HAMILTON, Ont. – The women's and open ultimate frisbee teams travelled to Hamilton this weekend to compete in the Steeltown Classic, and both came away with top five finishes with the women's team taking third and the men's team finishing in fifth.
The women's team opened up the tournament against Guelph and achieved a decisive 13 – 6 victory over the Gryphons. With their first win of the tournament under their belt, the Mustangs cruised through their next matchups against the Toronto B team and Brock.
The Mustangs closed out day one with their first big challenge of the weekend, in Toronto A. When half time came the Mustangs were down three points, but determined to come back. Sam Hale had a massive bid over a Toronto player to break their offence, and the intensity only rose from there. With amazing field movement from Julia Peden, and deep strikes from Alexis Mcvicar, the Western women's battled back and beat Toronto 13-10.
The women's team started off day two in a semifinal matchup with McMaster. The conditions were rough but Charissa Ong was able to push through the Marauder's zone defence for another victory.
Moving onto the finals, Queen's proved to be the most challenging opponent of the weekend. Both Sabrina Trung and Christine Jurychuk kept the Queen's offensive line at bay with their defensive play, but the Gaels narrowly beat Western on universe point.
Due to the nature of the tournament, the Mustangs needed to face off against Toronto a second time to secure a bid for nationals.
Western played a solid game against Toronto with a huge layout by Agnes Chu and several great hucks from Izzy Bédard to cutter Katherine Fraser. However, the Mustangs just fell short of beating the Toronto team, and securing a berth at nationals.
The open team started day one off with games against McMaster B and Toronto B. The Mustangs performance was strong with several points caught by Jake Turcotte, a great huck from Lucas VanNatter to David Lundy in the endzone and a huge layout D from Khalid Alibhai. Also notable was Geoffrey Seeman's layout Callahan as Western dominated McMaster's B team.
The men then faced their biggest test of the day against a strong Carleton team. The Mustangs started off slow, but soon hit their stride with massive defensive layouts by Teagan Boyle and Rudy Lim, and large skies from Phil Turner.
However, Western was edged out by Carleton by a score of 10-8. The Mustangs then went on to defeat the Waterloo Warriors 10-5 to secure their spot in the top 8 for Sunday.
Sunday morning saw the open team face off in a grueling quarterfinal game against Queen's. With amazing defensive efforts from Griffin Hale, Brandon Lue, Jason Lin and handler Keith Chow the Mustangs took the Gaels by surprise, breaking them early. Moving into the second half the team continued to push with great offensive bids by Geoffrey Seeman and Phil Cheung. The Mustangs just missed advancing to the semifinals as they lost to Queens 11-10 on universe point.
Up next for the Mustangs was McMaster's A team, and despite the stormy conditions, the Marauders were defeated 10-5 with help from some creative cutting by Rudy Lim.
The team then played for fifth against their rivals, Guelph. The offensive line showed their dominance throughout the game with Teagan Boyle racking multiple points against the Gryphons and Phil Turner once again owning the sky. The defensive line had success in breaking the Guelph offense, leading the Mustangs to an 11-9 victory and fifth place.
Although both teams fought hard, neither was able to secure a qualifying bid for nationals. Both the women's and open team will have another opportunity to secure a berth in the coming weeks.
