Scobel Wiggins Photography

The Northeastern Valkyries first competed in the UPA Series in 2002 and as recently as 2005, only won a single game at Regionals in one of the country's weakest regions, the New England Region. This year, we received the opportunity to compete at one of the most prestigious tournaments in the country: Centex. Our Centex experience may not have gotten us any closer to winning a National Championship, but the opportunity to compete against the best Women's teams in the country was a phenomenal experience for us and one that the team will always remember.

At the beginning of the 2008 college season, we set qualifying for College Nationals as a team goal. We were coming off a fairly successful 4th place finish at 2007 Regionals and were returning nearly our entire roster. But as big of an accomplishment as qualifying for Nationals last year was, we had an even greater goal in mind for our program: getting the chance to compete at a tournament like Centex. Playing at Centex gave us the opportunity to play against the best the sport has to offer, see how we stack up against those teams, and figure out what we have to work on to get better. We didn't want to be just a one-time fluke at Nationals; we wanted to build a team that could compete with all of the accomplished teams across the country. All of the talk on RSD and other forums focuses on the top programs across the country, and rightly so; we simply wanted the experience of being at the same tournaments as them.

This season, we got the opportunity to play at both Pres Day and Centex, and even though our record wasn't all that great at these two tournaments, we did get to see the best college Women's Ultimate imaginable. We were the only New England team in attendance at Pres Day and one of only two at Centex. While attending these tournaments doesn't give us any concrete advantage heading into the UPA Series, we now have the experience of matching up against teams that are distinctly better than us and getting a first-hand look at how much more work we need to put in to approach their level. I know that I learned things from a coaching perspective at Centex and I also know that our team was able to feel good about our effort and find a little extra motivation to work harder upon our return home.

Danielle Fortin (Ottawa) and Carolyn Finney (UCSB) go up for a disc in finals

The quality of Ultimate in New England (and in the Northeast in general) is not on par with the top teams across the country, and because of that, growing a new team into a National powerhouse is very difficult. In addition to not being able to play against the best teams in the country, many New England teams are also saddled with poor field situations and unfriendly climates. In our case, we were able to hold a total of five outdoor practices in Boston prior to Centex, and two of those were on completely snow-covered fields. We know that we are at a disadvantage to begin with, but seeing where we stand on a National level a couple of weeks before the UPA Series really allows the players to make the most of their final weeks of practices and workouts. Players can focus on what needs to be done to try to play better Ultimate and to be able to be more competitive should we get the opportunity to play some of these teams again. Additionally, being able to tell potential new athletes that we travel to places like Austin and get to compete against schools like Arizona, Illinois, and Kansas is a great recruiting tool; it makes Ultimate seem that much more exciting and legitimate.

Taking the Centex experience and the feeling of being at the same field site with the giants of our sport back to Boston with us is an amazing thing. Leaving Austin with a losing record is nothing to be ashamed of, because as a team trying to compete with the perennial contenders, we need to take our lumps and see how we can improve. There is no easier way to do that than on the field. Now we just need to put in the work to try to insure that our inclusion at a tournament like Centex was not a fluke.

Jason Adams is the Northeastern University coach.