Marti finds the Ultimate challenge

Aly Marti (right) defends the disk in a recent Ultimate contest playing for TSUnami Women's Ultimate team from Truman State University. (Photo contributed)

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Kevin Hieronymus
khieronymus@bcrnews.com Aly Marti ran track and cross country at Princeton High School and was active in band, choir and theater. Oh, and she also found time to become a class valedictorian in 2007.

She found a whole new adventure this spring at Truman State University — the sport of Ultimate, originally referred to as Ultimate Frisbee.

Marti had played a little Ultimate with friends during cross country practice in high school. When she arrived on the Truman State campus in Kirksville, Mo., she saw students on the quad advertising for Ultimate and figured it was an intramural program.

It turned out to be a club team, and she found they took the game seriously.

“I thought it was like intramurals, but it was a lot more intense,” she said.

She played on the TSUnami women’s Ultimate club team that represented Truman State at the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) South Women’s Regionals in Baton Rouge, La., in late April. They fell one game short of reaching nationals, recording six wins in the regional tournament before losing to Texas 15-7 in the finals.

Marti was hooked.

The game of Ultimate combines the non-stop movement and athletic endurance of soccer with the aerial passing skills of football. It is played by two, seven-player squads with a high-tech plastic disc on a field similar to football. The object of the game is to score by catching a pass in the opponent’s end zone. Games are generally played to 13 or 15.

A player must stop running while in possession of the disc, but may pivot and pass to any of the other receivers on the field. Players move quickly from offense to defense on turnovers that occur with a dropped pass, an interception, a pass out of bounds, or when a player is caught holding the disc for more than 10 seconds.

Marti likes the whole atmosphere around the game, including being outdoors; she also likes the friends she’s made.

“I’ve still got an outlet for my competitiveness since I’m not involved in running anymore,” said Marti, who is studying visual communications at Truman State and working a design internship this summer at Martin Engineering in Neponset under her dad, Andrew.

She laughs when she says Ultimate is supposedly a non-contact game with fouls called by the individual being fouled. She’s played some pick-up game at home with friends, and said it’s nice being a girl playing with a group of boys because “I don’t get tackled as much.”

Ultimate is becoming more popular all the time, and Marti says most college kids know what she’s talking about. But not everyone.

“A lot of people think I mean Frisbee golf. That’s kind of insulting,” she said.

TSUnami recorded wins over teams from Washington University, Tulane, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, as well as archrival St. Louis University, to advance to the regional championship against Texas.

“We knew it was going to be a good game against Texas. We played them before and either we one by a little bit or they won by a little,” Marti said. “To get to play in championship was really exciting.”

• The Ghost is caught: Nachelle DeSkeere did what few players on the gridiron could do over the years in the NCIC and the Midwest Collegiate Conference — corner Nate Norman. I had the honor in attending Nate and Nachelle’s wedding over the weekend in Galena, the hometown of Nate’s parents. It seemed liked a reunion of the Princeton Tiger football teams of 1997.

I first got to know Nate when he took a baseball off the forehead and wore the implant the stitches from the baseball left behind as a battle wound when he played on my Little League team I coached several years ago now. I knew he was a tough kid. I followed him through the ranks of PHS and his days as an All-American running back at St. Ambrose University, where he was known as the Galloping Ghost. Glad to see somebody like Nachelle was able to catch him when not many on the football field could. Congratulations you two.

• Parting shots: Speaking of wedding bells, Princeton Tiger coach Jesse Brandt will be getting married on July 26 ... Arraia Hicks got to go to Wrigley Field for her 10th birthday present on June 15 to see the Cubs play. Of course, they won, beating the Dodgers 5-4.