Women’s frisbee clinches sectional title in convincing fashion

The Middlebury Pranksters dominated West New England College women’s sectionals this past weekend with six straight wins en route to the championship.

After dropping the Yale Cup final to Cornell in early April, the women came out strong and won their games this past weekend very convincingly.

The women opened play on Saturday playing UMass, Smith and Williams’ and Vermont’s B-teams. The two B-teams were both blanked 13-0 and the other two foes were handled easily.

“UMass and Williams put up admirable fights, but they lack depth and higher-level talent,” said Hannah Lincoln ’10. “None of the games were very tough.”

Senior Maggie Bale ’10 echoed the ease of schedule and the inherent difficulties in having a weak section.

“We really didn’t have any tough games, which is a bit disappointing because the lack of competition in our section doesn’t prepare use for the much better teams in our region,” said Bale.

“We haven’t lost to a single team in our section this entire year, and in most games we win by a significant margin.”

Co-captain Hannah Waite ’11 commented that the Pranksters were their own worst enemy at certain points, notably in the UMass game.

“While [UMass] wasn’t necessarily the best team we played, we struggled in the

start of the second half to keep our momentum going,” said Waite.

“But once we got going we played really well against their four-man zone.”

The team has experienced huge success recently, having won 12 out of its last 13 games. The winning attitude likely stems from strong, upperclassmen leaders and a talented, deep pool of younger Pranksters.

Waite and Bale pointed to the veteran leadership of Lincoln and Liz Hand ’09.5 and as the key to pumping up the team. But the accolades were aplenty for the underclassmen as well.

“The majority of our team is underclassmen and our success is highly dependent on them,” said Bale.

“I do want to shine some light on Grace Compton ’12. She’s a machine on all parts of the field, with great cuts to get open down field and confident and calm as a handler.”

Lincoln cites Karly Wentz ’13 as a key player in the zone, as she “did an excellent drop playing the mark, and relieving our upperclassmen for points when it was

really needed.”

The amount of talent speaks to the team’s depth. With about 20 players on the roster, the Pranksters are able to cycle in players and allow for rest and recovery time. This depth and endurance was evident across the field at sectionals.

Our Handlers were both focused and patient and the cutters on offense worked really hard and had their heads in the game,” said Lincoln.

“On defense, our zone shut down all the teams. And since everyone cycled through most positions on zone, it was a unanimous victory for all the players.”

Despite the domination displayed this past weekend, the women are cognizant of the road ahead to Nationals and the difficulties associated with playing in a weak sectional.

“This win does a lot for our Nationals hopes,” said Waite.

“Even though it was only sectionals, this win will likely give us a very good seed at regionals, which means that our Saturday play will be against ‘not-so-top-tier’ teams.”

But the path to a Nationals bid is littered with many obstacles. “Other teams in our region will provide much more competition at regionals in Amherst,” noted Bale.

We have to work really hard in the next few weeks, but Nationals is definitely within our reach.”

Lincoln is quick to emphasize the importance of practice in achieving this goal. The women have several weeks to hone their skills and sharpen their flicks before they face a stronger set of teams at regionals on May 8 and 9.