Meet The Ninjas Part I: Captains

We decided it would be a great idea to let all y'all get to know your favorite ninjas a little bit better. So, in these next few weeks leading up to Centex, we'll have short player bios that will debut right here(!!!) and soon after, make their way over to our website (www.ninjawomensultimate.weebly.com).

PART I: LOS CAPTAINS (in alphabetical order by last name)


#10 Andrea “Golden Nugget” Crumrine

Year: Senior
Major: Political Science and Spanish Studies
Description in one hashtag: #CrumCreation
Fave hobby: memegenerator.net
Catch phrase: “PAPAAAAYA MINNESOOOOTA"
Fave smoothie: Best Ever Cool Drink (from VWok)



#1 Natalie “Nat” DePalma


Year: Senior
Major: Choose Your Own Adventure
Description in one hashtag: #DontPutThatOnTwitter
Spirit animal: Beyonce
Memorable moment: Challenging a 6th grade boy to a “throw-off”
Fave hobby: Throwing high release lefty backhands WHILE singing Beyonce


#9 Emily “Flub” Regan

Year: Senior
Major: Biology, Society, and Environment
Description in one hashtag: #FamilyValues
Something she has: Ups like a UPS truck
Hates: Hugs
Fave color: Cow-print






xoxo
Ninja

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