Help MSU Ultimate go to Nationals!
Michigan State
Ultimate has made it to nationals and we need your help in getting there!
The 'Burning Couch',
as we're named, has finally made the long feat of making it to Boulder, CO
where the 2012 College Open Championships are held this year. We are among the
20 teams around the country that have worked to make it passed our region and
on to the Championships. This has been the first time Michigan State has done
this in six years!
What we need from you:
The Ultimate program,
as you can imagine, is very underfunded. We receive no funding from the
university and pay for our own expenses out of our own pockets. With such a
huge accomplishment bears the burden of huge expenses. We would appreciate it
greatly if you, our supporters, friends, and family members could help us get
to Nationals. Your generous donation would help out with our Tournament fees,
cost of rental cars, gas, field food, and other miscellaneous expenses that
would benefit the team as a whole. We would be grateful for anything that you can
afford and we thank you for supporting the MSU Men's Ultimate Program
Our Year in Review:
It has been an
exciting year, one filled with ups and downs. We started out with many injuries
along the way. Big players like Ryan Mariouw and Jesse Ellwood were out for the
beginning of the season and we started off slow at two tournaments in North
Carolina. We gained some steam, however, going into Centex. Centex is a
tournament in Austin, TX where the top teams in the nation are invited to
attend. We hadn't been invited in five years, so we were ecstatic to play. A
twenty-two hour car ride down proved our dedication to the sport, but hurt our
legs in the first few games. We regained composure for the last game of
Saturday play and defeated the No. 1 team in the nation, Oregon, with a score
of 13-9. That fueled our fire for Sunday, and went undefeated on the day
beating nationally ranked teams in (6)Whitman and (4)Carleton. We ended the
tournament winning the 9th place bracket. That wasn't the high point of our
year, however. We placed second at Chicago Invite beating our rival
(11)Michigan along the way. With momentum mounting, we went into the Conference
Championships with high aspirations. We had no problem taking care of business
and won the finals against Michigan again to win the Michigan Conference for
the third straight year (first time in school history). Our mission was not
accomplished yet. We still had to get the monkey off our back and get to
Nationals. We were ranked first in our region going into the Regional
Championships and did our job getting into the finals game with another rematch
against Michigan. It was a hard fought game, but we lost. However, we still had
one more opportunity to get to Nationals. We earned two bids from our region to
Nationals this year, so the second place game left us plotted against Illinois.
Having lost to Illinois the two previous seasons in the Regional Finals, we had
a vendetta to pay. Unfortunately we came out sluggish and made mistakes
early on. The halftime score seemed insurmountable at 10-5. We decided we had
nothing left to lose, so we put it all out on the line. We won the game 14-13
and finally made it to the National Championships.