History: 1999 – 2000 Season

The 1999-2000 season was a growing year. The Iron Panthers, the other Pitt Ultimate team, that had been loosely founded on the Cathedral of Learning lawn in the fall of 1997 by Kirk Edleman and run by Adam Haigh, folded into En Sabah Nur. That combination of teams brought with it a challenging year of merging cultures. The Iron Panthers brought new talent as well an official standing with the university which allowed us to also get some funding. We also were trying recruit new players to replace the first set of En Sabah Nur players that had just graduated. Brody was our captain and organizer in the fall. Matt King became captain for the spring.

UPA College Ranking
#132, 7-11

Roster:

Awards:

Callahan Nominee: Keith Heffley (Freshman)

Tournaments:

Pitt-Johnstown Inaugural Tournament: Johnstown, PA – October 10th, 1999
Rugburn Turf: Pittsburgh, PA – October 23rd, 1999
Halloween Tournament: Juniata, PA – October 31st, 1999
TBD: TBD – March 4th – 5th, 2000
Bids for the Kids: Meadville, PA – March 11th, 2000
Miami Tournament of Fools: Miami, OH – April 1st – 2nd, 2000
Pennsylvania College Sectionals: Lehigh, PA – April 29th – 30th, 2000
2nd Annual Penn State-McKeesport Tournament: McKeesport, PA – May 20th, 2000

Pitt-Johnstown Inaugural Tournament: Johnstown, PA – October 10th, 1999

This tournament was a one-day mud affair at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown.

Pool Play: Pittsburgh-Johnstown
This game took forever and eventually came down to the cap. At 7-7, when En Sabah Nur was really feeling it. Aaron Paulos and Brody pulled off a play that Jay Paulonis and Brody would use regularly in years to come. Aaron swung the disc to the force side to Brody who then launched an ugly huck deep to a streaking Aaron Paulos. Game Over. Both teams worked SUPER hard and trodged through the mud for the last game of the day and the championship. This was our first run in of many with Todd McDowell and the UPJ Flood.

Rugburn Turf: Pittsburgh, PA – October 23rd, 1999

This tournament was a one-day wet affair on Duquesne University’s astroturf fields. We went undefeated through pool play and did not have to play our final game because the other team, CMU, did not want to play in the rain.

Halloween Tournament: Juniata, PA – October 31st, 1999

We had another successful outing this weekend. Six players and one spectator showed up at 7am, ready to go. After one phone call, we had one more player. Enough to play savage seven (Trevor Hackman, Kim Shuey, Dan Perry, Jay Paulonis, Nick Gauger, Jesse McCormick, and Brody). Luckily though, our one spectator, Jen Petullo, knew a little bit about frisbee and helped us out. We came home as the champions!

Pool Play: Shippensburg
Our first game was against Shippensburg. We were really worried about how to make sure we would not be too tired after the first or second game. After a few points that involved a LOT of running we decided to go with the zone defense. Some of our players had done it, some learned it on the fly. We were not executing well and Shippensburg began to pull ahead. With only 10 minutes of play left the score was 7-4 Shippensburg. Somewhere around this point, En Sabah Nur got all fired up and we went on a tear. In the final 10 minutes of that game we scored 6 unanswered points to finish 10-7. I do not think anyone was too tired, compliments to a well-implemented zone.

Pool Play: Pittsburgh-Johnstown B
Our second game was against Flood-B. They are a young team, so we decided to implement the zone against them as well. It worked very well for us, however we were also beginning to get tired. At this point Jen, our one spectator, joined us on the field. As I understand, Jen has thrown plenty of frisbees, but she has never played Ultimate. She did GREAT, and even had a defensive block!! Soon after Jen started playing, even more reinforcements showed up. Duquesne had come to the tournament late, but only had 6 people. So we took three of their players (Ben Snyder, Nick, and Jacob) and put them on our team. The other 3 went to another team. This game finished 11-5, us.

Pool Play: Indiana (Pennsylvania)
Our third game was against IUP. We were head to head with them, but we slowly pulled ahead and ended the game 9-5. IUP is always a fun team to play, and this game was no exception.

Pool Play: Juniata B
Our fourth game was against the Irish Elks B team. For some of us, it was a little grudge match. We had lost to them (our only loss) at the Johnstown tournament 3-4 weeks ago. At that tournament, we did not play a clean game and they won by 2-3 points. We were a little disappointed in ourselves. This time, they gave us trouble again, but we managed to pull it out this time 8-6. It was a close game until the very end where we managed to get some key turnovers and catches.

Final: Juniata C
The final game was probably our toughest and our least fun. It was call filled and injury plagued. Travels, picks, fouls, you name it!! Anyway, in this game we went up 2-0 pretty quickly, but then they came back on us and took the lead. Somewhere around that point we had our first injury. Brody hopped out with a wounded knee, nothing major, but he managed to take off a deep scab, from the Duquesne tourney the weekend before, that hurt a lot! About two points later Trevor went down and is now on crutches. He is going to be out for a few weeks and we will miss him. He has been to 3/4 of the tournaments this fall and it a GREAT player, asset, and all around cool person!! GET HEALTHY TREVOR!! We pulled this game capped game out and won 8-7.

TBD: TBD – March 4th – 5th, 2000

We are not sure where this tournament was, but the official rankings have these scores.

Bids for the Kids: Meadville, PA – March 11th, 2000

Miami Tournament of Fools: Miami, OH – April 1st – 2nd, 2000

At this tournament, we did not have enough players, it was poorly run, and we got cranky, but that was probably because we were tired from not having enough players. We ended up tied for 3rd. Our roster included: Adam Haigh, Brody, Keith Wertman, Matt King and many others.

Pennsylvania College Sectionals: Lehigh, PA – April 29th – 30th, 2000

No one can remember anything much this tournament. Our roster included Aaron Paulos, Adam Haigh, Brody, Chris Tabakin, Dave Birch, Dave Mauger, Erik Frank, Jay Paulonis, John Bain, Jeremy Stadlin, Phil Katz, Shaun Griffin, and one other person. We had trouble getting enough players because of a 6-day finals week so Chris Tabakin, Jeremy Stadlin, and John Bain came up from Philly to play with us. On Saturday we played poorly and were bumped to the consolation bracket on Sunday. However, we ended up not getting any games on Sunday because Haverford didn’t want to come back to play. 7th place finish.

2nd Annual Penn State-McKeesport Tournament: McKeesport, PA – May 20th, 2000

No one can remember anything about this tournament. We played Edinboro’s Chemical X in the finals and won.

From the Left: Rachel Steigerwalt, Michelle Thompson, Jeremy Stadlin, Michael Finnerty, Brody, Emily, Dana Kalowsky, Jay Paulonis, Nick Gauger