Ultimate Frisbee: Panthers No. 1 seed for Nationals

Quick, which Pitt athletic team has the best shot of winning a National Championship? If you… Quick, which Pitt athletic team has the best shot of winning a National Championship? If you said basketball, you’d be wrong. Too bad you didn’t guess the Ultimate team.

Ultimate, commonly known as Ultimate Frisbee, is a recreational staple of college students everywhere. But for the Pitt club Ultimate team, which will be taking part in the 2011 USA Ultimate D-I College Open Championships this weekend, the game is anything by casual afternoon fun.“We have really high expectations for ourselves,” assistant coach David Vatz said. “We feel as if we have prepared enough to win — that we have the best players in the country — and we definitely think that [Nationals] is ours for the taking. We expect to win.”

Vatz, a former Pitt student, is an unpaid coach. Pitt’s Ultimate team receives the same amount of institutional support as most club teams — meaning the players don’t have the scholarships, academic support or preferred scheduling that NCAA athletes can receive.

Pitt, at 24-3, sits at No. 4 in the May 11 USA Ultimate rankings. USAU is the governing body for Ultimate.

Because of a strong showing on the national stage down the stretch, Pitt earned the No. 1 seed at Nationals.

The top 19 out of 700 teams from across the country will compete at Nationals in Boulder, Colo.

After suffering two early-season defeats to fellow top-5 teams Oregon and Carleton College at the Stanford Invite 2011 on March 5 and 6, Pitt Ultimate has been on fire, losing only a one-point game to Florida (after defeating the Gators the day before) at the Open College Easterns in March. Pitt is currently riding a 13-game win streak.

Carleton College, the top-ranked team in the May 11 rankings, suffered two losses at its Regional tournament, which dropped its No. 1 seed, leaving the spot up for grabs.

Usually, Pitt travels to more tournaments, junior Colin Conner said, but the two tournaments the Panthers attended featured high-level competition with top-10 teams. Throughout the season, Pitt practiced three days a week along with individual weightlifting and track workouts.

“A lot of us have been playing together a long time, so we have great chemistry and, combined with our athleticism and work ethic, that puts us above a lot of teams,” Conner said.

Conner captains the team along with fifth-year seniors Chris Brenenborg and Geoff Zettel.

Pitt head coach Josh Suskin, a former Pitt student who is also unpaid for his coaching position, said that the playoffs, formatted in a three-tiered system, are known as “The Series.” Pitt plays in the Western Pennsylvania conference, facing off against local teams such as Penn State, Edinboro, Carnegie Mellon, Shippensburg, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The top teams from the conference advance to the Ohio Valley Region, Suskin said, which consists of teams from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Specifically, the region features teams such as Ohio State, Cincinnati and Millersville. The Panthers defeated Penn State in the finals to qualify for Nationals.

The USAU Nationals begin in pool play with four pools of five schools. The top three from each pool advance to a traditional bracket, with seeds predetermined based on pool placement.

Suskin said that Pitt’s pool features Iowa — the Panthers’ first opponent ­— as well as Colorado College, Illinois and Tufts.

The unique thing about the success of the Ultimate team is that it was literally paid for by the 25 players.

“The University of Pittsburgh club sports organization gives us a budget, but most of the other stuff is out of pocket,” Suskin said. “I know some of the guys have summer jobs that they are using to pay for a plane ticket. A lot of times Christmas or birthday presents will be plane tickets so our guys can go to the tournaments. Our limit to rent vans and drive is about North Carolina — anything further we have to fly.”

The expenses amounted to about $1,200 a player for the season for the uniform, travel expenses, tournament fees and hotel rooms, Conner said.

He said the expenses add up quickly after a few tournaments, but support from the school helped the club this season. The Ultimate team filled out the allocations forms in order to get funding from the University. The expenses normally would have amounted to $1,500 a player, he said, but the school’s help lowered the cost.

Players began leaving for Colorado in groups on Tuesday. The tournament is set to begin Friday morning. Pool play will continue through Saturday afternoon, and the Championship Bracket will begin Saturday night at 5 p.m. The quarterfinals and semifinals are to be held on Sunday, and the National Championship is slated to begin at 2 p.m. Monday afternoon.

“We knew coming into the year that we had a great team and could challenge for a National Championship,” Conner said. “Everyone is committed to achieving that.”