By Tessa Watson
Year 12
Last Sunday, a group of eight juniors and seniors attended the Ultimate Frisbee AKSS Senior Indoor Tournament in Papakura. Until now, Ultimate Frisbee was not a sport at Westlake Girls. Groups of us would walk up to Westlake Boys on Fridays and play with our friends in their social teams. I don’t think any of us started for the frisbee, it was a way to get out and meet up with friends, but it slowly became more than that. Although, if you ask us we might brush it off, Ultimate Frisbee is now a passion of ours.
After Ms Page found out about us, she pulled together all Westlake Girls students playing for the Westlake Boys’ team and made a team of our own. We still play with the boys, except now we can manage, train and play how we like. Shortly after our coming-together, we were offered to participate in the Ultimate Frisbee AKSS Senior Indoor Tournament. Of course, we said yes, but little did we know we were put in the First Division and versing teams who have played together for years.
We played five games against the top female Ultimate Frisbee teams in Auckland, winning three, just losing to another and an absolute whipping from the national champs, Epsom Girls. With Rodney, our unicorn mascot, by our side and our friends cheering from the side lines, it was always fun. Through our wins and losses, we learnt the meaning of spirit and sportsmanship as well as ways we could improve our own play. For us, the tournament was about fun and trying our very best and in the end, we came fifth place out of 14 teams. I don’t think any of us that morning would’ve guessed a group of eight students who had only played all together once and only played frisbee for about a month prior, could have done so well. I tribute that to not only our drive but our spirit.
We train every Tuesday right after school in Gym 3. If you want to play yourselves, either for the fun, friends, exercise or you have a passion for throwing a plastic disc around, then come join us! We would really love to see some new faces and hopefully make frisbee an official Westlake sport.