PlayUltimate Contributor - Ryan Thompson

Name: Ryan Thompson
High School Team: Columbia HS
College Team: Stanford Bloodthirsty
YCC Team: Garden State (NJ)
Club Team: Brooklyn
Currently Living: Maplewood, NJ
Website: http://ultimatepulse.blogspot.com
Years Playing: ~5 (spring 2003)
First Heard of Ultimate: Middle school/Club day freshman year
Ultimate Accomplishments: Finishing 2nd at Easterns junior year, making Bloodthirsty
Favorite Tournaments: Easterns, Paideia Cup, Kaimana Klassik, College Nationals
Favorite Game: 14-13 loss to Pennsbury at Easterns last year - it was an incredible battle and both teams laid it all on the line during universe point.
Mentors/Role Models: Ed Frowley (capt. freshman year), Anthony Nunez (high school coach), Mark Sherwood (capt. freshman year of college), Jit Bhattacharya (D coach in college)
Ultimate Quote: "The strong take from the weak and the smart take from the strong" - Pete Carril

My posts on PlayUltimate will mainly be focused on the NJ YCC team, reports about the upcoming NJHSU season, and the general development of youth ultimate. And while I would like to see a lot more reporting about tournaments, I recognize that I'm not in a position to attend very many juniors tournaments, which is part of the reason that the score reporter and players writeups matter so much. However, I will do my best to provide PlayUltimate and the youth ultimate community with quality and poignant reporting and articles.

New contributor!!

Thank you to all who applied during this round of contributor applications. For those not selected we will have another round of applications during the end of August, the process will be identical.

But here and now, we'd like to congratulate and welcome Ryan Thompson as a contributor to PlayUltimate.

Ryan has been an active commenter over the past year+, and has been writing on his personal blog for the past few weeks on all different aspects of ultimate.

Ryan played for Columbia HS in NJ, but currently splits his time between the Jersey YCC team and Stanford's Bloodthirsty.

Feel free to welcome him here, within the next few days he will put up a bio post and then regular posts after that.

So congratulations!

Juniors playing Club

This question comes up every year, but as the Club season is gettin rollin, who from our high schools are playing? List the below information, and I'll get this post updated with new info...

And, cause I started this post, I'll add what I know:

Team: Rhino
Division: Club Open
Location: Portland, OR
06' Standing: 6th at Nationals
Junior Players:
-John Bloch (SEHS '07 - Uof Oregon)
-Jacob Janin (SEHS '08)
-Daniel Force (CHS '07- Oregon State)
-Collin Smith (CHS '07 - Whitman)


Team: Sack Lunch
Division: Club Open
Location: Boulder, CO
06' Standing: ?
Junior Players:
-Hylke Sneider (Lakewood '07)
-Marco Alatorre (Lakewood '07)


Team: Rare Air
Division: Club Womens
Location: Boulder, CO
06' Standing: Tied for 3rd at Nationals
Junior Players:
-Brenna Hokanson (East '07 - ?)




more to come when i can find logos of teams...

Last day to apply to be a contributor...

Final reminder, applications due tomorrow.

All the information can be found here.

Reminder: Contributor Apps due in 4 days!

Apologies to all regarding my lack of posting as of recently, later this week there will be a post regarding "summer reading" which will be fun and entertaining.

Throughout the summer thus far you will have Jay Huerbin's cataloging of the Pittsburgh Impulse and their road to YCCs, in addition to all the other great content from our spectacular cast of contributors.

A spectacular cast of contributors, i might add, that you have the option to become a part of. The applications are due in four days! So hurry up and apply, its a great thing to add to your resume, and who knows if somehow high school ultimate explodes more than it already is perhaps I'll be able to start paying contributors... dont count on it, but its possible.

Rumors also have it that there might be international branches opening up... details will come in August, ill leave the tease as is for now. But consider yourself becoming a part of a multinational news organization... seems like something colleges or prospective employers would like.

Either way, consider at least applying. The deadline is very soon, get your stuff in, continue to check back for updates and great content from all of our awesome contributors and also - if you post anything online ultimate related submit it to PlayUltimate.us. If you post something to your individual blog, or pictures to your flickr account, or create an ultimate facebook group or anything like that, submit a link. Thus far the site has been a resounding success and we are hoping to expand the audience roughly ten-fold within the next two months.

If you are ever bored and looking for the latest and greatest ultimate-related media online PlayUltimate.us is the place to go.

So in conclusion, great things coming this summer, apply to be a contributor, visit PlayUltimate.us

Play Ultimate.

Churchill Westerns 2007 Film

Westerns Journey 2007 - web version - 250MB
Westerns Journey 2007 - itunes version - 250MB
Westerns Journey 2007 - google version

Dylan Freechild (#45 - Fr.) and Kimber Coles (#5 - Jr.) did all the editing and production with post-production help from myself and Andrew Sheridan (#21 - Sr.). The video took more than 4 weeks to finish with work on it taking place every day since Westerns was over back in mid-May. We will miss Dylan if he leaves Churchill for South Eugene this coming year, but they could use someone with his both his ultimate and editing talents...

As of 06.18 - the film was updated with more footage and a few other corrections...

Pittsburgh Impulse Team Roster and Review

Experiencing what the coaches referred to as the hardest tryouts, toughest cuts and deepest pool of talent to hit PHUL to date, being able to release a roster and begin to focus on that one goal for the rest of the summer has to come as relief for some of the players and especially the coaches. There were two cuts necessary to reach this final roster of 22 players that have the makings to be a national champion. Some of the players are already noticing a difference in the team and truly believe this is the strongest Pittsburgh Impulse team to take the field.

So, I present to you the 2007 Pittsburgh Youth Club Team (Impulse):

Name	School	Grade	Years with team	College
Blanciak, Eddie	Kiski (played with North Hills JV)	9	1	N/A
Cervone, Zack	North Hills	11	1	N/A
Conner, Colin	North Hills	11	3	N/A
Fleiner, Paul	Montour	12	1	Cal Tech
Funk, Ben	North Hills	11	3	N/A
Gazdik, Jack	North Hills	11	3	N/A
Hausman, Julian	Mount Lebanon	12	3	Pitt
Hess, Nathan	Hampton	10	1	N/A
Hoggard, Tim	Montour	12	1	Pitt
Imler, Pete	Mt. Lebanon	12	3	Penn State
Kush, Joe	North Hills JV)	8	1	N/A
Lippert, Chris	North Hills	11	2	N/A
Macurak, Dave	Bethel Park	12	2	UNC-Wilimington
McInnis, Cody	Hampton	11	1	N/A
Olko, Jeff	North Hills	11	2	N/A
Rakers, Allen	Hampton	11	1	N/A
Reinhardt, Zach	Bethel Park	12	3	Pitt
Ross, Jack	North Hills	10	1	N/A
Thorne, Alex	North Hills	11	3	N/A
Truckenbrod, Lukas	Hampton	12	1	Pitt
Washburn, Bennett	Wichester Thurston	11	3	N/A
Wilson, Greg	Fox Chapel	12	1	Allegheny

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about this list is the amount of talent coming out of North Hills. Sending ten players, many of whom have already played on the YCC team, there was a reason why North Hills made a name for both themselves and Pittsburgh Ultimate. Led by PHUL Finals MVP Alex Thorne, this team accomplished a lot over the season. From finishing 2nd at the Paideia cup and PA States to a repeat of PHUL champions, North Hills has gained the experience, respect and talent needed to be a force in the Juniors Ultimate scene. Using the momentum and motivation of this past year allows for these players to bring everything they have to a team with a YCC championship on their mind.

The other two powerhouses in PHUL send 6 players to the field: Hampton (4) and Mt. Lebanon (2). With PHUL MVP Julian Hausman (Mt. Lebanon) and PHUL standout Lukas Truckenbrod (Hampton) on the team, the handling game on Impulse has really opened up. Both of these players posses the poise, control, arm strength and talent to make any throw and make it right.

Aside from how the team is comprised, something that may or may not be overlooked is where the seniors are going to college; half of the the seniors will be attending the University of Pittsburgh. This just goes to show the community involvement and integration that is Pittsburgh Ultimate. Recruitment comes a little bit easier when your friend and teammate in another league (Winter/Summer/Spring) just so happens to go a college near you. I know this is a high school website, but the amount of talent that will be pouring into Pitt in the next couple years is amazing and will continue to move Pitt and the Metroeast up the College Ultimate ladder.

I could go on for pages about how each and every one of these players will contribute to the team, but I simply do not have the time to do so. However, before I finish, I just want to say that each player on this team has the talent and field awareness to make a name for himself on the national level. This is a great team and as high as my expectations are for them, I'm sure they have just as high (if not higher) expectations for themselves.

Writers note: I'll have another one or two articles about this team before YCCs (most likely after their tournaments) and I am hoping to have a Pittsburgh girls YCC preview up as soon as I receive some information on the team.

weekend open thread... but no tournaments?

Welp, i guess this really is the first truly truly open thread of the year. No high school tournaments this weekend, hope everyone is doing well with graduating and finals and SATs and ACTs and the like.

Use this thread to talk about whatever you might like, suggestions...

• the launch of PlayUltimate.us
• the college decisions of the class of 2007
• summer plans re: ultimate
• off season training
• your favorite color
  

remember if you would like to be a contributor for the site you only have 15 more days to apply (i know i originally said the 28th of june would be the deadline but that was dumb of me because i will be in rome for a study abroad program and i would love to have some new contributors fill in the space before then) so new due date is June 23rd.

The Big Announcement

If you want to be awesome, you will read this whole post and understand everything, otherwise you can just click the link be mildly confused and then really excited once you understand what you are seeing.

PlayUltimate has been on a mission since the beginning of the site to be the definitive source for high school ultimate news and commentary. But, as you know, and as many have pointed out in the comments and elsewhere we can't cover everything. And that stinks, because virtually all ultimate deserves to be covered, right? Right.

We only have 10 contributors at the moment (we are accepting applications for more though!), and thus we can only cover roughly 10 contributors-worth of ultimate. BUT, what if we had say 30 contributors? We could cover a ton more right?

What if we had 100? or 1,000? What if every single ultimate player in the world could inform the community when something interesting happens? What if they could submit links to pictures, videos, blog entries, news reports, magazine articles all to one place?

What if a community of ultimate players - every ultimate player - could decide which stories are important and which arent?

What if i stopped using rhetorical questions and just got to the point?

Everything above is now possible.

Announcing PlayUltimate.us - ultimate news by us for us.

How to get started

1. Go to PlayUltimate.us register, create a login with password etc
2. when you find something interesting go to PlayUltimate.us and click "submit story"
3. your story will appear on the site, browse around and click thumbs up or thumbs down for stories you like or dont like.
4. the best stories will be at the top of the page.

You can also add people as friends on the site, then their votes will count more than random people's votes, giving you the most appropriate news possible.

I hope you all will go over and check out the site - PlayUltimate.us - the only way a site like this works is if the community gets involved. I think we have an awesome community here already and would love to see it expand to cover all ultimate-related news and commentary.

the PlayUltimate blog will continue to exist in its current form with continued improvements and expansion of coverage, but this PlayUltimate.us brings ultimate news to the people. YOU decide whats news. YOU decide whats important. Its ultimate news by us.

PlayUltimate.us

(comment on this article on the PlayUltimate.us site)

huge announcement within the next two hours

this is BIG.

make sure you check back in the next hour or two for one of the the biggest announcement in site history.


while you're waiting, apply to be a contributor!

Weekend open thread - State Championships

Big weekend for state championships...

State Champs: Open -

• Georgia - Score Reporter
• Minnesota - Score Reporter
• Wisconsin - Score Reporter
• Massachusetts - Score Reporter

State Champs: Girls' -

• Minnesota - Score Reporter
• Wisconsin - Score Repoter
• Massachusetts - Score Reporter

Other tournaments -

• NE Youth Championships - Score Reporter

Feel free to talk about any and all, any guesses as to who will win each?

[Side note - we unfortunately dont have writeups for any of these state championship tournaments because we dont have contributors from the area - so, if you are from one of these areas: Apply to be a contributor!]