Rain or shine, these ladies are fine...

It is Monday morning and the ninjas are back at school, reflecting on our first tournament.  And boy did we learn a lot.  With such an incredible turn out this year, we are for the first time splitting into two teams for the fall.  Aptly named Minnesota X and Minnesota Y. 

For logical reasons we were placed in separate pools, but that meant we had to spend the whole day apart!  Even so, some intense bonding happened on field.  Team X fought hard against Iowa Y, Wisconsin X, and Eau Claire, winning against Eau Claire (9-2).  We had some amazing grabs, sick D, and overall a wunderbar time was had by all.

Team Y was full of great fighters as well.  In the lovely weather (that was sarcasm) we had some marathon points made even longer by the freshman that refused to let the other team score (2 d's in teh endzone on the same point!!).  All games were lost, but we feel pretty great fighting so hard against three of the best teams in the nation.  (Our region is phenomenal by the way).

All of this playing was set against a back drop of cloudy skies, lots of rain, and muddy fields.  But don't get me wrong, we were pumped with energy from the moment we woke up! Speaking of waking up, this was what a ninja wake up looks like:



That's right.  We get our blood pumping by standing in the rain at 7 a.m. when the explosive gas alarm goes off and our coach runs around yelling at us to get outside.  This is also a great shot of what our weather was consistently like.  Shortly after this we found out the fields were flooded and we all went to panera and went home.  

It may sounds crazy to you, but I had an amazing weekend and am so pumped for this upcoming year!

FIRST TOURNEY

As the weather starts getting colder and more people are bundling up and heading indoors, Ninjas are actually grateful for the less than ideal weather.  Why? Well we have our FIRST TOURNAMENT of the year this weekend!!  And while for most people this weather is a nuisance, playing outside in the rain will make us better than those who scurry indoors!

We will be playing two teams and we are excited to get our new girls out on the field.  Stay tuned for more details of our adventures!

Scrimmage and 1st Practice

We have a busy Ninja weekend coming up! Here are a few important dates and things to note:

This Saturday, September 8th, we are having a co-ed scrimmage at 3pm at the West Bank Law School Fields. If you think you're interested in playing with the Ninjas, come try out a fun game with returning members of the women's and men's teams!

The following day, Sunday September 9th, will be our first practice, from 6-8 pm at TCF Bank Stadium. We will be meeting at the Wabasha entrance at 5:45 pm. Please be there on time. (You will find Wabasha on the west side of the stadium, among the MN county names adorning the outside of TCF)

Next week practices will then continue regularly on Monday, Wednesday, and so on! We hope to see many new faces at these first practices!

Fall Practice Info

Hello Ninja Fans and prospective Ninjas! The 2012-2013 season is upon us! School starts next week (eek!), and practice will start the second week of school. We may not be ready for school, but we are ready for practice! We will be practicing:

Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00-6:00pm at the Law School Fields
Sundays from 6:00-8:00pm at TCF Bank Stadium


About halfway through the semester (when we start fearing snowfall), practices will move indoors to Tuesday and Thursday evenings, times TBD.


Not yet convinced? If you would like to try out ultimate frisbee before the official season starts, we are having a scrimmage with the men's team on Saturday, September 8th at 3pm at the UofM Law School Fields (on West Bank, across the Washington Avenue Bridge, and to the right, north of the Law School building). Players of all experience levels are welcome!

If you would like more information about the team, check out our website, http://ninjawomensultimate.weebly.com, and contact us if you have any questions.

Hope to see you out on the field!

If you don't believe us about that wind.....

This is actually what it was like:

courtesy of Mary Bisquick 

Welcome to the Windy City: Sectionals 2012

No, not that Windy City... as it turns out, Chicago ain't got nothin' on Cedar Falls, Iowa. This past weekend, the Ninjas headed across the border for the Western North Central D-1 Women's College Conference Championships, where seven teams from Minnesota and Iowa competed for just four bids to Regionals. We were ranked fourth in our conference, behind Iowa State, Iowa, and Carleton, so we really needed to hold (or break) seed. We managed to hold seed, but in the end it came down to the wire... and who won the disc flip for possession in our very last game.

The weather definitely played a huge factor this weekend and, frankly, was super annoying. On Saturday we had some wind, but it was wind we could play in. We lost our first two games vs. Carleton and Iowa State, but won the more important games vs. Winona State and Northern Iowa.

Sunday morning the wind picked up, but we managed to score some upwinds against Iowa's B-team and won the game. Our last game of pool play was against Iowa's Saucy Nancy, and we lost to them in a very windy game. Due to rankings after pool play, we had to play Iowa again right away for bids... and lost again. 

So we moved on to our final game of the weekend, against Winona State, playing for the fourth and final bid. By this time the wind was horrendously strong (it had to be 30-40mph), and it was nearly impossible to move the disc upfield, much less score upfield. Essentially, the outcome of this game was determined by who was on offense first, and thank goodness we won the flip... or we may not have gotten the bid to Regionals! We ended up winning 5-4 in a very short, and painful one-hour game. 

(A shout-out to Brenna, Regan, Sloth and Gootch, who were actually able to string together 11, then 13 short passes in that last game, working it approximately 1/4 of the way up the field!!! It was truly beautiful.)

Here's a little taste of the difference between the "wind" on Saturday, vs the tempest of Sunday...

Now we shift our gazes towards North Central Regionals (practically in our backyard in Northfield, MN) in two weeks, and we pray for decent weather... because we want to play some real ultimate, we're ready to show our region what we're made of, and we're hungry for one of those three bids to Nationals!

-The Bird Nerd 

It's a great year to be a Ninja!

This might be more of a nostalgic post now that I've gotten my paws on it, but I think that's alright. For me, the title says a lot, but it doesn't say it all.

Last weekend the Ninjas took a road trip down to Chi City for the Peder Hedberg Memorial Tournament: The Chicago Invite 2012. As returning champions we were excited to be heading back to defend our title, and also to show the ultimate world what our team is really made of this year.

I couldn't be more pleased with what we accomplished. Not only did we have our full roster including our amazing coaches Christie Dosch and Abby Hagel, but we had a huge support system of family and fans cheering us on from the sidelines. We went 7-0 and did it the Ninja way: playing hard, leaving it on the field, and doing it with love for each other.

2012 Chicago Invite Champions

We head into the final stretch of our 2012 season with our section tournament this weekend in Iowa. I for one am pumped. It's a weekend filled with great competition, great teammates and great friends, how could I not be? One other thing's got me psyched up though, and that's our team ranking. Currently we're ranked 20th/17th respectively by the USAU and Skyd Ultimate (call me biased, but I agree with the latter).


I'm psyched that this program is beginning to be recognized for all of the hard work, determination and love for the game that each of my teammates and I pour into it every year. -- Not to mention our playing has been extra stellar in the past few seasons, and guess what? It's only going to get better.-- As I look at those rankings, it's hard for me not to burst from how proud I am to be a Ninja. It's at this moment that I become nostalgic. Thinking of all the Ninjas past:  coaches, my co-captains and teammates, their families and friends who supported our program and helped us build up to where we are today. I find it only fitting that we go out and continue to strive for excellence, because I know if they were still eligible, they'd be standing on the line next to me this weekend, striving for the same thing.

I've never been great at wrapping up a piece of writing, so I'll leave you with this promise: We are a force to be reckoned with, we deserve the recognition we've received thus far and if you don't believe me yet, I promise you will after this weekend. After all, teams that touch more win more, and the U of M Ninjas are real cuddle monsters.

LOVE, DePalma

Foshag's new look!

Tournaments Galore

Tournament season is rolling right along and the Ninjas already have two tourneys under their belt! We've gotten a little behind here at Ninja Blog Central, so let me catch you up:

Earlier in March we went to St. Louis for Midwest Throwdown, where we finished 7th, breaking our 8th place seed. The next weekend, to kick off our spring break, we had another successful tournament playing in Nashville at Music City Mash-up, winning Tier 2 and again breaking our seed by one place.

Both tournaments were excellent opportunities for our newer girls to get more playing time, and for our whole team to practice playing together and see what kind of competition we will be up against later this season.

Sexbomb

Midwest Throwdown:

We went 4-0 on Saturday winning against North Park 13-4, Luther 6-4, Truman State 11-4, and Illinois 11-8. We started out Sunday with our first game in the Championship bracket against Women Scorned. As always it was good competition, but the ladies from Iowa State put up just a few more points and won 15-4. Then we played another tough game against Ohio State and lost 15-4. Luckily we ended the day on a high point, winning 11-4 against Valparaiso before jumping in our cars and booking it home (in a snowstorm)!

Highlights of the weekend: 2 epic 30+ minute points in the game against Luther and getting to whip out our newest addition to the team, The Sexbomb (pictured at right).


The Hell Week:

Most of us got home early in the morning on Monday and had a tough week full of midterms, papers, classes, catching up on sleep (or not) and getting ready to turn right around and go to another tournament! Luckily we had Nashville + spring break to look forward to and by Thursday night we already had one van starting the 14 hour journey to the Music City, with everyone else following on Friday!


Music City Mash-up:

On Saturday we started off strong, winning our pool: 13-7 vs. Missouri, followed by 13-4 vs. Oklahoma and 13-8 vs. Yale. Next was our cross-over game with one of our region rivals, Bella Donna (UW-Madison), against whom we put up a great fight but ended up losing by just 4 points! (13-9) We had another great day on Sunday, winning all three games to take the Tier 2 Championship bracket: 15-4 vs. Loyola, 14-6 vs. Georgia, and 15-9 vs. Harvard.

Highlights of the weekend: Close game against Bella, Dino point + dance party with Loyola, and Natalie threw a hammer to score (but no one saw it).

Dino point with Loyola!!

SPRING BREAK: Since this was our spring break, we didn't have to rush home the moment the tournament ended. Instead we got to spend a night Ninja bonding in Nashville, and on Monday we all went to visit the only exact replica of the Parthenon in the world. (Why Nashville? I have no idea...) Then we parted ways for the rest of spring break: 11 girls went to High Tide in Georgia and played with the Duluth women's team (and went to the beach a lot), and everyone else did their own thing (including beaches, mountains, other places and of course good ole MN)!

At the Parthenon, posing for our album cover

Next up: Chicago Invite in just one week!!!

The Ultimate Fundraiser

On the 23rd of February, the Ninjas got together with a great eatery on the U of M campus and held a fundraiser for the team. Thanks to all those who came and supported us, we all appreciate it so much, especially because the weather that day definitely didn't make you want something savory and cold like Chilly Billy's Frozen Yogurt.

We hung out at Chilly Billy's between 2-10PM and got to meet some great people as they graciously devoured some yummy FroYo for a good cause. I heard that we beat out the sorority that had a fundraiser there the day before us, so it's safe to say I think we did alright in the end. We also used that time as an opportunity to do some on campus recruiting because there's always room for more Ninjas.







Thanks again for all of your support, keep your eyes and ears peeled for the next FUNdraiser!

-Babush.

"Consensus from the team from last weekend was that you guys are fun."--DUH.

"I'm on the men's frisbee team and live in the "frisbee house" (world's worst nickname). Medium height blonde guy, big nose, giant biceps (kidding). We have probably met but not formally.....

Do you guys have plans for either Friday the 24th or Saturday the 25th? If not, do you think many of you would want to come to a party at our place? Consensus from the team from last weekend was that you guys are fun."

--I think my whole team was just asked on a date.

GO NINJA, GO NINJA, GO!

Happy belated Valentines Day, friends!

photo found by: HANNAH CONLEY

(you're welcome) 

Let the Spring Season Begin!

The spring semester is in full swing and we have a promising season ahead of us! Last week we started classes and had our first couple of practices. This was very exciting because we had a lot of girls return after being gone fall semester, so we got our full squad together for the first time!

This weekend we kicked off tournament season by hosting our annual indoor tournament, Trouble in the Bubble. This year we had eight women’s teams – a combination of high schools, colleges, and club women – come from around the twin cities area to play on our awesome new turf field! We also made history as this tournament was the first event EVER to be held in the new dome!

Ninjas rockin' the dome

The Ninjas spent most of the weekend splitting up and playing with other teams that needed a few more players, and we got to play a few games with just Ninjas as well. It was a great experience for all of our players to get to know other women in the ultimate community, practice playing with other teams, and especially for our new girls just to get lots of playing time! And of course it was a great time for lots of team bonding!

We had quite a few high school parents come up to us this weekend and thank us for putting on the tournament and giving young women this opportunity to play with and learn from older players, get more experience and have fun! This really meant a lot to us and we're glad the participants enjoyed the tournament because we had a blast doing it!

Our next big tournaments aren't until March, so until then we'll be buckling down and training hard! We had such a good season last year, and we can't wait to come back and show 'em what we've got this year!!

Until next time,
Ninja

What a good-looking group of ladies!

TROUBLE IN THE BUBBLE!

Hey all you Ninja sports fans!

Hope you all are enjoying the New Year so far. 2011 was a good year for the Ninjas. We enjoyed a fruitful spring, winning the Chicago invite and finishing 6th overall in the North Central Region. Fall of 2011 has been equally as prosperous, awarding us with several new promising players who carried us to victory at Exit 69 2011. We are looking forward to 2012 and all the adventures and challenges in store for us. We are very excited for our busy spring tournament schedule:

January 21 and 22 the Ninjas will be hosting our annual indoor tournament, Trouble in the Bubble, this year in the new Beirman Turf Dome on our Minneapolis campus. The tournament will host 6 college and 6 high school teams for competitive, fun play and clinic workshops.

March will be a busy month for the Ninjas.
On March 3rd and 4th we will be in St. Louis for Midwest Throwdown.
We start our our Spring break on the 10th at the Music City Mash-up in Nashville, TN and hope to spend the rest of the week at High Tide, session II, in Brunswick, GA. Then after one week off to study and (hopefully) do laundry, we end our busy month on the 31st in Chicago for the Chicago Invite.

Stay tuned for more high-flying, butt-kicking Ninja action!

Stay classy internet,

Ninja Sexbomb