The psychos enjoyed a very successful fall quarter preseason!

Recruitment was a success and in accordance with Psycho traditions, our '14 rookie class has (mostly) adapted to their new nicknames and returners have successfully forgotten everyone's real name.

Fall tournaments started out with the first San Diego State One-Day, where X and Y teams took on SDSU and Occidental in a one-day round-robin tournament. The very next day the Psychos traveled to UCLA for UCLA one-day where X and Y teams faced opponents from UCLA, USC, Irvine, Long Beach, and Occidental. Games were competitive and the rookies improved incredibly over the course of the tournament weekend.

Heading into the later part of the quarter, Psychos took a select team to Sean Ryan to play on the beautiful fields overlooking the ocean at UC Santa Cruz. On day 1 the Psychos took on UCSC (9-8), UC Berkeley (11-9), and Claremont (10-11) - finishing the day 2-1 and earning their spot in the championship bracket. Sunday's games began with a tough loss to UCSB followed by a strong showing against SDSU Gnomes, falling short in the end. The final game of the weekend brought Psycho against Claremont Greenshirts for the second time in the weekend. Finishing 8th overall, UCSD Psychos are looking forward to an exciting season!

In back-to-back tournament weekends, the Psychos hosted the Kendra Fallon Memorial Tournament on November 23-24th. Split again into X and Y teams, the Psychos played a series of competitive games and provided a learning experience for all involved.

We are excited for all the new players who have fallen in love with ultimate during the preseason and hope to carry this energy into the upcoming 2014 season. Psycho! You Know!

written by Leet

The UCSD Psychos rolled on the turf fields a little later than usual to the Santa Barbara Invite tournament after the rain ultimately cut out the last four seeded teams. This was the first time the Psychos got to sleep in! The Psychos first faced UC Davis on a sunny coastal day going on a run early. Defense was on point with a special layout D by Chip as the Psychos easily took the game 12-6.

The second game of the day was a familiar rival, San Diego State. Once again eager to start the game, the Psychos played as a team and outshone their rivals on defense. Though the gnomes tried to force a backhand, the UCSD offense broke through and went to work, eventually forcing SDSU to play a clam. Though the Psychos were up through terrific flick hucks by Tidal and run through D’s by Tikka, the clam defense halted our run and though UCSD was able to adjust in the 2nd half, it was too little too late as the gnomes finished our day with a 8-11 loss.

Sunday was a fresh start and a chance to go to the championship game with our 1st game against UCLA, a fun opponent. UCSD came out with good energy and took a huge early lead but the wind kept pushing both teams down as the points quickly turned into marathons. Both teams were playing zone and somehow, UCLA ran away with a run of their own, taking the Psychos down on universe 7-8.

Next up was USC and the marathon points continued. The Psychos zone defense proved very effective against their handlers and we were able to shut down their offense. Though it seemed like the game could have gotten away from UCSD, Taytum kept the team in the game with her excellent defense, including many layouts, ending the game 8-5.

The final game of the tournament was against Stanford, a team the Psychos have not had the chance to play very much. The wind pushed on as the sun wore done. Both teams were matching each other point for point at first but the game slip away when the Psychos couldn’t capitalize on the many D’s in each point. Though the Psychos scored the last point, the final score was 4-8.

SB Invite was a great learning experience and a great way to see what the competition will have in store for us this season. We played well as a team and with a few more adjustments, we'll be back for more come Pres Day Invite!

written by Leet

Formerly known as SoCal Warm-Up, the UCSD Psychos renamed their fall quarter tournament in honor of late teammate and friend, Kendra "Punnett" Fallon. A huge thanks goes out to all the volunteers who helped with the tournament, along with VC Ultimate for all their support and their help in raising $274 which will be donated to the SKY Memorial Foundation.

Split into two teams, the Kendra Fallon Tournament was a weekend for all of the SoCal teams and the Psychos to have one final warm-up before the season. The X Team faced Claremont in their first game, a team also split into two. Against a familiar opponent, the returning Psychos matched up with their stronger handlers and the rookies were matched up fairly against the other team. With great handler defense, the Psychos were able to shut down Claremont’s offensive plays and turn around for the score with many rookies eager to run down to the endzone taking the game 12-11.

With no byes during this tournament, Team X went straight into their next game against Arizona. The opponents played a very fast paced game, transitioning quickly from turn to huck for the score. Though the Psychos were mostly able to keep up with the speedy opponents, the Arizona players simply outran many of our players as poor defensive matchups led to a 5-12 loss.

Next up was Occidental, a fun and spirited team. The opponents had a very young team and mostly filtered their offense through experienced handlers. The Psychos matched up to shut down any handler give-and-go or long hucks to stall their game. There was also a rookie point as many of our younger teammates were excited to play against such a spirited team. The Psychos ended the game 7-4.

In the final game of the first day, the crossover match was played against San Diego State. The heat bore down as the competition fired up against our cross-city rivals. Unfortunately, the Psychos were not able to find their flow and broke down against the Gnomes quick handler movement and hucks. Though a tough fight, the Psychos lost 4-10.

Sunday of the KFal tournament started out rainy but it was new day of more playing for many of our rookies. In the first bracket, Psychos-X faced Claremont again but a more complete team as they combined their two teams into one in this final day of tournament. With more of their stronger players, Claremont was able to move the disc much more quickly. The Psychos stayed on par fighting point for point against Claremont but eventually lost their hold and was pushed out of the Championship bracket.

Instead of facing the counterpart Psychos in the second round, Psychos-X played Cal State Long Beach. Once again, it was another game of trading points but eventually, Long Beach averted any chances of a universal point and pulled away with great handler movement, essentially ending the game and the day for Psychos-X as they moved on to play Psychos-Y in the next round. Both Psychos fought through some difficult games the 2nd day and were able to come out of Kendra Fallon Memorial Tournament with some great new game-time experience for our new members. 

written by Leet
The annual Sean Ryan Memorial Tournament started out with us matched up against Humboldt for the first game.  Right off the bat, our team was aggressive taking initiative to move the disc quickly.  Humboldt kept up steadily as we continued to trade points back and forth but time was on our side as we took the game defeating the number one seed in our pool 9-8.

After a long break of two byes, our game against UC Santa Barbara was yet another fast paced game. The Psychos responded with great dump D, shutting down their handler offense set and preventing them from moving the disc.  There were some big plays, on both teams, but we were able to capitalize on turnovers. We answered back with many deep looks, as the wind began to pick up, which resulted in our 11-7 victory.

In our last game of the day, we faced Cal Poly SLO, a very familiar opponent.  Our rookies continued to improve and seemed to pick up the strategy of game play, coming up with a few D’s and great runs down in the endzone.  We had many miraculous grabs and had a final point with 5 of our rookies ending the day and game with a successful 12-11 score. With a 3-0 record on Saturday and coming out first in our pool, originally seeded 3rd and 10th overall, we would play in the championship bracket on Sunday.

Heading into the championship bracket Sunday morning, we found ourselves playing a very aggressive game against SDSU.  SDSU came out strong, scoring the first 2 points, but we continued to fight, scoring several points in a row. State came back to tie us and we continued trading points. The Psychos never let up and continued to push while playing aggressive defense. It was a very physical game but the Psychos still left the field proud even with an 11-13 loss.

Claremont was up next and the Psychos continued to be aggressive as we moved the disc really quickly, picking up the pace for every point.  Many of our deep shots connected and our D was solid but we allowed Claremont to catch up when our fast pace turned into too many throws to no one.  However, the Psychos were able to come up to win on universe with smart break cuts to the endzone.

The Psychos never let up even in the final game of the tournament against Sonoma State.  Also a very quick team with capable handlers, aggressive D was going to be main issue in this game.  It was a very tight game and even though we took half, our teams kept trading points all the way to universe.  Though it was a loss, our team came up with a lot of great grabs and great timing for deep cuts.  The tournament was a great indicator of how much our team could grow as we left Santa Cruz with a record of 4-2 and just a 3-point differential in our 2 losses.

written by Tiffany "Leet" Chang

UCLA One Day is always an exciting start for the Southwest division as seen by both our returners and excited fresh faces of our rookies when we rolled into Sunday morning.  The Psychos were split into two teams led by our A-team captains who drew inspiration from Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” to pump up Team X and Y.

There was not quite enough time for Team Y to warm up when we got to our assigned field but we faced a familiar opponent – Long Beach.  Though slow to get into the game as the wet fields clogged up our cleats, once both the rookies and returners got into the swing of things, the team stepped it up to go from trailing by a couple points to taking half at 7-4. No Regrets was not going to let up easy though as they sped up the game to catch us at 8-7. But our rookies never gave up either as we finally took it to hard cap at 9-7.

After a short bye, we faced yet another familiar team, USC. As returners matched up with familiar opponents, we were able to keep our ground as our rookies worked hard to get open. But it wasn’t enough as USC took half. We continued to push our defense with a small 2-man cup which forced USC’s returner handlers to swing more and slow their huck-heavy play but our team eventually fell to USC.

In order to play a fourth game, we had to win our next to finish 1st or 2nd in our pool. The afternoon sun beat down on us and it was apparent that the heat was taking a toll on both teams.  We saw our rookies gainmore confidence and had multiple rookie-to-rookie scores in this game. As our team worked hard to capitalize on fast breaks, we finally broke away and took the game.

Our final game was up against the 2nd Green Shirts team proved to be much more difficult.  Many long points were drawn out as the day wore us out.  The Green Shirts edged us out of a win but the final 7 on were able to go out taking the last point as hard cap expired.

The UCSD Psychos are proud to announce the Kendra Fallon Memorial Tournament. Formerly known as SoCal Warm-Up, more details about Kendra "Punnett" Fallon and the tournament can be found here:

http://www.psychoultimate.com/kendra-fallon-memorial-tournament.html

The first day of practice will be on Tuesday, October 9th! Practice will be held at Muir Field from 6-9pm. Come whenever you can and if you can't make it on Tuesday, come check us out on Thursday at Warren Field, same time, different place! It's never too late to show up to ultimate practice! 

No experience? No problem! Rarely do people join ultimate in college having played before. We'd love to teach you! And trust us, the skills are easy to pick up.

Come check us out and make one of the best decisions of your life!

Fall Quarter Practice Schedule
Tuesday's @ Muir Field - 6-9pm
Thursday's @ Warren Field - 6-9pm

It's that time of year again! Recruitment tanks are set and ready to order! Orders placed before August 20th can be submitted here.


All orders after that date can be sent to Chip: michellexchang@gmail.com. Be sure to specify your size and quantity.

Each tank is $15.

Get yours today because THERE'S NO TIME!

written by Chip

Heading over to Scottsdale, AZ for Regionals, we were greeted with hot weather and great competition. All the work we put into this season would come down to this weekend.

Saturday morning our first game was against Stanford. We couldn't get our offense started and unable to capitalize on key moments, we lost 7-11. Our next game was against UC Davis. The last time we saw them was at Pres Day. Davis came out ready to play, while we still looked sluggish. The biggest problem we've had this season was scoring on the endzone line. This game was no different. Unable to convert points on our endzone, Davis easily took half and eventually took the game 7-13.

Our third game was against Sonoma State. We picked ourselves up and kept up with Sonoma throughout the game, even taking the leading by a point or two. But Sonoma continued to fight and outplayed us to take the win 9-13. Our fourth game was against USC, a team we've seen countless times. Though it was the last game of the day, we continued to fight through every point taking the win 13-3.

We finished our last game of pool play on Sunday against UCLA. Again, we struggled on offense, losing the game 5-13 and finishing 5th in pool play. But we still had a shot at Nationals via the back door bracket.

Now in elimination round, our next opponent was San Diego State. We started off the game ready to play, scoring the first two points. But SDSU continued to fight back and took half. This weekend, we were a second half team. We started to convert on offense and scored several points against State, but after falling so far behind it was hard catching up during the second half. SDSU took the game 8-15, putting us out of contention for Nationals.

With the last game of our season against UC Santa Cruz, who we've seen multiple times this season, we were trailing at half. Again, we scored more points in the second half than we did in the first half, but time was against us and Santa Cruz took the game 9-11.

written by Chip
WIth the College Series underway, the Psychos made a trip to UCSB for Conference Championships. Our drive up the I-5 and the 101 was congested with traffic and greeted with heavy rain, but once we reached Goleta, we were met with sunny skies and strong winds.

The weather on Saturday compensated for the absence of rain with strong crosswinds. Our first game was against CSU Long Beach. We came out sluggish, but fought through to manage a 9-7 win. We then had a bye before our next game against UC Irvine.

As the wind picked up, our zone defense was key in forcing turnovers. Our offense picked up and we took the game 13-2. Next up was Claremont. Claremont capitalized on our mistakes and converted our key turnovers into points for them. Down 5-7 and with time running against us, we rallied to score 3 straight points. Capitalizing on the red zone after forcing key turnovers was key to this success. But Claremont answered back to tie the game 8-8. This forced the game into universe point where Claremont scored and took the win, 8-9.

Our last game was against UCSB, the one seed in the tournament. We were the first to score, but the Burning Skirts took advantage of our turnovers on the end-zone and took half. But we continued to work the disc up the field, scoring a few more points. The last point of the game burned through both soft and hard cap, and after a brutal 25 minutes of play under relentless winds, we finally scored. Though we lost 5-10, we continued to fight and push through until the end.

We started off Sunday with a game against San Diego State. Our mistakes added up and State took the win 7-15. We had a bye before our next game against SLO. We reached cap at 15-8, giving us some time to rest before our last game against USC. Our record against USC coming into Conference Championships was 2-2, USC winning the latter two games. We started off the game with a high level of intensity, broke on offense, converted on defense, took half at 8-4, and never looked back, taking the game 15-4.

We placed 5th overall at Conference Championships and with a bid to Regionals, next weekend the Psychos will be heading to Scottsdale, AZ to fight for a spot to Nationals.