Andrew Li spent much of his time at UNC with his days split in two.
“After 5, I stop doing school,” he told Chapelboro. “I just kind of treated school like it was a job where I did all my work during the day, whether it was in or between class. And then, for a practice that starts at 7, you’ve gotta get there at 6:30, because early is on time.”
And what practice was Li attending? Basketball? Soccer? Lacrosse? Nope. Li was a player on one of the most successful teams on the UNC campus: Darkside, the Carolina men’s ultimate frisbee team. Darkside and the UNC women’s team, Pleiades, are consistently among the most competitive teams in collegiate ultimate frisbee (simply called ultimate by those who play).
And this past year, Darkside and Pleiades did something that has never been done in the history of college ultimate: they each won national championships at the same tournament, and then did it again.
Darkside and Pleiades each won their second consecutive national titles in Milwaukee in May, both following up national titles won in December.
But how, exactly, do teams win two national championships in five months? As with every funky sports scheduling twist in the past two years, it all boiled down to one thing: the pandemic.
“We were not able to compete officially until the fall of 2021,” said Li, Darkside’s captain. “That nationals series [in December] was meant to simulate what the spring of 2021 would’ve been had there not been a cancellation.”
Because of that, Li said the December group had several players in their sixth or even seventh years competing collegiately. It provided them with an embarrassment of riches at the time, but also made the spring season a crash course in building a team.
“[In] a typical season, the fall is all for development and learning, because a lot of people come in not even knowing how to play the sport,” said Pleiades captain Alex Barnett. “And in the spring we buckle down and get competitive. But this year it’s been two back-to-back really competitive seasons.”
In the spring, Darkside and Pleiades compete in regional tournaments, with the goal of eventually qualifying for nationals at the end of the semester. Both did, punching their tickets to Milwaukee in May. Barnett called nationals “the best part of the year.”
“Leading up to it, classes have ended, so we’re all just hanging out a bunch together and bonding,” she said. “And then we get there, and you’re piled into these hotel rooms with each other, and you just spend 98 straight hours with each other. It’s really fun.”
The event begins with a session of pool play, with the top finishers qualifying for the elimination bracket later in the week. Pool play usually means two games a day for the teams. It may sound draining, but according to Li, many regular-season tournaments require three or four games a day.
“Two games a day is actually much less load,” he said.
Darkside and Pleiades each qualified for the knockout phase with undefeated runs through pool play. Pleiades was working to complete an undefeated spring season, and did so by rolling through the bracket and defeating Colorado in a dramatic championship match for the team’s second title. It ended on what in ultimate circles is called “universe point.”
“The score was tied and the next point wins,” Barnett said. “So we were just really, really excited. That’s the type of dramatic win you think about in sports movies… and then to be able to turn around right after that and just watch our boys do it? That was so fun.”
Pleiades celebrate their second consecutive national championship. (Image via USA Ultimate on Twitter)
Darkside entered the knockout rounds as the No. 3 overall seed, and made it all the way to the championship to face No. 1 overall seed Brown. The Bears were looking to complete their own undefeated season after winning each and every regular-season tournament they entered. Li, master of the understatement, referred to Brown as “generally unstoppable.”
More than that, the Bears were looking to beat Darkside in the title match for the second time in four years. In 2019, Brown took down No. 1 Darkside and denied their bid for back-to-back titles.
2022 offered what Li called a “flipping of the script.”
“Every game we played in that bracket, we played better than the last,” he said.
It all culminated in a 15-10 win for Darkside (matches are generally first-to-15), sealing their fourth national championship. Afterward, the men and women celebrated their accomplishments together. The closeness of the teams is something both Li and Barnett acknowledged hadn’t always been there, and which could take other schools aback at tournaments around the country.
“You look around at college nationals and people point it out like, ‘This is kind of strange,’” Barnett said. “Not everyone has that good relationship. We’re lucky that the boys have done a lot of work on their culture. And they help us get better. It’s really cool to be in that system.”
“There were a lot of veteran leaders that are no longer on this team… [who] really put time and energy into fostering a more collaborative and caring environment between the two teams,” said Li. “And I think it really, really paid off.”
Darkside’s Andrew Li (5) celebrates with his teammates during the most recent nationals competition in Milwaukee. (Image via Brian Whittier)
Those community-building exercises included a buddy system during initial fall recruitment, weekly 3-on-3 games between co-ed teams built from the Darkside and Pleiades rosters, and always supporting each other during tournament time.
“It feels like members of Pleiades are as much teammates of mine as my Darkside teammates are,” Li said.
It’s hard to argue with the results: four national championships between the two sides in the span of five months. Now, Darkside and Pleiades will enter the fall of 2022 with a more normal season waiting in the wings: development in the winter and competition in the spring.
Since the NCAA does not officially recognize ultimate, Li, Barnett and others are not on athletic scholarships. They have to balance school and sports at a level not many could. Both teams hold four practices a week, which doesn’t count outside exercises like running, throwing and lifting. And there’s no payoff in the form of big-time recognition: neither Darkside nor Pleiades will have their matches aren’t featured on SportsCenter every day.
But Li is perfectly fine with that.
“I don’t need people to think that it’s super cool or that it deserves to be on ESPN primetime every evening,” he said. “That doesn’t really bother me. But playing ultimate and dedicating my life to this sport has definitely given me a respect for people who commit themselves to excelling at anything they do.”
Li, who graduated from UNC in May, has already signed a two-year contract with the Carolina Flyers of the American Ultimate Disc League, or AUDL. But he will also be attending graduate school at UNC this fall, meaning he’ll be around the UNC ultimate community just a little bit longer.
“Being a part of this group, being a part of this community, has taught me what it’s like to really love my peers,” Li said. “Beyond the athletics, beyond the success, beyond the trophies, that is the thing the players will tell you over and over again. That is the most lasting contribution each of these teams have made to each person’s lives. It’s all love.”
Barnett summed it up a little more succinctly:
“Frisbee is life.”
Featured image via Brian Whittier
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Exceptional team, exceptional year; exceptional winning tradition established by former hall of fame coach mike denardis
Great article. Thanks for sharing that with the larger community.
One thing that people may not know is that the game is self-officiating and relies on “the Spirit of the Game,” a codified attitude of mutual respect and fairness. At Nationals and many other high-level tournaments, there are observers to help keep the play fair and safe as the emotions and stakes are higher, but they have limited roles on the field.
And fyi Brown’s men’s Ultimate team is not “the Bears” since Ultimate teams are just club teams and can’t use their school mascots. (yep) Hence “Darkside” and “Pliaedes” and not “Tarheels.”
Oh, and you had forgotten to mention that one of the Pliaedes players, Dawn Culton, was chosen by all of the college women’s players in the country as the winner of the Callahan Award, the highest award in College Ultimate.