c/o Vicious Circles
On Sunday, Oct. 3, Vicious Circles won Vassar’s annual Huck for Red October tournament, collecting Optimus Prime in an impromptu ceremony.
Confused? Vicious Circles is the name of the women’s club Ultimate team, and Huck for Red October is one of the few fall tournaments for Ultimate team in the Northeast. Besides Ultimate glory, the victors are awarded an Optimus Prime piñata.
“Optimus Prime is currently residing at 35 Home,” said co-captain Nora Hoover ’12. “He is full of candy. Victory is sweet.”
This year, eight women’s teams—the most ever—participated in Huck, including Yale’s team, Ramona, which Vicious beat in the finals. Some of the other teams that fell to Vicious included Conn. College, Vassar’s Boxing Nuns, and Ramapo College.
Vassar has traditionally been a strong team, and finishing that day undefeated was a big boost for the relatively small and new Vicious Circles—five of the team’s juniors are abroad, at least three of their returning players were unable to make the tournament for various reasons..
“Honestly, my expectations for this tournament were pretty low because most of the team had never played together before, and we only had ten players,” said co-captain Melanie Bronfeld ’12, nicknamed “Mel B.” or “Scary Spice” by the team. “Even with all the odds against us…we managed to kick ass! Everyone on the team scored at least one point,”
Due to heavy rains during the night, the fields were wet and muddy, complicating all of the games.
“The low point was probably ‘The Muddle’ caused by all the rain,” said Ari Finard ’12. “It’s hard to play Frisbee when you literally can’t pick your feet up off the ground.”
Vicious didn’t let that stop them from bringing the intensity, however. Another highlight for Bronfeld was Hoover’s Callaghan (winning a point by catching a disc thrown by the opposing team in your end zone) against Yale.
The final game was no cakewalk, however. Even though Vicious managed to easily defeat the other teams, beating them all by a margin of at least four points (games were played to 13), the final against the highly-ranked Yale team proved to be a one-on-one point battle, with no team gaining ground for the first half, and points often lasting for several minutes or more.
Yale managed to pull ahead soon after the second half began, and the score was 6-10 when the hard cap went on. This meant that Yale only needed to score one more point to win; if Vicious wanted to win the tournament, it would have to win five points in a row. In addition, due to cancellations from Vassar’s alumni team halfway through the second half, this game turned from the semi-finals to the finals. In the end, Bronfeld scored three points in a row, all with assists from Hoover, who has been playing Ultimate for at least eight years.
Awkwardly, due to shoddy score-keeping on the Vicious side, the team rushed the field a bit too early, screaming, celebrating, and dog-piling when they believed that the score was 11-10. Yale politely informed them that they were mistaken, and the score was actually 10-10. There was one more point to be played to decide the tournament winner.
“We rushed the field and then realized we still had another point to play. Awkward,” Bronfeld said.
However, after some tight defensive play, Hoover and Bronfeld brought it out again, making a play identical to their previous one to win the entire tournament. Upon actually winning the tournament, new player Rachel Cohen ’12 broke down crying, and Bronfeld and Hoover lay on the field in sheer exhaustion and excitement.
“As a new player, it was really exciting,” said Kate Gibbel ’15. “The highlight was definitely Melanie’s beautiful layout at the end of our Yale game.”
New player Andrea Schindler ’15 agreed with Gibbel. The only new team member who had played Ultimate before (Schindler started the girl’s team at her high school in Massachusetts), Schindler was pleasantly surprised by the chemistry that formed among the women on this team.
“I expected to do a lot of losing,” Schindler said. “A whole lot. Simply because we hadn’t scrimmaged as a team yet this season. My expectations were demolished! We won every game.”
Cohen agreed. As the only new player who is not a freshman, Cohen had some catching up to do, but managed to surprise everyone when she came out as one of the most consistent players, keeping up with the fast pace set by Yale.
“It was great learning experience, and lots of fun!” Cohen said. “I was amazed at how much we all improved as a team—especially newbies such as myself. I had no idea what to do in a real game, and learned a lot as the weekend progressed.”
All of the players listed rising to the challenge against Yale as one of their highlights.
“I’m so proud of us for not allowing ourselves to be psyched out by Yale’s impressive numbers and athleticism,” Schindler said. “We bumped up the intensity from our prior games and really pushed it to rise to their level. Hot Hot D, Chilly Chilly O.”
It wasn’t all competition though–Vicious knows how to break it down. The traditional mode of warming up is to roll out onto the field with a boom box playing Ludacris’ “Get Back,” Savage’s “Swing,” or numerous other songs with intense bass beats.
“One of the best parts of the tournament, besides the sick frisbee playing, was the boom box. Vish brings the party,” Finard said. “Have music, will dance, will win tournaments.”
Schindler, Cohen, Gibbel, and Rebecca Rubenstein ’15, the fourth new player for Vicious, said the team has bonded immensely already.
“We are weird, we are becoming a family already despite the fact that we’re only a month into school, and we are fantastic dancers,” Schindler said. “I only just joined this team and I can already foresee myself being a sloppy, dejected mess when the upperclassmen graduate. Damn it.”
Melody Oliphant ‘13 summed up the sport in four succinct words.
“Ultimate is sicky gnar.”