confidence as it had all season to that point. We were nervous. We were never in this game and were never really working hard enough to be in the game. Based on the way we came out, the result probably would have been similar no matter who we played in the first game of pool play, we simply had to get the first one out of the way.

Pool Play: Georgia
Pool Play Game 2: Georgia (Loss 15-11)
Once we had gotten the first game under our belts and went into this game believing we could play with UGA, we played much better. This game was carried by our O-line. Ben Ristau and Brent Bellinger led the charge along with Vatz, a hobbled Stu Kellner who was able to play effectively through a pulled groin (absurd), Fraggle, Wes Shonk and Mike LoPresti. Our O line was able to effectively work the disc down the field with TallE consistently getting open despite defenders keying on him as the dump and Brent Bellinger who has gotten open all year despite every team knowing that he was going to be the first cut and that he was probably cutting in. Our D-line struggled to get turns, and early on when we did touch the disc, we foiled our opportunities by trying to force the break. We went into half on serve at 8-7 UGA. Out of half UGA got a couple of breaks and we were only able to get one back late in the game. Final 15-11 UGA.

Pool Play: California-San Diego
Pool Play Game 3: California-San Diego (Loss 15-9)
UCSD was coming right off of a tough lose to UBC. I think that their
results to this point had a lot of our team thinking that we were going to
be in over our heads in this game. Predictably, thinking that way we went
down HUGE. We lost the first half 8-1, with UCSD playing the bottom half of their team in the last few points of the half. At halftime we returned to the roots of what got us to nationals: pride and the desire to battle. We refused to leave the fields with anyone believing we didn’t belong at that tournament, and returned to the idea that every time we step foot on the field we are there to work our tails off on every throw and every cut. We came out in the second half and roasted their scrubs on the first point, with the starters back in, we continued to roll getting a couple of breaks with intense defense and chilly grinding d-line offense. UCSD got really frustrated, their coach started to scream and our intensity just got higher. The wind had picked up in the second half and upwind goals were hard to come by. We won the second half 8-7, but the Squids took the game 15-9. Nonetheless, we left the fields knowing that when we amped up the intensity and came out to play, we could play with these teams.

Semifinal: Carleton College
9th Place Semifinals: Carleton (Loss 15-12)
We drew the loser of the Carleton/Wisconsin prequarter for the first round
of consolation play. CUT came to the field and I overheard one of their
players declare “there is no way that we lose this game”. That put the chip on our shoulder that we needed to come out hot. We came out with intense defense which resulted in some quick strikes to get breaks. The D-line’s offense was clicking early moving the disc around the field with ease. Over the course of the first half CUT made up a couple of the breaks, but we took it to half with a great skying goal by Vatz, 8-7. Out of the half CUT turned it up a notch taking their first lead of the game at 10-9. We continued to battle. Twice the D-line missed breaking back by a matter of inches, once with the slightest of misreads on a huck and once with the disc just slipping through our hands on a sliding catch in the endzone. But this is a game of inches, and CUT wasn’t giving us any room for error. CUT eventually won 15-12. This was a great game and quite a battle.

Final: Queens-Kingston
13th Place Finals: Queens-Kingston (Win 1-0)
Queen’s captain was watching the last few points of our game with CUT. Turns out, Queen’s had decided to forfeit the game. This was incredibly disapointing to our team, we had hoped for a rematch of the Regional final and wanted another shot at those guys.

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Pittsburgh-B Tournaments

Bowling Green: Bowling Green, OH – February 26th, 2005

This was the first chance for the B-Team to get out into the world and see what we could do against some real competition. After it was all over many will remember this as a defining moment for the B-Team; a weekend where we experienced the joy of winning as a 3 week old team and also realizing where we fall short. Many people may have been unsure of how this new team within Sabah may work out, but after Saturday there was little doubt that we could make something special out of it.

Players in Attendance: Nick Kaczmarek, John “Cheese” Scheeser, Daniel “Slip” Slipakoff, Justin Krebs, Abe Rodd, Bailey Roche, Greg Sinn, Jon “Moosejaw” Kurss, Jon Harden, Dave “DTR” Ninaci, Chris Winschel, Sam Nelson, and Amar Mehta

Pool Play: Central Michigan
Pool Play Game 1: Central Michigan (Loss 13-5)
Central Michigan received the pull and walked down the field against our man D on the first point, which would prove to be a recurring theme in this game. We struggled with covering in-cuts in this game because we did not trust / totally understand our last-back. We were constantly behind our men as they cut in Ð not because they were faster, but because we were initially out of position. On offense, we also struggled early. Central Michigan was much more experienced than us and they poached us very well. They took advantage of what we couldn’t do well offensively (breaking to the poached man) and simply stalled our entire offense. The initial ISO cuts did well most of the time as they never poached this first throw, but our continuation cuts were rarely on time and this allowed them to get back on their men and set up poaches. These things combined, plus some drops and errant passes, contributed to being shut out for the first half. The second half went better. We played more zone and got some turns. Our offense had some good quick strikes and we flowed a little better. The score for just the second half was 6-5. Central Michigan was an experienced team, but they were beatable. They used their smarts and took advantage of our limited amount of experience as a team. Nevertheless, the second half was a significant improvement.

Pool Play: Wabash
Pool Play Game 2: Wabash (Win 13-3)
Wabash was a good second game for us. We were into our flow and this game proved to be fairly easy. We flowed very well as they did not poach at all. We played man D this entire game and locked them down for the most part.

Pool Play: Ohio
Pool Play Game 3: Ohio (Loss 13-5)
Ohio had just played Central Michigan and their Horizontal Stack offense really shredded them at times. We decided to play their ho-stack slightly different than normal. We put two men behind their stack and two in front because they were more athletic than us and liked to put it deep. We played the handlers pseudo-loose, as we forced middle and had the middle handler cover poach the lane, but had the far handler cover play pretty tight to prevent the big swing. When the disc was in the middle, we forced straight up and had each wing handler’s defender poach a lane. This defense was obviously something they weren’t used to seeing. They were used to just taking advantage of man D by using an offense that shreds regular man Ds. We got a good amount of turns from this, but struggled to take advantage offensively. They were a very good team and they just beat us in the air and to the disc. Despite our struggles, this game really was a solid game for us because of our good defensive play.

Pool Play: Denison
Pool Play Game 4: Denison (Win 12-10)
This was the best game of the day. Denison gave us our first zone D to face all day and we gave it right back. They worked through us in the first half as we just didn’t play very inspired defense. They got up 7-2 (or so they said – there was a score dispute which they won by yelling louder than us). Anyways, we came out CRAZY in the second half. Our zone played amazing and we fought our way back with a 6-0 run. They called a timeout after we took the lead at 8-7 and came out of it to tie the game. We exchanged some points and the game was hard capped after we scored to take the lead 11-10. We came out fired up and got a D. A huck was brought down on the goal line and tossed carefully into the endzone for the game winning score. This game was amazing because we really came together as a team. Everyone put everything they had into this game and we were able to win it.

Pool Play: Toledo
Pool Play Game 5: Toledo (Loss 12-10)
We came into this game tired as we had just finished the game against Denison. We simply couldn’t get any kind of fire going in this game, but were down only 7-5 at half. We couldn’t get ourselves up enough for the second half either. Although this game was terribly disappointing since we could have won if we weren’t so tired, we surprised Toledo with our solid play and determination. A lot of credit is due to the players who fought through our fifth straight game of the day.

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SteakFest ’05: Shippensburg, PA – March 19th – 20th, 2005

The B team traveled to it’s first ever full tournament. This marked a weekend full of really great plays and also quite a few areas of improvement. Pitt Ultimate alumni William “Brody” Brotman even made a return to the field getting into a few games on Sunday.

Players in attendance: John “Cheese” Scheeser, Justin Krebs, Nick Kaczmarek, Jon Harden, Dave “DTR” Ninaci, Sam Nelson, Greg Sinn, Jake Symoniak, William “Brody” Brotman

Pool Play: Pittsburgh-Johnstown
Pool Play Game 1: UPJ Flood (Win 13-7)
This game started off ugly. Both teams committed a number of turnovers and we just happened to be the team that overcame these and scored. Despite the fact that there were turns, they weren’t because of how we were running our offense, they were just thrower and receiver errors. The dump swing was working very well, but there were too many times where the break-side continuation would come from the middle of the stack. This really hurt our offensive flow because not only did we not gain as many yards as we could have, but we also then had the man cutting from the back of the stack for the continue from the swing clogging any new continuation. Our flow up the force-side was very good at times, but the flow up the break should be even easier – and we didn’t make that happen. At half the score was 7-2. We knew that they would come out of the half warmed up – and they did. They started to string some points together as they finally got into their game and we still had not. At 10-7, we really decided to get things together and we ran off three straight points to win the game. The final three points of this game were the first time we actually played our game and it showed that when we are playing our best, we can simply roll through games.

Pool Play: Eastern
Pool Play Game 2: Eastern (Win 13-6)
Eastern is a team that has only recently started up. They played a cup zone, which is a zone that really suits our team strengths as it let our handler heavy lineup do most of the work. They did a decent job of stopping throws through the cup, but they did nothing to stop the swing or the quick pop into the cup from the middle handler. We absolutely shredded this zone and I attribute it all to the zone O practices (especially the one the Thursday before this tournament). We almost always took the 100 percent throws and were able to move the disc pretty well. Since they played the zone force middle and we didn’t have to worry about being trapped, we didn’t need to move the disc super-fast, but I would have liked us to hold the disc less. They snuck a few points in after half, but they were never really in this game. These first two games really showed us that we need to learn how to just end games that we should easily win. Sometimes we let our game slip when we are up big and this almost killed us in a later game.

Pool Play: St. Francis
Pool Play Game 3: St. Francis (Win 12-11)
St. Francis is a solid low-mid level college team. Both teams played zone in this game. They played 1-3-3 on us and did a decent job with it. The game was tight almost all the way. They jumped out to a 6-3 lead at one point, but we played some great points and got it back to a 7-6 game – St Francis leading – at half. Our big problem in this game was that we sometimes got trapped on the line. Their mark trapped on the line and our wing handlers held the disc way too long sometimes (a theme that would resonate throughout the weekend). When we didn’t hold the disc for more than 3 seconds, we shredded the zone. St. Francis really played an evenly leveled game, while we played very up and down. Our success was totally determined by how fast we moved the disc. When a side handler got a dump from a popper that just got the disc on the line, they would hold the disc for 4 or more seconds. This is entirely futile because it takes those four seconds for the popper to clear out and give the handler any kind of real look down field. When the disc is dumped, we must immediately swing the disc around the field so that we can find more open holes. This was the only thing that held us back in the game. We were down for most of the game, but we tied the game at 10 when soft cap went on. We went up 11-10, and then they scored to tie as hard cap went on. It became universe point with an 11-11 score. We received the pull and marched down the field. We turned it once, but got a D. After a pass up field, a weasel cut was all that was needed to end the game.

Pool Play: Messiah
Pool Play Game 4: Messiah College (Loss 11-8)
We knew this game was going to be really tough for us as Messiah had already beaten St. Francis earlier in the day and they had just come off a bye (which they used to watch us play the grueling game against St. Francis). We decided to come out and play zone-and-1 to start the game. This D put Jake on Messiah’s captain who was a fantastic player. We played it more to try and confuse them than to actually use it. Although they took a while to score the first point, their captain immediately recognized the zone-and-1 and this made us decide to stop using it. We began to play zone against them because they didn’t use a three handler set against it, but this ended up hurting us because it let them get off floaty, swilly hucks to the Messiah captain which he would bring down or nice, flat hucks from the captain to his teammates. They played man D on us and we just had too many turnovers. When we went man D on them, we just no longer had the legs to cover them. Many of our offensive problems were due to not being totally comfortable with the WUFF stack (which we ran all weekend). The biggest issue was this: people cut when they were open and didn’t cut when they were not. Our mentality needed to be: it is my cut; maybe I’m not open, now I need to get open. There were way too many times that someone was open from the middle of the stack, made a cut, and cut off someone from the back. There were other times when no one cut at all and still other times when someone would cut from behind the disc because they had their man beat up the line, but then would run right into an open in cut and ruin our flow. These things will be fixed in time by being more aware of each other and being more familiar with what we all like to do. The game was capped at 9-7 after we scored a goal that got us back into the game. Regretfully, Messiah exchanged the next three points with us as going into the light wind proved difficult for both teams. This team eventually advanced to finals, losing to a team of former Philadelphia area high school players.

Quarterfinal: Shippensburg
Quarterfinals: Shippensburg (Loss 15-7)
We came into this game with a number of nagging injuries to players. A ten man team with 4 people not at 100 percent can really be detrimental. We came out very cold to start this game as Shippensburg showed us a style of the 1-3-3 we had yet to see. When they trapped the disc on the sideline, the wing of the wall that was farthest away covered the pivot handler. We recognized this after one point and quickly went with 4 handlers. The problem we ran into was that we had never gone over how to use a 4 handler set. It was very difficult for us early because we couldn’t get the handlers to all be active enough for us to get the disc off the sidelines. When handlers would get the disc on the sidelines, they would hold it WAY to long and get trapped. When this happened, we did not have enough experience with this zone to use the two middle handlers to get it out of the trap. We also transitioned poorly to our man D on turns and once transitioned, played bad man D. They went up 7-2, but some good defense (finally) and a few set zones on turns helped us get some easy scores and work our way back to 7-5. They took half the following point. We came out of the half really fired up, but weren’t able to solve their zone. We had some decent movement at times, but had way too many foolish turnovers as we tried to force the disc through the zone. Late in the second half, we got some great movement on a couple points where our poppers finally got inside the wall and created lots of space. The zone offense ran the absolute best it did all weekend on these points and we scored two out of three of them. Regretfully, we didn’t have enough left to make a comeback possible. Shippensburg apparently played their best game all weekend against us. They were very disappointed about their first day’s performance and really came out fired up in this game. We just couldn’t match the fire.

Semifinal: James Madison B
5th Place CHUMPionship Semifinals: JMU B (Win 13-9)
With one player done for the day and three others limited, we decided to let Brody (who came to watch) play with us. This game was a game of our man offense working really well and our man defense finally stepping up a bit. We were up big early and pushed through to make it an 8-4 half. JMU came back a bit in the second half with a little better play (which included a ringer to try and stop Brody) and a score dispute (which we seem to lose at every tournament we go to). Anyways, we were up 11-9 when the cap went on and finished them off with 2 quick scores.

Final: PA College of Technology
5th Place CHUMPionship Finals: Pa College of Technology (Win 15-4)
This team just formed recently and wasn’t really on our level yet. They had some great layouts and hucks, but in the end, they just couldn’t get past our defense. We played pretty well this game and we really got some nice hucks off as a team (which is something we need).

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Maryland B Team Tournament: College Park, MD – April 9th – 10th, 2005

The B team had been preparing all spring with one goal in mind…win the Maryland B tournament. This would be the perfect tournament where we would face only teams on our level. We asserted ourselves as the team to beat the first day by earning a 4-0 record in pool play and securing the number one seed going into Sunday elimination. A slow start on Sunday and a crushing universe point loss our first game caused us to fall short of our goal and only take 4th place overall. However, every single player did something to be proud of at this tournament. Everyone stretched themselves and contributed to our wins. It’s really a night and day difference between the team we were the last two tournaments and the team we became down in Maryland. It isn’t the type of victory we were aiming for but this tournament was still very much of a success.

Player in attendance: Dave “DTR” Ninaci, Jon Harden, Justin Krebs, Camilo Ward, Adam Kunes, Nick Kaczmarek, Bailey Roche, Greg Sinn, John “Cheese” Scheeser, Daniel “Slip” Slipakoff

A big thanks to the Ward and Harden families for coming out and supporting us this weekend. Also, a huge thanks to everyone who provided housing for the weekend.

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West Penn Sectionals: Edinboro, PA – April 16th – 17th, 2005

The Western PA section was the first step in the College Championship Series. Pitt B found itself breaking seed 3 times over and taking 8th place in the section and the rank of best B team in the region.

A big thank you goes out to the families of Dave Ninaci and Robert Dulabon for opening up their homes and providing the team with food for the weekend.

Pool Play: Carnegie Mellon
Pool Play Game 1: Carnegie Mellon (Loss 15-3)
This was not a good team to draw for our first game of the day. They have a set of 7 players who are really experienced and were able to run up a high score very quickly. We did force them to play the entire game by getting a few crucial turns and playing tough from the start. A highlight of the morning was working the disc down to the end zone calling a time out and successfully running Mike Gerics’ resort play. Basically a trick play that is just really sweet to score on then watch the defense walk back with their heads down.

Pool Play: Allegheny
Pool Play Game 2: Allegheny (Loss 15-6)
When you play Allegheny you soon realize that they rely heavily on the talents of Brandon Redding (Pre). If you can shut him down and you match up well against their other players the game is yours. However, early on we were unable to get good flow going on offense and had some stupid turnovers close to our own endzone which they were easily able to convert for a score. We matched up well against them and were able to zone and one Pre but we just couldn’t make up for earlier mistakes and lost the game 15-6.

Pool Play: St. Vincent
Pool Play Game 3: St. Vincent (Win 15-9)
This was the first game where we were able to play an equally to lesser matched opponent. We took control of the game early and never looked back securing our first victory of the day 15-9.

Prequarterfinal: Bucknell B
Pool Play Game 4: Bucknell B (Win 11-3)
This was the first game of elimination play at the end of Saturday. Bucknell B was hurting after only their first three games because they were playing with only 8 all day. We agreed to play an abbreviated game to 11. With only one more sub then our opponents we wanted to prove that we were a much better conditioned team and possibly one of the best B teams in the region. This was another game of dominance where we took control of the game early and just ran with it for a victory.

Quarterfinal: Shippensburg
4th Place Bracket Quarterfinals: Shippensburg (Loss 15-8)
We were itching to get a rematch against Shippensburg after a very disappointing loss to them at SteakFest. We came out really cold this game and due to injury and lateness we were running with maybe one sub. We went down early in the first half losing something like 8-2. After half we came out determined to lay it all out on the field and to fight for every last point. We went out with the goal of winning the second half and came very close only loosing the half 7-6 and the game 15-8.

Semifinal: St. Vincent
8th Place Bracket SemiFinals: St. Vincent (Win 15-9)
Somehow we ended up playing St. Vincent twice this weekend. However due to the fact that we only had 8 players we actually picked up their coach to play with us. We agreed to only play a game to 7 and double the score to report. It was a close game at first but we eventually blew it open when of wayward player showed up late in the game. We won the game with a final score of 7-4.

Final: St. Francis
8th Place Bracket Finals: St. Francis (Win 15-12)
St. Francis is a really fun team to play against full of a lot of spirited
players. Rather than play a legitimate game we agreed to decide the game
on flipping of the disc (heads or tails) and then go watch Pitt blow CMU out of the water for the Sectionals Championship. We went down really early in this game but after a timeout and a pep talk from slip on the physics of disc flipping we came back strong. After half a few decisive calls and flips from our Captain Nick Kaczmarek and we blew the game open taking the final 5 points of the game and winning 15-12. At the end of the day we realized we had a great season by breaking our seed 3 times over in only our first year. The B team looks forward to a bright future where it will play a key role in furthering the long term goals of Pitt Ultimate.

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