The St. Louis University High School Ultimate team finished its season last weekend by tying for ninth place at the USA Ultimate 2022 Missouri high school Boys State Championship. The tournament consisted of a pool play round on Saturday and a single elimination bracket on Sunday. 

The Jr. Bills arrived early in the morning to Ladue Fifth Grade Center to play their first three games. After winning their first match by a slim margin, the Jr.Bills took the field against a team from Achiston, Kan. called Solis. The Jr. Bills secured a comfortable win against Solis, but then matched up against Priory, the team that would wind up winning the tournament and the state title. The Jr. Bills struggled against strong Priory defense and the increasing wind and ended 2-1 for the day. 

“It was a great start to the tournament,” said senior captain Jared Thornberry. “We all got a lot of playing time. We got a lot of experience with the wind and were able to work on a lot of things. We lost to Priory, but it was still a strong first day.” 

The next morning, the team traveled to the Chesterfield Valley Athletic Complex to face Clayton High School’s team in the pre-quarter round.

“I wasn’t thrilled with the seeding,” said Thornberry. “Clayton’s a pretty even match up for us and there were some other teams we could’ve played that would have been a much better first game.”

 The team lost a point going against the wind and then had to go upwind after half, meaning two breakpoints were needed to win. The Jr. Bills were able to score one point against the wind and then score a downwind break point to force the game into a universe point. Unfortunately, they lost that and dropped the game.

“The Clayton game didn’t go as planned,” said Thornberry. “The wind really highlighted our mistakes and Clayton took advantage of that. It was a tough loss, but we fought hard.”

Next, the team played Edwardsville’s JV team to make it into the ninth place game.  The wind was still strong, but now blowing from sideline to sideline. The game started off rough with Edwardsville scoring three Callahan points on upwind swings. The Jr. Bills were able to take the lead going into half. In the second half, the Jr. Bills put together a strong zone defense which heavily crippled Edwardsville’ offense. On offense, the Bills used swings and dumps to break apart Edwardsville’s zone allowing downfield passes. With strong defense and patient offense, SLUH won the game. 

“It was a good last game. I would have liked to go deeper in the tournament, but it was good to go out on a win,” said Thornberry, “We worked back from an early deficit and were able to correct our mistakes. There was strong team spirit and no one wanted to go home with another loss.”

The game for ninth place (which would have been against Ladue) was canceled as the tournament organizers didn’t have access to a field they thought the game could be played on. SLUH Ultimate tied for ninth in the tournament, which when excluding the Edwardsville Varsity team, means tied for eight in the state. 

“We really developed over the course of the year. Handlers started figuring out throws and cutters made better cuts each game. We also had a bunch of inexperienced or new players really step up,” said Thornberry, “I’m proud of this team and proud of my time on the Saint Louis University High School Ultimate team.”