Grinnell’s two women’s Ultimate Frisbee teams traveled to Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. for a tournament this past weekend. The Sticky Tongue Frogs finished the competition in fourth place, making it all the way to the semifinals. The Grinneleanor Roosevelts ended up in ninth place.

On Saturday, Feb. 15 the “Stickies” put up a record of 4-1. They scored an 11-6 win versus Arkansas, an 11-4 win over John Brown University, an 11-5 win over Texas Christian University and an 11-0 win over Lipscomb University. Their only loss of the day was versus Hardin-Simmons University, a match they dropped 3-11.

“It’s difficult to name standouts—everyone on the team contributed to our success,” said Eva Metz ’14, co-captain of the Stickies. “We played a lot of schools that we don’t usually play and we’re really happy with how everyone played.”

The Stickies split the matches they played on Sunday, Feb. 16 on their way to the semifinals. They beat the Hendrix College alumni team 15-8, while falling to Truman State University 6-15.

“We exceeded expectations I think,” said Kirsten Nelson ’15. “We played very well for our first ever tournament.”

While the Grinneleanor Roosevelts only won one match, the squad showed high intensity despite battling several injuries to its players.

“We contested every single game,” said Carissa Shoemaker ’14, captain of the team. “It was a really intense tournament, especially because we had so few people.”

Grinneleanor Roosevelts traveled with 10 players to last weekend’s tounament. With Izzie Pfeiffer ’16, Laurie Polisky ’15, Hannah Lieberman ’16 and Eliza Honan ’14 sidelined, the Grinneleanor Roosevelts were limited in substitutes.

“It was a lot of running,” Shoemaker admitted. “The games are so long—usually the rounds are capped at 90 minutes or so.”

The drive to Arkansas took 10 hours, and because the teams had to use personal cars, arrivals were staggered.

“We had to try to organize people getting out of class because we had to use personal cars,” Metz said.

According to Shoemaker, some players arrived in Arkansas between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. and got up to play at 7 a.m.

Nonetheless, all three captains agree that the drive allowed for quality bonding time.

Even though there are officially two ultimate teams, Nelson likes to think of them as one big team. The idea of splitting the team had been around for a few years. Having between 30 and 35 players meant a lot of players were not getting playing time.

“It hindered development, so we had talked about potentially splitting into two teams,” Shoemaker said. “We finally decided to make the leap this spring.”

After the splitting process, the Stickies ended up with 17 players and the Grinneleanor Roosevelts with 10. Players got to choose which team they wanted to play on.

Since Ultimate Frisbee is not an NCAA sport, schools go through USA Ultimate (USAU) to participate in sanctioned tournaments. For the most part, however, coordination is done by schools.

“Essentially the entire Ultimate Frisbee community is like self-gov,” Shoemaker said.

While some schools have coaches, Grinnell’s teams are entirely student-run and also face issues on campus because they are not a varsity sport. Practice time and space for the teams is limited. Currently, they practice in the Fieldhouse from 9 to 11 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“That’s the only time-slot available for club sports, and we need that time, so we split it,” Nelson said.

Once the snow melts on MacEachron Field, however, all teams will get to practice outside whenever they want.

“Usually we head out after spring break,” Shoemaker said. “But we’ll be pretty eager.”