Issue 6 - June 1, 2024
covering nontraditional, emerging and niche sports with a focus on women and LGBTIQA+ people
Hello and welcome to the sixth issue of Beyond the Big 5’s newsletter! Also, happy start of Pride month!
Recent BB5 Features
Episode 8 of the podcast, featuring quadball player Lulu Xu of the US National Team and the Boston Pandas
Episode 9 of the podcast, a recap of US Quadball Cup 2024, with special guests Michael Goldman, Soleil Heaney, and Chanun Ong
USQ Cup recap article with preview for Major League Quadball’s upcoming season
Western Ultimate League Championship Weekend preview, featuring photos of Seattle Tempest vs Utah Wild on May 11 and an interview with Wild player Brooke Stanislawski
Short video in collaboration with Amanda “Coffee” Borders on Wild player and college freshman Lily Terpstra
What to Watch This Weekend
Quadball
MLQ season starts this weekend! MLQ is the sport’s summer semi-pro league that’s been around since 2015. All games are broadcast on YouTube.
June 1 at 5:30pm ET: Chicago Prowl vs Detroit Innovators
June 1 at 6pm ET: New York Titans vs Washington Admirals
POSTPONED due to severe weather: League City Legends vs Austin Outlaws
We predict Prowl winning 2-1 and Titans sweeping 3-0. Had Legends and Outlaws met, we predicted 2-1 in favor of Outlaws.
Rugby
The HSBC Madrid 7s Series is this weekend. Watch on RugbyPassTV or Peacock. The US women’s team played Canada earlier today and won 26-19. They play Great Britain on Saturday at 10:39am ET and New Zealand at 12:33pm ET.
Softball
The College World Series is here! Games are on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.
On Saturday, you can watch UCLA vs defending champ Oklahoma at 3pm ET on ABC, and Texas vs Florida at 7pm ET on ESPN.
Ultimate
It’s championship weekend for Western Ultimate League! Games take place June 1 and 2. Here’s the full schedule:
June 1
4pm ET: Utah Wild vs Bay Area Falcons, YouTube livestream
7pm ET: San Diego Super Bloom vs Colorado Alpenglow, YouTube livestream
June 2
1pm ET: third place game, YouTube livestream
4pm ET: finals, YouTube livestream
We predict Alpenglow vs Wild in the finals, with Alpenglow winning in overtime.
The Premiere Ultimate League enters week nine, with games on June 1 and 2. All games will be shown on YouTube.
June 1 at 4pm ET: Portland Rising vs Milwaukee Monarchs
June 1 at 7pm ET: Austin Torch vs DC Shadow
June 1 at 7pm ET: Minnesota Strike vs Philadelphia Surge
June 2 at 11am ET: Portland Rising vs Indianapolis Red
June 2 at 1pm ET: Minnesota Strike vs New York Gridlock
We spoke to Gridlock this week about their game against Strike. Gridlock is currently at the top of the standings in the north division, 4-0 so far. With two weekends left in the season, Gridlock is hypothetically in a good position to grab one of the coveted four sports to PUL’s championship. Their next games are against teams who are ranked lower than them. “We played for the first time last year when Gridlock went on a similar road trip in week 6 to play Strike and Monarchs. Gridlock lost to Strike 17 - 18 in a very close game and then went on to win against Monarchs… The 2 teams met again in the first semi finals of Championship Weekend where NY took the win 20 -13,” said Julie Cook, Gridlock co-founder.
This is a young team with many rookies. Players to watch are:
Valeria Cardenas #33
Manuela Cardenas #8
Co-captains Yina Cartagena #20, Genny DeJesus #00 and Nina Finley #96
Jolie Krebs #24, who just won the Callahan Award at USA Ultimate College Nationals
Cassie Brown #9, Nikki Hair #88 and Eli Presberg #31 have been standouts throughout the season
This weekend’s game is co-hosted with Columbia High School, the school that is the birthplace of ultimate. “Many members of the team have connections to CHS Ultimate, formally and informally. Sparkle Motion, the HS Girls team, have volunteered at our games over the years. This is the first time that Gridlock has a formal partnership with the CHS Ultimate Board. Board President Dan Cagan-Drew and parent representative Aylin Bumin have been instrumental in planning this game. We hope this is the first of many partnerships!!” said Cook.
Coach Brittany Taylor also provided a statement in advance of Sunday’s game: “We’re feeling very excited, and proud of what the team’s put together so far this season. I think it shows that the number of experienced returning players isn’t always predictive of success, and Gridlock has worked hard individually (across different cities, states, and countries) to train and prepare and coordinate with one another. The team is heavily player-led, so that motivation is coming from the bottom up, not top-down. Which also means when we’ve faced growing pains or challenging game scenarios, that players have been coached in mental toughness to right themselves and it makes reaching our goals more efficient. Our offensive line is a force to be reckoned with, especially stacked with a few defensive playmakers who WILL get the disc back if necessary. And our defensive lines have done well to find weak points and capitalize, given a clear game plan going in to games. In our final games of the regular season, we’re hoping to fine tune some defensive looks, round out our offensive looks, and have fun! It’s been a good ride so far, we’re still very hungry though.”
We also interviewed Tori Gray last weekend as she competed with Carleton Syzygy at USA Ultimate D1 nationals. Like Terpstra on Wild, Gray also is juggling the college and pro seasons this year. Gray is a rookie on Strike. “I love puzzles, and having something like Strike has been a really cool opportunity to be able to play and learn new things… I have more opportunities to play roles that I don’t normally play in college, and that has helped me feel more confident on the field,” say Gray. We’ll share more from our interview with Gray later this month, as part of our series on college ultimate athletes who also play at the pro level.
In Closing
The women’s sports bar in Minneapolis, A Bar of Their Own, is having a great week! First, their city’s PWHL team won the inaugural championship. Then, sports icon Billie Jean King signed their wall! So fun.
Beyond the Big 5 is written by Mary Kimball.