The NC State men’s ultimate club team, also known as Alpha Ultimate, is one of the biggest club sports on campus and the team is ready for an even more successful year starting with a handful of fall tournaments.
In the past, Alpha Ultimate had a string of super successful years but worked hard in the last decade to get back to one of the top teams in the country. This year, the team is hoping to have the deepest run in recent memory.
“We won a national championship in 1999, went to nationals up until 2008 and then hadn’t been for a really long time,” said senior captain Michael Lee. “Then, our freshman year in 2016, we earned a bid for the region to nationals and then did pretty poorly at regionals, so weren’t kind of able to break through that… Last year was kind of our coming-out year. We changed a lot of the culture around this program and decided that it was time to change the way we approach the season and approached the team in general.”
Changing the culture had a lot to do with being a family. Lee and senior captain Austin von Alten led the charge to build that chemistry, something they said made all the difference in creating a successful program and club.
“Early on, the culture was a little more uninviting to new people and the overall environment was a little toxic,” von Alten said. “So our biggest goal was to have a lot of family values coming into last year and that really helped. We oriented our whole program around getting really close as a team.”
Since they haven’t experienced nationals in the last three years, it is always the goal to get back to the big event. Both captains were positive and excited about starting this year off right, but more importantly, finishing strong with nationals in the spring.
“Our goal last year was to break through and get to nationals because that had been a goal for so long,” Lee said. “This year, we know that we are capable, and we know we can do that and know it’s quarters, semis, finals of nationals. Try to get into bracket play and go win a national championship for this school.”
The club ultimate team brought in a deep freshman class for tryouts this year. After losing 11 seniors, it has a lot of talent and roster space to fill in. About 15 freshmen made it through opening cuts, but the team only plans to keep seven or eight, so the first tournament will help the captains and coaches decide who will stay on for the rest of the year.
The captains run practice and are some of the top contributors on the team, led by von Alten, who Lee raved about being the most dynamic player on the large team.
“[Austin von Alten] is our best player. It’s fine if he’s uncomfortable admitting that; he’s our best player,” Lee said. “He’s the most athletic player in the country right now. He’s really, really athletic, kind of unguardable.”
A lot of the new players coming in are athletes, but not necessarily great ultimate players. Although more and more players are coming up with ultimate experience, most of the talent on the team is developed once a freshman makes the team. One of the freshmen that might make a big impact is Daniel Ferriter, a fast and smart player with a good disc.
“Frisbee is a sport with a lot of space that you can throw into, so if you’re fast and explosive and athletic and can go get the ball, that’s super beneficial for us,” Lee said. “We can teach anybody how to throw, and we can teach anybody how to run cutting trees, but it’s hard to teach natural explosiveness.”
Fall schedule for Alpha Ultimate:
Sept. 28-29, BaNC (Charlotte)
Oct. 19-20, Brickyard Brawl (NC State)
Nov. 2-3, Fall Easterns (Wilmington)
Nov. 16-17, Classic City Classic (Athens, Georgia)
NC State men’s club ultimate can make a lot of noise nationally this year but it all starts with getting experience for the new guys in the fall and building chemistry between all members. There will be a lot of action this semester to get the theme of how the season is going to go.
Sophomore Robert McAllister tosses the disc to a teammate to practice his accuracy in preparation for the next game. Men’s ultimate scrimmages against other teammates to practice backhand leading tosses and tapping the disc at Method Fields on Tuesday, September 24, 2019.
