Instead of heading to the beach for Spring Break, three girls from LSU’s ultimate frisbee team will travel to Italy to test their skills against the best frisbee players in the world.
Amber Abel, a petroleum engineering senior and president of women’s ultimate frisbee, will lead her team on a 10-day trip to Rimini, Italy to take part in “Paganello 2004,” a coed international ultimate frisbee tournament.
Rebecca Florek, a mathematics junior and team member, said ultimate frisbee is a game similar to football. Two teams of seven players face off and try to score in the end zone. Florek said it is a “purely passing” game.
The women’s ultimate frisbee team started playing in fall 2001 with five team members. When the size of the team tripled in the spring of 2003, it became an official club under the University’s Recreational Sports department.
The 18-member team practices three times a week at the Special Olympics soccer fields across from the University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
This is the first year the LSU women’s team will make the trip to Italy for the Paganello tournament.
For Abel, the trip provides time to bond with her teammates.
“My best friends are on this team,” Abel said. “Tournaments make the team bond even tighter.”
Joining Abel on the trip will be Florek and Carla Haslauer, a biological engineering junior.
The three will depart April 3 for the five-day tournament which begins with an opening ceremony April 8. They will return the day after the tournament is over, April 13.
The cost of the trip, $1,200 for each player, proved to be a restrictive factor. Because the money to fund the trip came almost completely out-of-pocket, Abel, Haslauer and Florek will be the only members of the women’s team able to make the trip.
Florek said that the team also is in the process of soliciting help from Student Government’s Organi-zational Relief Fund. She also said Baton Rouge Ultimate, the city’s ultimate frisbee organization, paid their $350 tournament entry fee.
“We like to help out area teams,” said Dan Miller of Baton Rouge Ultimate. “We don’t want them to be stifled because of money problems.”