Warwick Ultimate Frisbee Fly High

Warwick Bears, Warwick’s Ultimate Frisbee team, has been around for over 30 years and is getting stronger. With the Indoor season coming to an end this term Warwick Bears have had some impressive performances in the recent national tournaments for both the open and the women’s teams: both teams coming 3rd in the UK and 1st in England.

The open team, after coming 2nd in regionals earlier last term, travelled to Southampton to compete in the Indoor Nationals. With a team of 10 players, they faced some strong competition from university teams throughout the UK, winning all their games up to the semi-finals, where the Bears faced last year’s winners RoShamBo (Edinburgh University). Unfortunately, RoShamBo were too strong and defeated the Bears in a hard fought contest. Happily, the Bears went onto win the third place play-off.

Two weeks later the women’s team faced their own Nationals in Nottingham. With a much smaller team than planned, injury and illness having hit the girls hard, the team went to have fun and hopefully make the top eight. However after some close games the team found themselves in another semi final against RoShamBo. Despite losing, the girls left the tournament feeling very proud of themselves after beating the winners of their regionals 10 points to 4. Proving that Ultimate Frisbee can have some very surprising outcomes with a little bit of hard work and a lot of fun!

Whilst RoShamBo have dominated indoors this year in both open and women’s nationals, Warwick Bears have high hopes for the mixed and outdoor seasons, hoping to match and beat their main rivals. The team this year for outdoors has never looked stronger, including some promising new freshers hoping to prove their worth alongside some of the old school players that get better with time. With outdoor regionals in a few weeks, Warwick Bears are not only looking to qualify for nationals but take home the trophy. Similarly, with two teams entering mixed regionals, the Bears are looking to qualify with both teams and take home the trophy both for regionals and the nationals later this term. After coming 2nd in Mixed Indoor Nationals and 1st in outdoors last year, Bears remain a formidable force in the world of University Ultimate.

Ultimate Frisbee isn’t all competition, they have some great fun tournaments coming up. Whilst of course we hope to do well and keep up the name of Warwick Bears we also want go and enjoy the sport. Our most anticipated fun tournament of this year, undoubtedly, is WIndoors hosted in Warwick’s very own Sports halls on the 9th and 10th of January. It is a two day tournament, involving various teams from around Warwick or friends of the club. Many of the teams who will be playing are made up of players who have now left the club, and the Bears will be looking forward to playing with some old friends as well as seeing how the first team measures up to those golden oldies.