While most Bruins were sound asleep at 5AM on Saturday, Bruin Ladies Ultimate (BLU) was on the road to Santa Barbara Invite (SBI), the first tournament of the regular season. Playing a total of 6 games during the weekend, UCLA came away with a 5-1 record, taking 5th place overall in the tournament.
BLU entered the tournament ranked 15th, and seeded 3rd behind Stanford, the 2016 National Champions, and Whitman, who placed 2nd at Nationals.
On the first day of the 2-day weekend tournament, BLU went head to head with UC Santa Barbara, winning 13-7. Next, BLU went on an 8-point run against UC Santa Cruz, winning with a final score of 13-3. In the final and toughest game of the day against UC Davis, UCLA came through with a 9-8 win, making the Bruins the winners of Pool C.
Notable stats from Day 1 were Caroline "Ace" McKee's 7 assists, Sylvia "Arrow" Liang's 100% catching and passing completion rates across her 21 points played, and the top scorers, Han "Heist" Chen, Camille "Kailua" Wilson, and Kristin "Gemini" Monson with 5 goals, 5 goals, and 4 goals, respectively.
Bright and early on Sunday, with frost still coating the grass, the Bruins took on UC Berkeley in the quarter-finals. The teams traded points in the beginning, but UCLA hit a rough patch from which they could not recover in time and lost 8-12. Moved to the consolation bracket, the Bruins played UC San Diego. Quickly adjusting to their deep game, BLU won 11-8. Moving on the final game of the day against Whitman (from Walla Walla, WA), UCLA started out on fire, taking half 7-0. Whitman fought back in the second half, but BLU held out for a 12-8 win.
Freshman rookie, Malia "Rune" Smith, also a member of UCLA's marching band, commented on SBI, saying, "My first tournament with BLU was absolutely amazing. The entire mood of the team was so positive, supportive, and happy, no matter what the circumstance… Such a mood is so contagious that you can't help but smile and push yourself in each point to do your best for you and your team. It's so different than any other sports team I've been on, and because of that, I've never felt so accomplished and proud of my teammates before."
Smith had an impressive debut with 4 run-through D's on Saturday alone, and contributed 6 goals during the tournament. To put this performance in context, Han "Heist" Chen, senior and well known as a superstar on BLU and in the ultimate community in general, contributed 10 goals over the weekend.
BLU was fortunate enough to welcome back coaches Alex Korb and Emma Frankel, along with new coach and UCLA law student, Shereen Rabie, for the 2017 season.
Korb commented on the tournament, "I was really impressed with the rookies… the team overall did great, and a lot of people showed how much they'd improved since last year. We unfortunately had a brief loss of focus that we couldn't recover from, but we'll be working on that, and smoothing out our deep game, before our next tournament."
BLU will continue fine-tuning in preparation for its next scheduled tournament, President's Day Invite, a 3-day (February 18-20) tournament hosted by UC San Diego.
