On June 7th, the Wilson boys ultimate frisbee team’s run in the Ultiworld High School National invite in Rockford, Illinois began. Entering as the fourth seed out of 16 teams, the Tigers sought to build off of their performance from last years run that saw Wilson out of the tournament in the group stage.

Going into the tournament the team was quite confident. “We thought we were the best team in the country going in.” explained senior Noah Gross. As the favorites in their respective pool of teams, Wilson’s performance in the group stage showed no surprises as they swept away their competition. Their undefeated run earned them a spot in the knockout round. With a big quarterfinal win against Durham (NC), the Tigers seemed unstoppable heading into the semi-finals.

“We thought we put in a lot of work over the course of four years to put us in a place where we had a shot of winning the title.” Gross added. In the semi-finals Wilson went up against 13th seeded Berkeley High Coup (CA). The game was hard-fought and constantly back-and-forth but ended up in an 11-9 win for Berkeley. “It was anybody’s game, they’re a good team, we’re a good team,” said Gross. “They outplayed us that day but we could have beat them.” Gross believed the win was attributed to the fact that, “They made fewer mistakes then we did… and yeah, they capitalized.” Berkley went on to defeat Edina (MN) in the championship and win the tournament.

Although Wilson’s chances of taking it all were out of the picture, they still had the third place title up for grabs. They took on Lone Peak (UT), the second seed who fell short to Edina 10-9 in the semi-finals. As the game progressed the two teams seemed evenly matched. However, the scoreline finished 10-9 in favor of Lone Peak making Wilson the fourth place finishers.

Though much of the team’s success was due to the hard work from its nine seniors, expect many positive accomplishments to be built off of this historic season.