By Tina Huang
Staff Writer
Coppell High School has countless opportunities with activities that students can participate in ranging from lacrosse to cupcake club. One of the newer activities is Ultimate Frisbee. Although it is not an official UIL sport, the team is recognized as a sport for CHS.
Ultimate Frisbee, also known as Ultimate is a mix of 7 on 7 football and soccer, but with a frisbee. There are seven players on each team, although there is no maximum to the number of benched players, meaning there is not a limit to how many people play in one game.
Points are scored by having a player catch a Frisbee in the end zone.Teams play until 13 points are scored or until 85 minutes are up, making the highest scoring team the winner.
Ultimate officially started at CHS in the fall of 2010 by 2010 seniors with the aid of AP Psychology teacher Jared Stansel. Since then, Ultimate has been an ongoing, and considerably successful activity at CHS.
“The first two years of Ultimate, we placed second at the state competition, which is held by USA Ultimate Frisbee. Last year we placed fifth,” senior and orginial member of the Frisbee team Josh Brunelli said.
The team seems to keep getting better and even have aspirations to go to Nationals. Consisting of about 25 members, the CHS Ultimate team, beat the second seeded team, Marcus, in the state 13-7, which was even better than the score of what first seeded team, Arlington Bowie, won by which was Marcus 8-7.
They also had a good run at an open tournament they signed up for which placed them against 21 other teams, 16 of which were competitive college teams.
“We placed fifth out of 21 teams,” senior Alex Garcia said. “We beat 11 college teams and were the only high school team to win, much less place. All the other high school teams who competed didn’t even win a game.”
Even though the team has not been around for a very long time, there seems to be a great sense of friendship and camaraderie among team members.
“We’re just really successful as a team, we’re like family,” senior Ragho Chamkura said. “We spend a lot of time together.”
Chamkura is not overstating anything when he says that they spend a lot of time together. Practices are every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 – 6:30 p.m. even though official season starts in the spring. There are not official tryouts, but commitment is important. To be on the team, a player must show up to practices and games. But once you are on the team, you will definitely be welcomed.
“Everyone encourages each other and wants to see each other get better,” Garcia said “We really are like a family. Sure, we can have disagreements and stuff, but in the end we’re just really supportive of each other.”
