The University of Birmingham’s Men’s Firsts Ultimate Frisbee team have three wins out of three games after a 12-9 victory against Loughborough at Metchley last Wednesday. It was an excellent display of a mix of short and long throws that Loughborough simply couldn’t deal with. Eagerly watching was a partisan crowd who did everything they could to make sure playing at home really was an advantage.
It was a sloppy start from the hosts, however, as Loughborough started on top, taking a 3-2 lead. Soon though, the men in pink were under pressure as a series of long throws towards the big target man in the end zone by Birmingham were barely dealt with and four quick scores gave the Lions a 6-3 lead that they rarely looked like conceding. Indeed, with the home crowd greeting every score with gracious cheers, they became rampant. The next fifteen minutes or so were dominated by Birmingham, whose teamwork and ingenuity with the Frisbee became too much for Loughborough to handle. By the time the storm had passed, the visitors had conceded a further four points, replying with a solitary one in the same time period to leave the score at 10-4.
From there, the energy that Birmingham had put in began to take its toll with Loughborough starting to create more opportunities of their own. They managed to assert themselves on the game and reduce the deficit to 11-6 but it seemed too little too late as it was called from the side line that the game, originally supposed to be first to 15, had reached its time limit and Birmingham now just had to score one more point to win.
Galvanised by the threat of defeat, Loughborough found another gear and soon had Birmingham panicking by scoring two quick points. Mistakes that had been rife in Loughborough’s play had disappeared and transferred to the Birmingham boys who looked to be in serious trouble when Loughborough went on to score an outrageous point in the corner of the end zone. The men in pink at the side celebrated with renewed optimism, but thankfully from a Birmingham point of view, this was short lived. They managed to regain their composure and kept possession nicely, creating the space for a fantastic point to be scored that sent the majority at Metchley into raptures.
It was a well-earnt win against what are traditionally very tough opposition and Birmingham will now be more confident of achieving a grand slam of victories with only two games of the competition remaining.
