by Merit Geldmacher

Back in September or October we decided to send a women’s team to this season’s Dutch Ultimate Indoor Championships. It has been four competition days within 99 days, our team played in Arnhem and Eindhoven and the first competition day was not too soon ahead. 

For the first competition day the ten women’s teams were divided into “Division East” and Division West”. To claim a spot in Division 1, we had to end up as first or second. Our first game in Division East was against BFrisbee2’s from Nijmegen. It was a very tight match and in the end we lost on universe. New game, new luck – we scored many points against Vertigo from Eindhoven and celebrated our first win! After a short break we played our next game against Airborn. They won quite clearly but encouraged us to keep it up for the last game. And indeed, we gave everything against Tijgers from Veenendaal, got into the right flow and eventually won. While waiting for our train at Arnhem Centraal, we found out that we ended up second in our pool and thus got promoted to Division 1! We celebrated ourselves at the station and had a fun yet delayed train ride back to Maastricht.

What an ultimate (frisbee) weekend! Just the day after we got back from a Sinterklaas tournament in Münster, Germany, the second competition day was just around the corner. We had sideline support from our open team as their division also happened to play in Eindhoven. Unfortunately, we lost our first three games against Airborn, Flow 1 and Flow 2 – and we knew; all that’d keep us in Division 1 was a win against UFO. It was a really tight game, either team could take the win. Eventually, the playtime was over and that point had to be finished. The score? 8:8. The winner will take it all. It was a long point with many turnovers and excitement. Ultimately, we won on universe and retained our spot in Division 1.

End of January, it was time for another indoor competition day in Eindhoven. We welcomed BFrisbee2’s from Nijmegen in the first division and four games were ahead of us. The first one was more of a warm-up for us, Airborn clearly took the win. Next, we played against BFrisbee2’s and Flow 2. Ultimaas’ Chicks had the will and the power to win both games on universe. What a success and team effort!

At the last indoor competition day in February there all open and women’s team came to Arnhem and competed in their pools or in brackets. Just one day before two of our girls cancelled and we were left with six of us. Fortunately, we didn’t have to rely that much on the punctuality of Dutch trains that day since all of us went to Arnhem by car. Except for Tereza and Martin who came straight from Barcelona, missed a few trains and came too late for our first match – we had to play savage against UFO from Utrecht. It was a really tight match until Elisa got injured while avoiding to run into the wall. Right in that moment Tereza sneaked into the hall and was ready to play, at least we made her to be. Unfortunately, we lost our first match in the brackets and didn’t make it to the semi-finals. During the break Astrid arranged us an additional player (thanks a lot for helping us out, Joke!) and after some refreshments and some team talks we were ready to play against Tijgers, Ultimus Prime and Force Electro. We braced ourselves, won all remaining three games and took fifth place in the competition!

I can surely speak for everyone who joined us, played with and against us. We had a blast playing in the women’s Division, learned and improved a lot and we’re getting ready to play in the outdoor competition!