Captain Ben Wishnie-Edwards ’16 prepares to huck the disc downfield past two Hotchkiss defenders.
The Varsity Ultimate Frisbee team took on both The Gunnery and Hotchkiss for the second time this season, last Saturday, April 16. After a quick game against The Gunnery School, resulting in a sweeping win of 11-1, Choate fell short to the Hotchkiss Bearcats with a score of 3-11.
In the first half of the Hotchkiss game, the Bearcats did a very good job completing deep passes. For the Choate players, this was the first game all season in which they faced a team skilled enough to do so, and as a result, were not prepared to face it with their defense. Captain Ben Wishnie-Edwards ’16 commented, “In the first half, we got beat deep way too often. We kept playing underneath our men trying to prevent short throws. But because there was no wind, they were able to just bomb it deep and beat us downfield a couple of times, which was unfortunate.” Assistant Coach Mr. Morgan Harris commented, “I think sometimes we got a little rushed and had we taken one more breath, stayed chilly, we could have completed a throw. Having calm, non-frantic passes leads to some good momentum, and we saw Hotchkiss just taking that momentum and running with it the whole game.”
The team went into the second half down 6-1, but kept calm and adjusted to the deep passes. As Head Coach Mr. Daniel Hartsoe stated, “Once we made the adjustment and started helping each other deep, Hotchkiss actually had to complete a lot of shorter passes to score and we did a much better job of slowing down their offense by causing a lot of turnovers. Offensively, we had quick disc movement, especially from Ben Wishnie-Edwards, Mola Adeyemi ’18, Linds Cadwell ’16, and Caleb Hastings ’18.”
The team fought hard — Hastings and Adeyemi in particular worked the disc down the field and along the sideline, getting breaks, and bringing the team together. Once the team started playing in unison, Choate completed a number of offensive sequences moving up the sideline, but unfortunately, they could not sustain the offensive sequences for long. This which resulted in several turnovers.
Despite the score, the team maintained a positive outlook, ending the game exchanging songs with the Gunnery and Hotchkiss teams.
Choate Ultimate is looking to work on staying organized, staying focused, and moving the disc quickly on offense and hopes to redeem itself in the next three games this week, including one against its rival, Deerfield, on Saturday, April 23.
