The Macalester men’s ultimate Frisbee team, the Blue Monkey, finished its season with a resounding championship performance in the B pool at the Halliwinona Tournament in Winona, Minn., Oct. 25-26. The championship was the Blue Monkey’s first in recent history. The team won each of its final-day elimination games convincingly, crushing Marquette in the championship game.

“We couldn’t have done it with a nicer bunch of guys,” captain Drew Coursin ’03 said. Halliwinona marked the end of Coursin’s college career, as he plans to graduate at the end of the semester. “Playing ultimate here has been a spectacular experience,” Coursin said.

For the first time in its history, Macalester had enough players to add a B team for part of the season. Coursin described the B team’s existence as “simultaneously uplifting and heartbreaking.”

“People got playing time, which is awesome,” Coursin said, “but it was sad to not play with all the guys.”

The B team’s crowning achievement was a trouncing of St. Thomas B in the second annual Mac-Thomas Cup in mid-October. Macalester swept the Cup, with the Monkey, Pink Poodles (B) and women’s (Purse Snatchers) teams all collecting victories.

The Snatchers, led by captains Liz Cavert ’05 and Melanie Sard ’06, enjoyed a successful season while breaking in a large number of inexperienced players.

“We had a lot of new people, a lot of first-years,” Cavert said. “It didn’t look like people who had just started playing out there, even though the majority were new players.”

“It’s really neat to have coaches that are your peers,” new player Claire Stoscheck ’07 said. “We had a great team feeling, more so than any I’ve ever been a part of.”