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Two Saturdays ago, the student-formed Wesleyan frisbee team [stet] played and won their first game ever, beating a fledgling UConn team 15-11. The game, played at Storrs, was an auspicious debut for the team, as Wes sailed out to an early lead. Bill Bath scored two quick goals, giving the Cards a lead they would never relinquish.
The team of Bath, Bob Bischoff, and Bill Ritchie clicked well, accounting for eleven goals and nine assists. Bischoff, who picked up four goals and four assists, served as the key man in bringing the frisbee up the field, carefully working the disc into striking range. Ritchie balanced the attack well, setting up a pair of goals on fifty yard tosses. When Bath, Ritchie, and Bischoff tired, Dan Scholten, Lyle Rudenzi, John Brainard, Marty Hume, and Captain Bob Lacy picked up the slack, controlling play well, and keeping the lead large enough to allow for the occasional slips bound to occur in this rapid running game. Brainard starred on defense, using his long reach to pick off and block passes split seconds before they reached startled UConn players.
FRIZ RULES
All this means very little if you don't understand the rules of the game. Frisbee is a unique sport, combining the running of soccer, the quick passing of basketball, and the wide open aspects of the passing game in football. Score is kept in points, highest score winning, one point being scored each time a man catches a pass in his team's endzone. (For statistical buffs, an assist is credited to the man who throws the scoring pass.) The frisbee is passed upfield after an initial throwoff, mainly because it is impossible to kick a frisbee accurately. At no time may the man with the frisbee run; his job is to pass it to one of his teammates, in an attempt to work the frisbee up field.
Defense is played man to man, coverage resembling basketball coverage against the man with the frisbee, and resembling pass coverage in football against the men moving towards the goal without the frisbee.
BLOCK THAT FRISBEE!
Any time the frisbee is intercepted, knocked down, or dropped, the team that had been on defense may pick up the frisbee and begin moving it back toward their goal. This often results in some hectic changes of position, as play often assumes a rapid, sometimes reckless pace, leaving men breaking for the goal line caught on the wrong end of the field if the frisbee is batted down or intercepted. In all but the finest competition, most goals result from opportunistic passing and surprise fast breaks.
Lacy's return to the game marks the end of a year's layoff, when, as a high school senior, he piloted his team to [the] national championship against the other high school frisbee team in the country.
The game deserved more attention than it received in the major newspapers and on the wire services, so as reparation for this disservice, and with an eye towards history, a Springfield TV station offered to cover the game scheduled at Hampshire last weekend. It was rained out, and has not been rescheduled.
Even if the season is over, the team's future is insured, as they have been budgeted one hundred dollars for next year. That's a boatload of frisbees.
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