"Beat Franciscan!"

The hosts of the podcast discuss the sport of ultimate frisbee and its connection to Ave Maria University. They explain the rules of the game, the history of the team at Ave Maria, and their journey to becoming a varsity sport. They also discuss their experiences and successes in their senior season, leading up to the biggest game in the school's history against Franciscan University. They express their determination to win and their confidence in their team's abilities. The game will be played under the lights, in cold temperatures, and they believe their athleticism and endurance will give them an advantage. Hey guys, what's up? Thank you so much for tuning in to our second podcast here. My name is Garrett Hallon and my co-host is David Adamitis. Welcome back today. It's episode 2 beat Franciscan Yes So this episode is going to be a little bit Different from the first episode where we did a film review on the movie 7 today We're going to be talking about the sport of ultimate frisbee So Dave, can you just kind of fill everybody in on the sport and kind of what's going on here with our ave connection? Definitely. So like I mentioned big switch up today all about the sport of ultimate frisbee So like we mentioned earlier in our prior podcast here and I go way back We've been friends last four years here at Ave Maria University And we've done a lot of things together like this podcast and one of those things is we've played ultimate frisbee all four years together Which is super cool and super fun But what's really unique about this year is Here at Ave the sport of ultimate frisbee has been elevated from a club team to now varsity So that's where we come in with the title of this podcast beat Franciscan Where we're going to be playing Franciscan University and frisbee and that's what we talk about today the sport and where we're going with this Yes, so to tell you guys a little bit about the sport and how it works There are a few rules and it's actually self-officiated which is really unique. So frisbee actually doesn't have referees It's all honor system. And so ultimate according to the World Flying Disc Federation of all federations ultimate is a non-contact self-refereed team sport played with the flying disc frisbee and The objective between the two teams is to score goal, which is kind of similar to a touchdown in football but it's only worth one point is instead of six and Each team has seven players and that's considered a line or a rotation of seven players The player with the disc is called the thrower, which is pretty self-explanatory A good distinction to make here is ultimate is that when you receive the disc as a cutter You are not allowed to run with it So you can take a couple steps to establish yourself and then you use your pivot foot and then you're able to make the throw from there The last important point I want to make here is that the defensive team Gets possession of the disc if an offensive team's throw is not caught by a player of the same team in That case the defensive team becomes the offensive team and tries to score in the opposite end zone Sweet. So now that we kind of have this understanding of how the sport of ultimate works I'm going to transition and I want to talk about a little bit about the sport of ultimate and its ties and connections to Ave Murray University So ultimate first was established at Ave back in 2015 and that was really just from a group of guys from a bunch of different areas and walks life or friend groups on campus Maybe they played in high school and they kind of came together and they Founded this club team and it really did well. They were small at first they grew and they battled it out it was all through self funding self self motivation, but there's a drive and determination there and A few years after the establishment, they elevated the club team to a junior varsity team. So received a little bit of funding However, they had to go through some financial stuff and actually D elevated. That's a word we can use for this And brought it back to a club team and Since then that's kind of where Garrett and I have come into this story our freshman year Where it was coming off this high of being a JV team and some of the guys are older Remember that and there was there was a fight and a drive for that And just this past year We really received the reward of all that hard work and were elevated in the fall this past fall of 2022 to now be varsity sport Which has been awesome So we receive funding all the equipment and to be able to travel across the country really just playing the sport of Frisbee Thank you, Dave for that. And now to tell you guys a little bit about our senior season David I both we've been on the team for four years. So this is a big year for us. This is it and so we came in in the fall and David was doing cross country at that time. So he was doing a lot of that but For Frisbee for us it was it was tough. There was a lot of conditioning And there were very little drills. There was very little emphasis put on throwing which is such an instrumental part of the sport But our coaches had this mindset that since we were a varsity team That we should be able to throw well already and that was to our detriment that actually hurt us quite a bit because we didn't get those reps So we had one game in the fall and we played against Florida Gulf Coast the Eagles on Saturday, October 29th And we started this game in the worst way possible at this point David had come back to the team we were all in and We thought there were high expectations. We thought we're going to whoop this team and we started down. Oh Five zero five it was horrible. Nobody knew who was doing what there was so much Struggle and so much concern because we had such high expectations. This is our first game as a varsity sport But thankfully we were really able to regroup about midway through that first half and we played a good second half and we went on to win that game 17-9 and so David, can you take us forward into the second semester? Definitely. So coming back in the spring There was a big emphasis on switching in the mindset the changing out what practices look like we started a lot more drills a lot more throwing and We really saw the reward of that. We had a tournament on January 28th Which was small it was a little round-robin But what's really special about this is it was the first time Ave Maria had hosted more than one team on campus So we played University of Miami and we played Florida Gulf Coast again And we ended up beating both 13-6 And this was amazing that it set the tone for what this semester would look like and then the next Saturday We traveled to Nova Southeastern. That was Saturday, February 4th, and we beat Nova Southeastern 13-3 and we got another shot at Miami as well as David told you guys we Beat them pretty handily the first time at home 13-6 But the second go-around when we played at Nova Southeastern, we won by a score of 9-7. So it was rather close Definitely. So moving from there. We had another bigger tournament this time. We actually had four games. We played Florida Polytech We played University of Central Florida FGCU again And we actually we did very well here. This was nice We won we beat Florida Poly 13-1, University of Central Florida 13-3, and FGCU 13-5 Which is our third time we had encountered them for this semester And then most recently we played against the alumni. We actually played them just this past Friday. So this was Friday, March 24th and We were a little bit nervous going into this game because David and I, the rest of us students, have always looked up to our alumni. We think the world of them. They're such good guys They're the ones who've handed down the sport to us And so we weren't sure what this game was going to look like. We were confident in our abilities However, since the alumni were downplaying themselves and acting as if there wasn't this wasn't going to be a game we knew that they were doing that as a strategy and as a way of making us unsure and Probably playing down to their level in a sense, but we played great We played great this game. We ended up winning 19-9, and this is a tradition Hopefully it becomes this tradition where we win 19-9 every year, but this is what we've been doing We play them roughly once a year. David and I have been very grateful to play the alumni on multiple occasions now We've gone 2-2 over our four years against the alumni, which is pretty good And so hopefully our team will continue to beat the alumni going forward So that gives us an overview of where the program is for Garrett and I's senior year. We're 8-0 Which is incredible, but we are up against the most important biggest game in school's history Where we're going to be traveling up to Steubenville, Ohio to play Franciscan University. Currently they are ranked 22nd in the nation Which is awesome and good for them, but we want to take them down and get them through the challenge of this game What makes this a super big deal for us is that four years ago when Garrett and I were Seniors in high school, the guys here at Aave actually traveled up to Steubenville and played them. It was a really close game It was 23-19 But since Garrett and I have been at Aave all four of our years We've heard about that game, how epic it was, how it was this great battle between these teams And we've been itching for the chance to redeem that loss Here we are We are traveling up this Friday and we're going to play them under the lights and their home field And they have a great culture that surrounds our team So we know there's going to be a good home crowd, but we're ready to take them down. David's right this time We'll be different. We have incredible depth on this roster We actually have a 26 man roster this year, but we're traveling with 18 guys Which gives us enough for two full lines plus four subs So roughly two subs per line. As David's getting into a little bit The setting of this game is going to be something out of a dream We're gonna be playing under the lights up on this massive hill in front of their student body But in much colder temperatures than we're used to here in Aave Maria, Florida. As of right now according to weather.com The weather is expected to be a high of 58 degrees on Friday night, a low of 38 with a 60% chance of rain Now Franciscan does have this to their advantage But what Aave has is the athleticism, we have the endurance, we have the grit and we have our lady's name on our chest This truly is the clash of the Catholic schools Franciscan University versus Aave Maria University As going into this game, we really identified what's our mental picture look like for this We want to visualize this Visualize this so they can come true on that field. Our mental game right now is we want to win this game as much as Possible. That means for us is that if we had to get a lead maybe from the first or early in a second We don't slow down. Pedal to the metal all the way through We give no inch or quarter here and we just keep on pushing Most importantly though in our mental picture of this we do this for our lady. We're blessed on our uniforms That say Aave Maria, Hail Mary. We are Mary's University here in Florida and across this nation We want to represent her and make her proud in how we conduct her behavior, our play and our attitude and win or a loss But we're going to come out of this or put everything into it and do it for her And so what David has described is our mental picture. It's the visual, it's the image, it's that interior But it's also important that we consider those exterior elements as well. These four vital things to winning this game And so we're going to go through these. The first, short memories The second, beat shilly. The third, swing the disc. The fourth, focus on your man, nothing else I'm going to elaborate on those because this probably sounds like a foreign language to you guys, but the first point short memories Frisbee is such a unique sport because on any given point you either score or you turn it over So a lot of times you actually turn the disc over which is very frustrating And it's very easy to get upset on yourself and frustrated by the fact that you just made this error either a bad throw A missed catch, whatever it is. And so it's really really important that as players We have short memories that we forgive ourselves Quickly that we forgive each other Quickly and that we just continue to play the game because it's a free-flowing game and the game won't stop for you So it's so important to keep it going. The second key to winning, beat shilly This means that we want to take the pace of the game slowly I've always observed in sports that whoever controls the pace, whoever can Control the momentum of the game is most likely to win And so for us, we have a lot of gifted athletes on this team But it's very important that we slow down that we establish ourselves And that we take our time because on every throw we have 10 seconds You have a 10 second stall count and so there's an ample amount of time to make the right decision So beat shilly. Third point swing the disc Like in other sports, it's super important to move the ball. But in this case the Frisbee around two different players You don't want the disc to solely lie in the hands of two or three players Rather you want to utilize your seven players and really move the disc from side to side in order to confuse the defense And that fourth point, focus on your man and nothing else This is one that's focused on defense and defense is the hardest part of ultimate It's so hard because you're constantly running and you're trying to figure out where your guy is going and where you need to be and when You need to be there. But with this simple point focus on your man. Nothing else It's solely you versus your guy and no concern as to where the disc is Unless you hear the word up if you hear the word up then you turn But other than that you're focusing on your man and nothing else. These are our four points So up until now we've really been talking about how we plan to just dominate going into this game against Franciscan But there's truly is the most important part in the overarching story of Frisbee for us Especially this year which is Mary which our relationship with Mary and we began this season off with a consecration to our lady Offering her every success and every failure every victory and every defeat That truly has been the cornerstone of what we do. Like I mentioned earlier We had the opportunity to wear our lady's name on her uniform and that allows us to just direct everything to her We actually had a really special moment Just a little bit ago and we had the alumni game that Garrett was talking about We was really fortunate and really special in the last five minutes of the game We put all the seniors guys out on the field There's seven of us and it was just before The start of that point when we were receiving the disc from the alumni And we all stood around looking at each other and we said this is for Mary This is so special and we are so blessed and privileged to be playing a sport that we love With the gift that God has given us Physically and get to glorify him and his wonderful mother Mary through this sport And that's really what we want to take into this game is Offer it to her and that's something that can touch all aspects of our life and we can take beyond Frisbee The sport is so much more than just any athletic activity but it forms you as a whole and as a person and that truly is going to leave a lasting effect on each of us as we graduate here this May and That brings us to the end of our second podcast Beat Franciscan. Thank you guys so much for listening again This is Garrett and David of the Fishers and Men podcast Ave Maria, Southwest, Florida. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you