Nouvelles

A new approach to Black Friday Cyber Monday

An update from Without Limits Ultimate.

  Without Limits Ultimate celebrates 10 years of Fusion! 

  This resource manual is THE resource manual you should be reading.

  Without Limits tells us about their Heavyweights tournament!

Our good friends at Without Limits Ultimate hosted the 8th year of Fusion this past weekend at the Smith River Sports Complex in Martinsville, VA. At Fusion, East Cost club players are brought in to run FREE skills clinics - this event is a fantastic opportunity for college teams to kick off their fall season. Tournament Director Kyra Catabay shares her thoughts on the event. This past weekend, we kicked off the women’s 2017-2018 college season at Virginia Fusion. Although a deer took out my driver side mirror, I would still call it a success for the first tournament of the season. For the past 8 years, Without Limits has hosted skills clinics after pool play games on Saturday. It was an honor to continue this tradition with over 100 players — many of them brand new to ultimate. Thank you to our clinic coaches from Phoenix, Backhanded, and NC Warhawks for making this possible! One of the highlights of my weekend was listening to a player explain to her teammate the meaning and story behind the “Nevertheless she persisted” quote that was printed on our new Without Limits jerseys. It’s a reminder that we will be told to sit down and be quiet. And it’s the strength to keep going. Thank you to all of our attendees for making Fusion possible. We hope to see you in the future! Contact Without Limits for more information on their events and programming. Women’s Ultimate.  Community.  Competition.  Empowerment.

What can we say about this team - this season especially - other than Hook 'em Horns!! UT at Austin's top women's team is rocking it, with another strong performance bringing home the gold at Women's Centex this past weekend, the team's home tournament run in collaboration with Without Limits Ultimate. We admit, we're a bit biased with our love for Melee and their home fields, the Charles Alan Wright Fields at the Berry M. Whitaker Sports Complex at the University of Austin. The sports complex is, simply put, sick... the benefits of being at a school with an athletic's program budget north of $160,000,000 perhaps? Yes, that many zeros. Fun fact: VC's Adriana Withers met her much-later-to-be wife on those fields in 2003 (VC was merchandising the UPA College Championships while her wife was running medical support), and still lives part-time only about 10 minutes away. What's more, VC's Sponsorship Manager and the founder of Without Limits, Michelle Ng, is also a Melee alumni.  Oh, and did we mention, it's usually like 80 degrees, sunny and a short drive from one of the hottest music festivals in the world, South by Southwest, going on at the same time? Read Ultiworld's Women's Centex Preview article here. Enough about Centex... back to Melee.  From Ultiworld's write-up, "There is no question that #2 Texas Melee is having a tremendous season, and they look like a shoe-in to make semis at Nationals this year. In both of their tournaments in 2017, Presidents’ Day & Stanford Invite, Melee has made the final. But both times they came up short." Melee's record took a sharp turn to the winning side this past weekend at Centex, where they beat Ohio State's Fever to win the tournament. From Texas Melee Women's College Centex is one of the highlights of the spring college season.  The University of Texas women's program has been a ong-term partner of both VC and Without Limits.  TD Sydney Overman said, "We love how much Vicious Circle promotes Without Limits- in their gear, banners, and general attitude towards women's ultimate. One of the primary Centex goals each year is to grow college women's ultimate across the United States, and I know that Without Limits does a huge, huge job in helping us achieve that mission."  Captains Laura Gerencser and Julia Schmaltz said, "VC always makes sure we look good! We decided to change our jersey design this year and we were initially worried about not being able to include our old emblem (the circle longhorn), but VC worked with us extensively to come up with a brand new, classic and clean new style jersey. We love them!" Melee is deeply invested in the growth and development of college women's ultimate and that is clearly reflected in their partnerships with Without Limits and VC.  We love working with Melee and we love their clean designs. This year's Centex was extra special because of the nice weather and brand new fields, especially given the challenges over the past couple of seasons.  Overman, who is a senior, said, "When it comes to running Centex, pray for the best but plan for the worst. Seriously. After the past two years, we were thankful for a sunny, minimal-wind Centex at the newly renovated UT IM fields. If that's not the formula for a successful victory-lap Centex then I don't know what is!"  The captains reflected, "Because of years past, we have to say our favorite thing about Centex this year was the beautiful weather and brand new facility. Centex hasn't always had the best conditions, so we were very happy to be able to offer a very smooth, good condition tournament to teams that have been so loyal despite the past conditions."  The challenges of the past two seasons made this year even sweeter. Texas has had a dominant regular season thus far and now they begin preparations for the Series.  The captains said, "The next thing on the horizon for us is regionals and we couldn't be happier that it will be back here in Austin! We are very much looking forward to hosting the south central teams (with a possible 4 bids)!"  Follow the team's journey on twitter at @txmelee

This year, Wash U Women's Ultimate and Without Limits celebrated the 10 year anniversary of Midwest Throwdown, hosting 72 teams in Columbia, MO. Looking across the vast expanse of fields, it was hard to believe that the tournament started with only 13 teams. Purdue won the Open Division of the tournament, while Iowa State won the Women's Division. Congratulations to both teams, who took home Spikeball sets to celebrate their victories! TD Devin Ryan felt that host team Wash U learned a lot from running the tournament. "We learned how much planning goes into running a tournament, and how there’s so much going on behind-the-scenes that the average player doesn’t have to think about. It’s incredible to have this opportunity to have so much control over how the tournament is run and it’s great having that sense of accountability and then reward when the tournament is over." She also had positive comments about VC's presence at the tournament, "VC has been nothing but supportive of our team, and they were especially helpful of us both throughout the merchandise design process and managing the complex logistics of hosting such a big tournament. We loved how they valued our input when making any decision, and worked with our team every step of the way." Host team Wash U has been a valued VC partner team for a number of years. Captains Nora and X had this to say about the partnership, "VC has always been attentive to our needs and supported us in getting all of the gear that we need. VC is responsive, communicative, and a great company to work with because of their attention to detail and desire to make gear that fits our team's needs."The Wash U captains' favorite part about Throwdown was the Skills Clinic at the end of Saturday. The captains said, "It's very fulfilling to be able to give women in ultimate the opportunity to expand their skill sets with talented coaches - and to be able to take part in those opportunities ourselves!" VC is happy to support the Skills Clinic, Throwdown, and Wash U Women's Ultimate. To learn more about this and other Without Limits Ultimate events, please visit their site here!

VC Ultimate is proud to be Without Limits Ultimate's official partner. Learn more about this ultimate and life changing organization here. Commonwealth Cup, hosted at the Smith River Sports Complex in Martinsville, has become a February staple for many teams on the East Coast.  Now in its fifth year of existence, the tournament has doubled in size and is host to a wide range of teams, from Nationals qualifiers to new teams and B teams.  This year's weather was mostly beautiful and definitely beat the snow from some previous years! UNC Pleiades took home the title, edging out Pittsburgh in semis and Virginia in finals.  UNC is looking for the team's first trip to Nationals in its current players' tenure and UNC's strong showing this weekend puts them right in the thick of things. The merchandise tent was lively all weekend long and we raffled off both a Spikeball set and Hucket to players who competed in our puzzle challenge.  Next up, Without Limits heads to Columbia, Missouri for Midwest Throwdown.  Then we'll be back in Martinsville for Mash-Up! Shout out to our co-sponsors of this awesome event: Spin Ultimate, Discraft and Spikeball!    Thanks to Discraft for providing game discs! Stop by Tournament Central to pick one up for your team at Without Limits events! Erica of Columbia University won this awesome Spikeball set, and is clearly jazzed about it. Congrats to UNC on their win!