Florida Warm-Up

The first tournament of the spring for Burn required a 12 hour drive all the way down to the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. The two vans were divided and dubbed Squidward and Skylord vans for the three day weekend of ultimate ahead.

- One of our handmade jerseys for the weekend, we were sure to fill our hearts with things we love (like nem)

On Friday the 14th we rocked our handmade Valentine's themed shirts and enjoyed the sun and warmth that we had been missing in Blacksburg. Our first game of the weekend was against UT-Dallas, where we were unable to convert a break against them and ended up losing a close offensive game 7-10. The second game came against a hot Northeastern team that we were unable to stop on offense. Even though we were only broken a few times, it was enough for them to take another close one 9-13. The final game of the day was a match with Tufts, another team on the rise. We had the most energy of the day against them but were again unable to convert many breaks and lost 8-12 in the end.

Saturday was a slog of four games throughout the day, our first one was against Wisconsin. After pulling off an upset against them last year, they were ready for us this time and played a complete game, while we struggled to get past their consistent poaching and lost 6-13. The second game was against Florida State and we were eager to avenge our loss to them last year on stream. We came out hot and never let up, winningly comfortably 11-6. The third game of the day came versus Florida, and it was a hot one. We took half 8-5 with some really intense defense, but let them back in the game with some poor decision making and they tied it at 9-9. We end up forcing universe point but are unable to convert the break and they end up scoring to win it 10-11, our tightest loss of the weekend. This set us up with what was supposed to be a rematch with Florida State as our crossover game, but after some discussion with other teams who had opponents they already faced, we decided to switch opponents and take on Auburn instead of playing Florida State again. The legendary night game of the tournament had beautiful weather and awesome atmosphere, as both teams really brought the energy and we were really able to go back and forth in a hucking contest for most of the game. However, near the end they started to make some adjustments defensively and forced us into more errors, so we lost our most fun game of the weekend 11-13.

-Parham with what was definitely the best facial hair of the weekend, rocking our traditional Florida mustache and a tuft of his beard left in the shape of a heart for Valentine's weekend

The final day of frisbee for the weekend had only two games on the schedule, and we started against the hosts of the tournament, South Florida. It was another windy day on the fields, but we were able to use it pretty well with our deep game and our defense really valued the disc once they got it, helping us pull ahead to take the win 13-9. Our last game of the tournament was against Texas A&M in the heat of the day. We started out with a quick two breaks but gave them back soon after, then broke again to take half 8-7. Our offense was clean the rest of the game and our D-line got us a few more breaks to pull out the second win of the day 13-10 and make us undefeated on Sunday.

Even though our record might not look too hot on the weekend, we gained a lot of good experience from this tournament and are more familiar with our personnel choices for O and D lines and hope to bring the fire at our next tournament, Easterns Qualifier!