Dalat Community Ultimate

Shannen Leong

Dalat Community Ultimate (aka DCU), is an ultimate frisbee team consisting of students, parents, and alumni from Dalat. On Saturday, January 13th, DCU traveled to the mainland of Penang to have a friendly match with a local university, UiTM.

The team of 12 players left campus at about 4pm and arrived at the university an hour later. This was the first time these players had ever played together as a team. They did some warm up exercises, led by Jesse Lohman (12), which were then followed by some drills led by Joseph Leech (class of 2016). Mr. Ladner, founder of DCU, gathered the team together and gave some words of encouragement before the game started.

DCU’s strategy was to have Mr. Ladner pick up the disc and throw it all the way to the end zone, while the faster and younger players, like Andrew Kaney (9) and Jeremy Worten (11),  ran to score the point. Both teams were trading points most of the game, but at the end, DCU took the lead by a few points and won the game.

The teams played a 5:2 (male to female) ratio throughout the game. It was tiring for the DCU girls, as there were only three girls on the team. Sharisse Leong (9) said, “It was a tiring but fun game. I think the game was evenly matched and I hope to play with the team in future tournaments.” She also added, “I hope more girls in Dalat will pick up this simple and fun sport.”

After the game, both teams huddled in a circle and gave feedback to each other. They all agreed it was a fun game for a Saturday evening. DCU and UiTM ended the day with a group picture.

On the way back to campus, Mr. Ladner talked about his hopes for the team. He said, “I hope this team will grow in size in the future, and maybe Dalat can have an official frisbee team. This is a great way for the Dalat community to come together and have some fun.”