Thurs. Sept. 15, Rock Canyon’s Ultimate Frisbee team took on Columbine in their first game of the season at Wildcat Elementary. The co-ed team cut and bid, coming up short of Columbine with a final score of 11 to 5. News of the team’s loss begged further crucial information regarding one of Rock Canyon’s less known sports. What is Ultimate Frisbee? And how does our team compete?

Ultimate Frisbee, a non-contact sport, is played mainly in the United States but also around the world. The sport’s levels span the range of groups playing for fun to the professional level, or Major League Ultimate.It is a game played with 7 players from each team present on the field at one time.

The game begins much in the same way as a football game begins with a kick-off, however in Ultimate, the procedure is dubbed “pulling the disk.”  The player in control of the disk at any time has 10 seconds to release the Frisbee. The defender nearest the player is in charge of the “stall count,” or counting down these 10 seconds, as there are no referees. The game is based solely on the players’ ethics. They are in charge of calling fouls that arise most often as a result of “travelling.” This infraction occurs when a player takes more than one step with the Frisbee in a certain direction. As another major rule of Ultimate, players are not allowed to run with the Frisbee. Once in contact with the disc, they may only take one step in any direction before the stall count is up. The player may pass in any direction but if the disc is blocked, dropped, or intercepted, possession immediately changes.

When either team scores a goal, the teams switch sides of the field. Halftime occurs after the 9^th goal is scored and the remaining 6 points will be scored after the half. To win the game, one team must attain 15 goals. Time is a non-factor.

But wait. Rock Canyon lost to Columbine 11 to 5. How is this possible if 15 goals must be scored to win? The game lasted two hours with and was eventually called for time. Parents and team supporters huddled in blankets on the sidelines throughout the game.   Few students were present at the event because like Michaela Fullerton ’18, who knew? Students cannot locate a team schedule of the athletics website. “I was not aware that there was an actual league or team at our school and I didn’t know that there were teams at different schools,” Fullerton said.

Despite the small student body turnout and the loss of the first game, the team looks forward to improvement over the season and aims at one target. “We want to win. That’s our only goal,” Ethan Dunn ’18 said.