It’s the Ultimate gender balanced sport
Lions are sixth at OFSAA and all agree it’s fun to be co-ed and grades 9-12
Ultimate Frisbee is not new to local high schools but the Adam Scott Lions celebrated a milestone for the burgeoning sport.
Last week they won the first COSSA championship and on Friday finished sixth at the inaugural OFSAA Championship in Oakville. It was the first time in 15 years OFSAA has added a new championship sport, said Lions coach Glen MacVichie, who was assisted by Sam Redhead and Mark Mann who started the Adam Scott program 10 years ago.
“The thing which really makes it unique is it’s co-ed and it’s Grade 9 to 12,” said MacVichie.
“No other sport is like that where it is co-ed. It’s genderbalanced, too. There are seven people on the field and at one point It’s four guys and three girls and the next point it will be four girls and three guys. There is true gender parity. It really promotes that whole sense of spirit. It’s self-refereed and a really great sport in teaching some really good ethics.”
Adam Scott won Kawartha and COSSA posting an 11-3 overall record heading into OFSAA. They were 3-1 on day one of OFSAA on Thursday to advance to the quarter-finals. They lost 6-4 to the No. 1 seed Bowmanville who went on to win the gold medal. They beat St. Mary’s from St. Mary’s 6-1 and lost the fifth place game to
Centre Wellington 4-2.
MacVichie said his senior players set OFSAA as their goal from day one but got off to a rocky 0-2 start. They rebounded to go 9-1 in their next 10 games.
“It’s a real testament to the students,” he said. “They wanted to go to OFSAA and they worked hard throughout the entire semester to get there. A lot of teams had a stack of 16 to 18 Grade 12 students and really we only had a handful of four or five Grade 12 students, a couple of Grade 11 and 10 and five from Grade 9. We had a real mix. It’s a testament to how all those different levels of students pulled together to get there. I couldn’t be more proud of them as a team for really giving it their best effort all season.”
Mann said it was the students desire to play ultimate which drove the sport’s arrival at high school.
“They started it in intermediate school and these kids came in wanting to play and there wasn’t a team for them to play,”
Mann said.
MacVichie and Crestwood’s Chris Burns spearheaded it from a teachers’ perspective in 2009.
Lions Grade 9 player Emmett Rahiri said he didn’t know OFSAA was an option when he signed up to play.
“It’s an honour and really cool to be the first team from our region to go to OFSAA,” said Rahiri.
There are seven players with club experience including five who have been to nationals.