UA Sunburn, the men’s ultimate frisbee team, is off to a strong start and is setting its sights on a spot at nationals this year. 

After finishing eighth out of 16 teams competing at a recent University of California at San Diego tournament, the team is gearing up for its next match-up at Grand Canyon University on Dec. 7-8.

In its 27-year history, the ultimate team has made it to nationals twice – in 2007 and 2013 – and came close in 2019 and 2020.

The team has a history of being competitive. In 2007 a UA player won the Callahan Award, which head coach Matt Varney described as ultimate’s Heisman. 

With 16 seasoned returners on the roster, compared to just four or five in previous years, this season is gearing up to be competitive. 

“This season should be a good one,” Varney said.  

Senior team captain Drake Barsky said that the team looks great. 

“Most of the guys went and played club over the summer so everyone is looking good,” he said. “I have high hopes for the team this year. Everyone is committed to working hard at practice and outside of practice so that we succeed in the spring.”

The team held its month-long tryouts starting the first week of September through Oct. 13. The program was able to retain just about everyone who tried out. 

“This year we had around 60 show up and we kept 60,” Varney said.

The team named a 23-man roster; the remaining players were put on the non-competitive Swashbucklers practice team.

Varney expected that many of the participants would be entirely new to the game. 

“A lot of people come in having never played ultimate or have never seen it,’’ Barsky said. 

At the beginning of the school year, everyone shows up two days a week and learns the basics. At the end of this process, other Arizona schools come down to Tucson for an unofficial tournament. 

Varney has found that since a lot of high schools now have ultimate teams, the turnout at UA tryouts is getting better and better. 

“Having youth ultimate heavily impacts the college skill level of that section,” Barsky said.

Sunburn travels about once a month, usually staying in their region of Arizona and California. Varney sees tournaments like UCSD as an opportunity to prepare for sanctioned tournaments in the spring. 

“In the fall the tournaments are focused on letting some of the newer guys get reps playing at tournaments,” Barsky said.

Sophomore Zeke DeLaughter was looking forward to getting in good reps and solidifying his fundamentals in San Diego after working over the summer to improve his throwing.

Varney was looking forward to this tournament because it’s the first tournament Sunburn got to go to as a team.

“This tournament is not one we are necessarily trying to win; we are trying to go there to see where we are foundationally,” he said before the event. 

In the spring, Sunburn will aim to qualify for regionals then nationals. 

UA competes against ASU, GCU and NAU and the top two or three teams go to regionals, where they face 11 to 13 teams from California.  

“It always adds up to 16 teams at regionals,” Barsky said. 

Barsky has been on Sunburn since freshman year and is in his third year as captain. He played a year in high school.

DeLaughter came into college wanting to play a sport, but didn’t really know which one. 

“I needed something competitive to be involved in,” he said. “As I started going to practices and watching pro ultimate, along with just seeing how the best players on our team played, I wanted to get to that level, too.” 

Ultimate is a sport that people may see, but aren’t familiar with. 

“The game is fluid like soccer, but it is like football in the sense that you are scoring in an end zone,” Barsky said. 

There is a lot of skill and strategy that goes into the sport, leaving Varney to see it as being almost as dynamic as other popular sports such as basketball and football.

“You might not know how dynamic, fun and strategic it is until you start playing,” Varney said. 

“I would love to have more people see a game or try it,” Barsky said. “Once people go and see it then they are like this is much cooler than I was expecting.”

The team’s next tournament will be at GCU on Dec. 7-8.

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.