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Ultimate Frisbee

------------------------------------------------ 2007/2008 -----------------------------------------------

Fire Drama, but Edinburgh Remain The ONLY BUSA Ultimate Frisbee Champions - EVER!

On a cold Friday evening, Edinburgh Universities Open ultimate Frisbee team Ro-Sham-Bo headed South to defend their BUSA Indoor title. After a long but amusing game of Mafia, not mention the actual driving, the team arrived in Conventry ready for bed. Unfortunately Takeshi's Castle and Sky tv got in the way.

So Saturday morning arrived a little sooner than hoped but they made their way to the venue anyway. For the 1st time this would be playing on indoor astroturf. This meant bigger pitches, an advantage to Ro-Sham, and no heating! Despite having had many of last years winning team graduate, the Ro-Sham team was still experienced and expected to do well. Big pitches meant teams couldn't rely on 1 or 2 star players as many had in the past and Edinburgh's young guns would have a chance to shine.

Saturday was split into 2 pool stages. Seeded 4th Ro-Sham were in the top of pool 4 and faced Trinity, Loughborough and Surrey. These games were all relatively straight forward allowing Edinburgh to warm-up their Offence and a chance to stretch legs on Defence. Having qualified top of this first round pool, they advanced to the "power" pools along with Loughborough, joining the top eight. Also in the power pool were Brunel and Bristol.

The final game on Saturday was against Brunel and if the others had been straight forward this was anything but. A young, athletic team Brunel came out hard and fast. They were the only team the offensive "O" line weren't perfect against, that is when the O line went on they scored everytime, save one. This meant the Defensive "D" line had to step up. They did, getting block after block, but they were having difficulty scoring from these turnovers. Thankfully they produced three turnover goals and the offensive line kept the disc well and ran out the clock with the score 8-6 to Edinburgh.

A pub meal, banter and MOTD later, beds beckoned again. This time Family Guy put a stop to that and Sunday once again arrived a little earlier than hoped and with the first opponents being Bristol, this was going to be tough. Bristol are always difficult opponents and this time was no different. Both teams were excellent on offense, with an early turnover by Bristol producing the only defensive score in the game. As Ro-Sham started on offense they won the game 7-5 by scoring right on the buzzer.

Now seeded 2nd Ro-Sham had a bye to the quarterfinals, here they easily dispatched a very young Norwich team. This meant a semi-final rematch with Brunel. The other semi-final saw Bristol taking on #1 seeds Warwick, who had taken advantage of a much easier power pool to cruise to this point.
Having already played Brunel just meant Edinburgh knew it was going to be a battle. Ro-Sham started on offence and again Brunel managed a turnover and score, going 1-0 up. Ro-Sham leveled on the next and then switched their offensive strategy. Sticking to quicker movement of the disc, Ro-Sham ran Brunel ragged and scored every offensive point from then on. The Edinburgh D stepped up and put massive amounts of pressure of their throwers. Despite this few turnovers were generated. It was looking close and with the sidelines packed Ro-Sham finally generated 2 turnover goals to go from 5-5 to 7-5. With little time left Brunel made it 7-6 and then came out desperate on defence. The Edinburgh O line kept it together and kept the disc as time ran out and Ro-Sham progressed to the final.

The opponents in the final were Warwick, having beaten a tired Bristol easily (who lost their star player in their quarterfinal) . This was what Edinburgh had trained so hard for, a chance to repeat as BUSA champions and remain the only University to have held any BUSA titles.

Ro-Sham started on offensive and immediately knew this was going to be tough. After a stuggle Edinburgh scored and allowed the D-line a run around. With the most experienced players on the O-line, a lot was asked of the young guns and initially they struggled with Warwick scoring easily. A quick rethink on offence and Ro-Sham were back to scoring in 2 or three passes. This releaved a little of the pressure on the D players and they began to get blocks. However, the fact it was a BUSA final began to show as a few nerves crept in and these turnovers were squandered. The O-line kept cool heads and continued to put the points in, trusting that the D-line would convert these turnovers eventually. They did, scoring twice in succession. This took the score from 6-5 Edinburgh to 8-5. Warwick then scored, 8-6 and with time running out they came out all guns blazing. However, Ro-Sham kept the disc and scored once again 9-6. Warwick scored quickly to make it 9-7 and then all hell broke loose. Edinburgh started the point on Offensive and had the disc when play stopped. Everyone was getting asked to leave the building as the fire alarm had been set off. It had been going off for a while, but we stopped when a member of staff asked us all to get exit the building. In the chaos we eventually discovered there were only 16 seconds remaining and as Edinburgh had the disc Warwick admitted they wouldn't manage to score twice in the time left, and conceded victory.

There it was, Edinburgh reclaimed their BUSA INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIP and look forward to trying to do the same outdoors.

Edinburgh are still the only University to have won any ultimate frisbee BUSA Championship.

(Drew McTwiggleson , 08/01/2008)

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