Positive Mojo - Aberdeen University Ultimate Frisbee

Last weekend, a misty Loughborough played host to the British Student Indoor Ultimate Championships. For the first time, Aberdeen University's Ultimate Frisbee team, Positive Mojo, had qualified for the world's largest indoor tournament. Hopes were high, despite the loss of first team player Ben Price to an unfortunate scheduling clash.

The tournament took the form of a group stage on Saturday, followed by a knockout/play-off stage on Sunday. The first day's play kicked off with a game against Bristol's Mythago. The encounter was close, going point for point until the final stages. Unfortunately, with the Mojo up 5-4 with ten seconds remaining, Mythago forced a turnover and scored a lucky equaliser. Mojo responded to that disappointment by quickly establishing a healthy 4-1 lead against No Frills of Cardiff. However, No Frills somehow managed to step up a gear, blitzing the Mojo defence with 8 unanswered points, eventually winning the game 9-5. After a somewhat disappointing start, Aberdeen were left needing a victory. That came courtesy of local rivals, St Andrews' Flatball Project. By holding onto the disc patiently, and frustrating the Flatball defence, Positive Mojo managed to grab a narrow lead which held until the final buzzer. The final score came out 5-4 in our favour. Unfortunately, in the next game against Strange Blue (Cambridge), the tactics that had worked so well against Flatball were unravelled. The Cambridge defence was able to read Mojo's short game too well, and our reluctance to switch to a riskier long game allowed them to win 6-3. In the fifth game of the day, things looked to be getting worse as Fly TNT from Nottingham opened up a 5-2 lead. Some measure of morale was raised when the guys came back to draw the game 6-6, ahead of the perhaps the hardest games of the day. Those were against Warwick Bears, and Leeds' Jedi. Both were well drilled, well trained teams with equally impressive offence and defence. Mojo, whose preparations for the Nationals hadn't been exactly aided by exams, were crushed by both, 9-4 by the Bears, and 11-3 by the Bears.

At the end of Saturday's play, Positive Mojo lay 6th in their group of eight. That standing put them in the bottom half of the first division for Sunday's play-off, and a best position of 9th overall.

Sunday began with something of a hangover affecting the Mojo players, though probably from Saturday's performances, rather than the party the night before. The first crossover was against The Fish of Lancaster. The game was quite close, but some fortuitous turnovers for the English side allowed them to win 8-6. This left us with the prospect of finishing no higher than 13th. In order to maintain that standing, Aberdeen had to face Fly TNT once more. This time, Mojo got their..um...mojo back, and battered the Fly defence from the off. With some smooth flow play, coupled with the patient give-and-go that had characterised our play the whole weekend, the final score came to 10-3 in Mojo's favour. Our final game was the 13/14th place play off.

Due to fluke, the opposition were none other than Flatball Project. Having beaten them on the first day, a tense game was in prospect. Whatever the result, the coach journey with them back to Scotland was going to be interesting. Positive Mojo came out firing on all cylinders, forcing Flatball into several handling errors with some inventive defence. Soon, however, the St Andrews team managed to muster something of a comeback, but not enough. The game finished 6-4, and Positive Mojo claimed 13th place.

All in all, it was a mixed weekend. Being our first appearance at National level, we did better than could ever have been expected, even if our team didn't quite match their vast potential. On the upside, we do have a young team which is improving all the time, and has the ability to become a fixture on the National circuit. As for the rest of the tournament, the final was fought out between Mythago and Glasgow's Far Flung, with Far Flung destroying the Bristol team 14 - 4, and thus obtaining Scotland four qualifying spots for next year's Nationals. Dundee's Shooting Stars won the Division 2 competition, beating Northern Lights of Durham 10-9 in overtime, whilst Flatball Ladies won the Women's Nationals, completing a clean-sweep for Scottish teams. So congratulations are due to our team: Dave Gardner, Roy Van Cleef, Will Rutherford, Jamie Urquhart, Paul Donaldson, Donald Shields, James Presley, Scott McRoberts and Dougie Easton.

Jonny Hughes