UCLA Quadball drove up to the Bay Area for the H2O2 tournament, their first competition of the season this November, and had a great showing for returning and new players alike! UCLA played against Lost Boys, Venom, and Cal in pool play. Despite valiant efforts and many masterful plays, UCLA lost to Lost Boys and Cal, but took a victory against Venom 195 - 60. In their final match, UCLA scored a second victory against Venom 170-105 and placed 5th overall.
Rookies Andrew Fei, Amy Arnes, Tony Wang, Keshiv Tandon, Aidan Perez, and Tim Dull made their debut in this competition, and they put on an amazing performance! Andrew displayed great coordination in the beater game and had many near catches as a rising seeker. Amy's formidable positioning and game awareness allowed her to maintain bludger control and the team's upper hand. Tony demonstrated incredible driving capabilities and delivered canon passes to teammates. Keshiv excelled on defense and high passes left and right. Aidan performed incredibly with powerful drives and fantastic ball handling to begin plays, scoring 6 goals! Tim pulled off an astounding 9 goals over the course of the day, showing great driving and passing abilities on offense and being the 3rd top scorer of the whole tournament.
As returning players Nathaly Castrejon, Danielle Leuer, Jessica Franco, Safdar Kilaru, Fletcher Hoppe, Lukas Hager, Sean King, Laine Nowak, Arjun Malhotra, Brandon Chew, and Rebecca Nakagawa, and Coach Christian Krieger have shown they are a force to be reckoned with on the pitch. While some are still shaking off the rust from the summer vacation, they have shown incredible coordination, game awareness, mechanical mastery, and an opportunistic mindset to find fast breaks and solid passes! Laine was even voted one of the tournment MVPs!
For their first competition of the season and the first competition for many of their newest members, UCLA played well and fought hard. We look forward to seeing how much they'll have learned and grown as a team in the competitions to come!
