Editor: Hazard (he/him)
Nationals is over! Very well done to Bristol for winning the tournament, and to Reading for winning spirit of the game. These articles are simply going to be giving each team a space to write a few thoughts on the tournament, in order of finishing.
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Other Coverage
Full results can be found on the schedule.
The ShowGame are doing weekly podcasts every Friday/Saturday covering all the action.
Hogi filmed some games this weekend. You can see his watchalong on Twitch, or watch the game footage on YouTube.
Ulti.tv filmed a lot of Nationals, and streamed it for free to the public on their YouTube. You can support them and find out more on their Patreon.
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Results
1. Bristol Women
2. Iceni
3. London Masters Ultimate (LMU)
4. SYC
5. Spice
6. SCRAM
7. Reading Women (Spirit)
8. SOUL
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Recaps
1st Place: Bristol Women
Amelia Durbin: Bristol Women are unbelievably proud to be National Champions. It's been a strange season, and we're delighted that for us - it ended the way we so desperately wanted. It's certainly one to remember.
The weekend started with 3 games against SCRAM, LMU and Reading. SCRAM came out hot, challenging us consistently, LMU worked our brains hard - making us adjust and try new things and Reading kept us on our toes throughout the game.
Our semifinal against SYC is one for the history books. Both teams wanted the win so desperately and the emotion on the pitch was palpable. Having had a convincing win against SYC earlier in the season, we were so impressed to see them come out all guns blazing. Their defence was stifling. The game was 50/50 throughout constantly trading. Following a mammoth point, we were able to push away at the end. Many tears were shed from both sides, and every player left everything they had out on the pitch.
We came in to the final with a point to prove. Following a nasty collision in the SYC game, we were down to 14 players. We knew in order to win, we had to find 5th gear, dig deep, make no mistakes and work together as one. This is exactly what we did. Our team played for eachother; we wanted to win for our friends who deserved to hang a medal around their neck. ICENI didn't make it easy though. Like our semi, the game was anyone's. They worked smart and efficiently. They are an athletic team and we tried to match them where we could.
Overall, the weekend and season was a whirlwind of emotion; it was filled with elation, but had moments of complete desperation. We are walking away from the win knowing we deserve it. All the training and the hours spent perfecting our play was well and truly worth it. Playing for Bristol is special - and this is confirmation of why we do it.
2nd Place: Iceni
Amelia Kenneth: Iceni had a great weekend full of high level games. First up was a youth-filled energetic team in Spice, who really showed up and showcased their skills well which made us change our approach to try to work around their well oiled offence. After trading through most of the game we managed to pull away to win 11 - 9. Next up was SOUL who used the pitch width really well, had some great grabs and made us really think about our defensive approach. It’s great to see a new team on the scene and the final score was 15-2. Iceni played SYC in the last game of the day on Saturday in the late afternoon sun. There were many hard fought points but our defensive strategy seemed to work very well against the SYC offence and we came away with the 15 - 6 win.
Our Sunday morning kicked off with a unacceptable amount of coffee and a game against LMU. It’s always going to be hard playing the legends who taught you most of your tricks! It was a pleasure to play against these wonderful athletes on the pitch and they pushed us to try new things and really execute the fundamentals well. After a really tight game of high level ultimate, Iceni came out with the win 11 - 9.
The first half of the final was pretty even and we mostly traded with Bristol but they took it away in the second half with some nice flow and break shots that our defence couldn’t shut down. We had a great weekend, were honestly quite devastated to lose the final and it really hurt in the moment but we’ve been reminded why we love this sport - the high level games but also friendships made and sustained. Thanks to all the other teams for their support, the great games (both spectated and played) and thanks to UKU for organising Nationals after such a weird year.
3rd Place: LMU
Chesca Weddell: Third place never felt so good! Feels like first! Thank you to all the teams we played over the weekend.
4th Place: SYC
Rupal Ghelani: When SYC saw the group draw, we were definitely feeling especially nervous for the Spice pool game. We know how talented Spice are, and their talent shone through so brightly throughout the whole game. SYC started the game on a bit of a run putting a few points on the board through some varied offence trying to keep Spice on their toes. After a time out, Spice managed to bring it back with their zone proving very effective at slowing down our offence and causing a few throwaways, and their beautiful breaks and flowing disc skills getting them points on the board. But SYC managed to keep the foot on the gas and the intensity up to take the game. Words genuinely cannot express the love the SYC have towards Spice - they are a talented group of players who are the future of women's ultimate. To take 5th in the country in your first season is incredible and we have no doubt that next year you will be in the top 4. Shout out to Grace Wilkinson and Ciara Moore for leading Spice through the season and weekend, and Amy Van Zyl for being a royal pain to mark downfield for all of our defenders.
Sunday started with the SYC vs Bristol semi-final. This was the matchup we were hoping to happen over the weekend. After playing Bristol in our first game of the national league where Bristol beat us heavily, we wanted to show the, what we were made of. Bristol started on a 3-0 run which meant SYC had to regroup and refocus before going on a 3-0 run of our own. Just those two runs really set the standard for the game which pretty much traded out until the end before Bristol were able to get a couple of breaks to win the game. Carla Link, Molly Wedge, Lynden Chiang and Saskia Kantorowicz were outstanding for Bristol. Carla took control behind the disc and opened up every corner of the pitch with her expansive throws. Molly, Saskia and Lynden were threats both under and deep down field, proving difficult to mark for our best defenders. I'm so so proud of SYC and how we managed to find another gear and give Bristol and tough game, and congratulations to Bristol for being the deserved winners of UKU Nationals. Even with a small team you truly showed why you are a sustainable powerhouse of women's ultimate in the UK.
This season has been very up-and-down for SYC. We started off shaky with two big losses against Bristol and Iceni, but since then have built and grown together through to a National Championship in which every player on the team peaked at the right time to pull out the best performance of the season. We felt like a lot of people had written us off and we had a lot to prove, and every training session we went in with purpose with all players putting in the hours off pitch as well. As a team we'd like to thank Deep Space, Brixton, and Fire for giving us some friendlies and helping us grow as a team. We had a lot of rookies this year and all of them rose to the occasion and standard we set ourselves especially at Nationals, and all of our returning players led by example. We feel very privileged to have been able to play a season of competitive Ultimate, so finally a big thank you to the UKU for making it possible.
5th Place: Spice
Maya Israel (she/her): Nationals 2021 was Spice’s first ever National Championships, and we’re incredibly proud to say we finished in 5th place. We saw Nationals as an opportunity to show ourselves and other teams how far we’ve come in the last few months, after having built a team in 2019 and with our first season being cancelled.
We began the weekend with an electric game against Iceni, probably one of the most exciting games a lot of us have ever played. We knew this would be our toughest pool game but we managed to step up to the challenge and played some powerful defence and slick offence. Iceni deservedly won 9-11, but given the standard of Frisbee played it really didn’t feel like a loss to us.
Our second pool game against SYC didn’t go as well as we hoped. Knowing we needed to win for a spot in the top 4 perhaps applied a pressure the team were yet to experience. Before Nationals, we’d never been in a situation where we had something to lose and I think this might’ve affected us slightly. SYC pulled it out the bag, winning 13-8. Their offence was clean and when they got the ball rolling, they kept their heads in the game and held tightly to the lead. To finish off the Saturday, we played SOUL and won 15-7.
Coming into Sunday, we were gunning for 5th place. Our first game against Reading was a success that led us to the 5th vs 6th playoffs against SCRAM. We knew SCRAM wouldn’t go down without a fight. SCRAM enjoyed threatening deep and used their zone to slow us down, but ultimately we managed to take the win 13-6.
Our MVPs were Fi Chang, Caitlin Simon and Lucy Cinnamond for their reliability, spiciness, and grit. The team are also grateful for our Captains Ciara Moore and Grace Wilkinson; and to the rest of the coaching committee for being amazing. Running a team without a non-playing coach is a challenge, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without their hard work.
6th Place: SCRAM
Rhona Gordon (she/her): Nationals for us was such an incredible end to what had been such a weird season. We were going into the weekend knowing how well we could play but also unsure how that would stack us up against the other teams.
We did our best to come out firing, and we made some very big plays throughout the weekend. Teams managed to wise up to our deep shots which made it a bit trickier for us to make the connections we wanted in places. I think if the season had been longer and we had been able to get more competitive reps in then we'd have placed higher in the hotly contested 3-6 bracket (but I guess other teams may feel similar!).
Overall though the captains are so proud of the squad, it hasn’t been an easy year and we had a number of rookies that really stepped up. It’s been such a fun season as part of this team, and it doesn’t seem like only a few months ago there were people on the squad who had never met before! We are also extremely proud of being called “Rowdy and Boisterous” on the livestream, and will definitely use that as a recruitment tagline for 2022.
7th Place: Reading Ultimate
Charlotte Marriott: What a weekend! Reading came into it wanting to gain experience playing against elite women teams and learn. I personally felt proud of a team that haven't played together, and of all ages, coming together and playing some good ultimate. Throughout the weekend we were getting better at knowing what cuts to make, what throws make sense and what each other felt comfortable doing on the pitch. We want to say a special thank you to every team we played, the intensity of the games didn't drop and personally some of the best ultimate we have played in a while (no thanks to Corona). We hope to learn from nationals and build depth within our team to go and have a smashing next season.
The spirit throughout nationals was extremely high we thought. It was good to get back to playing and having the calls discussed, hand signals for said calls correctly displayed and a general positive vibe. Sure we didn't win all the games, but personally we won our personals goals and kept a positive outlook for each game (I guess this may have contributed to us winning spirit, again well done Reading women's team!). A big shout-out goes to Gemma Coleman (fellow co-captain and all around all star) and Ilona Livarski for most spirited players for the weekend and Katja Chan for most improved. I was also great the play alongside Beth Jeffery and Rosie Coward who put 130% into every cut they made. And it always a pleasure handling alongside Cam Spearing. Honestly if I could shout out the whole team I would, I am proud to say that I helped captain the team!
8th Place: SOUL
Ali Thomas: Some of the roster for Nationals had played for SOUL before the weekend, others had not, so, as essentially a pickup team, we eyed our ‘warmup’ games against SYC and Iceni with some trepidation. I’m very proud of how we gelled over the weekend, making some awesome plays and managing to work through the defences and cause trouble for the offences of the best women’s teams in the country. Though it would have been nice to win a game, the amount of fun we had was a victory in itself. Although it's worth saying that we managed to score against every team #nobagels, and ended the weekend with a 7-13 result against Reading that was far closer than our cup game had been, showing how much our team had developed in such a short span of time.
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