From 2002-2006 Michigan State was a perennial Nationals contender. I joined the team in the fall of 2006 fresh off top 10 finish at Nationals with hopes of carrying on the tradition of Great Lake dominance. Ryan Heffernan, Alex Edinger, and Weston Laabs were all young naive freshman at the time however, Alex did not look like a freshman at all. I remember the first time I met him I thought he was a senior or grad student. Behold, the power of facial hair. Ultimate was something to be excited about and it helped me meet a lot of my best friends at Michigan State. I will never forget the rookie core heading to Chicago Heavyweights for our first tournament with the Couch. We all had our own struggles throughout the fall, Heff couldn't throw a forehand, I did not understand the force at all, Wes could only throw trick throws, and Alex had a really, really big head (hair not ego) that made it hard for him to run. However, spring came and we evolved. We were given animal names. Heff was at first the cougar but ended up with the Sloth. Weston was always a Beagle. Alex became Dingo. Finally, I went from the Toucan to the Sheep.
Our tournament that spring was the Michigan Indoor. We lost on universe point to Ohio State in the finals. The leadership was pleased with the performance and we thought we were right where we needed to be. The slump began, we would finish the season 14-28 highlighted by a loss to Padiea High School which started a 13 game losing streak. We lost two games on Saturday at Regionals. It never feels good when your season ends in a 13-8 loss to Wheaton College. We were pissed.
That summer, Heff and myself put together a club team called Kitten Herd specially for the development of MSU's younger players. We had a great time, gained a ton of playing experience, and played a lot of savage ultimate. The next fall we picked up Jesse Ellwood, Aaron Zigler, and Christo Ferguson. We had a good fall season, everyone was looking forward to making up for last seasons shortcomings. We were driven. We had an up and down spring. Its very hard to be consistent when the average age of your team is 19. Our spring was highlighted by a 9th place finish at Roll Call. Sectionals came and we put up a good fight against magnUM in the finals but fell short losing 15-11. We got the 5 seed at Regionals were we beat Ohio in the first round, lost to Ohio State in the second, beat Oberlin in the next, then faced Miami Ohio. If we won, we would be playing on Sunday. It was a game for the ages but we fell short, losing 13-12 on double game point.
Summer ultimate happened again, we made it to five tournaments and had more than ten people come pretty consistently. We started the fall off with new leadership, Heff and Dingo were the captains of the team. We had a decent fall, nothing to write home about. We were anxious to prove ourselves because no one who was on the last Nationals team remained. The spring started off with a disappointing finish at the Hellfish Bonanza. We peaked early finishing second at the Tally Classic. The rest of our year was plagued by injuries and inconsistency. We rolled into Regionals with hope of making noise, we did but not in the way we planned. We avenged last years loss to Miami Ohio in the first round then fell to Ohio State in the second. We faced a Xavier team who we took too lightly and it cost us our season.
Something changed, for the first time I had been on the team, people stopped trying to pretend we were the Michigan State of old. We didn't earn those Nationals beths, we were resting on the laurels of dedicated athletes who had graduated. We made the summer count, we worked hard, really hard. No Surf was a great tournament for us, we did extremely well and broke seed by ten spots finishing 5th. The summer continued to roll, so did we. The highlight was a universe point loss to Madcow at Motown Throwdown. On a side note, I finally beat my first masters team this summer, it is a relief! We were finally having some success combining our talent, potential, passion, and effort. To start the fall, we traveled down to Ann Arbor for what has become an annual showcase game for the Weasels recruiting process and beat magnUM for the first time since the Michigan Indoor in 2007. Jesse Ellwood, Wes, and DIngo were named captains and quickly conceptualized a plan which could translate the summers success into our college season. We added Chris "Hump" Spittal, a longtime Madcow player, OSU alum, and good friend of the East Lansing Ultimate community, as our coach. We went 21-4 over the course of the fall season. Our young players like Ryan Morsdstadt, Zach Albright, Brad Morsdstad, Dave Hochalter, and Ryan Mariouw were playing with patience and confidence. TJ Bartzack, Andy Barnhart, and Mike Eiesnsmith found their way back onto the team and provided leadership and height as well as some good jokes.
The spring season was our most successful yet. We started off by pumping every team at Glow-in-the-Darkhorse finishing 7-0 on the weekend. Vegas was a blur and mostly a vet excursion into the gates of hell. Not only were 2 days cancelled, but we finished with a less than stellar 2-2 record. Queen City Tune Up provided an official coming out party for the new Michigan State as we took first in our pool beating the tournament's #1 seed Pitt with relative ease. We rode the momentum into Sunday were we found ourselves playing in the finals against Georgia. ALthough we lost, we proved we were back but still had some work to do. Back in East Lansing, we were fortunate enough to have Duffy two times a week, we took advantage. We came out flying at our next tournament, the Tally Classic and ran through Saturday beating LSU, Valdosta State, Central Florida, and Notre Dame. Heading into Sunday we were seeded #1. We beat Wheaton in the quarterfinals pretty easily and found ourselves up against Virginia's Night Train in the semi's. You can check out the write up of the game right
here. It was a very well played game however we had some costly drops at the end of the game and ended up losing 13-11. Chicago Invite came and went, it was rather uneventful mainly because we saw another day of ultimate be cancelled due to poor weather. 4-0 on very windy Saturday helped us gain more experience throwing in the wind however everyone left feeling very frustrated with the weather.
As the final weeks of school approach, the UPA Series starts consuming our thoughts. For me, this is my last year on the team and I want nothing more than to end my MSU ultimate career with a Nationals birth. Our success this season has propelled the Great Lakes to new heights making a strength bid realistic for our region. 3 bids to Nationals from the Great lakes. Michigan State is currently ranked #11 in the UPA poll and #13 in the candc25.com poll. These serve as a remeinder for us to keep working hard to reach the big show and there are about 400 teams we should beat making it impossible to be complacent. I am looking forward to my final series with you guys. We are a family and nothing would make me happier than playing my final college ultimate game in Madison, Wisconsin on Memorial Day weekend.
My brothers of the Couch. I'd rather play alongside you than any team. Let no opponent forget how menacing we are. We are lions. You know what's there waiting for us? Victory! Take it. It's yours!
Gentleman, it is our time.
