Winning national championships is habit for the UNC men’s and women’s Ultimate teams

Story by Nicole Moorefield 

Video story by Jessica Mastor 

Photography by Dustin Duong 

Graphic by Rylee Parsons 

Frisbees sail through the air. On two sides of the same field, athletes chase them down, running at full speed until their legs give out.  

Darksiders form lines to practice their throws at the beginning of practice on Finley Turf Field on September 8, 2022.
Photo by Dustin Duong

Right now, on the left side, young women huddle in a wide circle, getting a motivational talk from their coach. On the right, young men hustle into a line, awaiting instruction from their captains.  

The teams are alike in success but different in style. They are Pleiades and Darkside, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s women’s and men’s Ultimate Frisbee teams. And they are national champions multiple times. 

Ultimate is growing in popularity. Most easily compared to soccer or football, Ultimate is a no-contact sport with the goal of catching the disc in the opposing team’s end zone. 

Pleiades and Darkside are gearing up for a new season. At practice, both groups wear mismatched t-shirts and jerseys, with plenty of Darkside and Pleiades pinnies. Several players wear their significant others’ numbers. 

But it’s not hard to imagine them in their game day attire, The women, Pleiades, in white jerseys and the men, Darkside, in their signature “darks.” You can picture them in national championship mode, dominating games, and ending their seasons with victories and championships. 

The 2022 championship victory was Darkside’s fourth in the last 10 years — 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2022 — and the team qualified for nationals all 10 of those years. For Pleiades, it was their second, having won the previous championship months prior in a COVID-delayed tournament. 

That makes UNC the only school in Ultimate history to have the men’s and women’s teams win national championships in the same season — and they did it not once, but twice. Back-to-back.  

But that’s not the only thing that makes these teams stand out. It’s the way they interact with each other — purposefully, like a family — on and off the field. 

Two standout seasons 

A Darksider readies to catch a pass during a September 13 practice. Practices usually begin with a warm-up, then partner throws before moving into skill demonstrations and exercises like mini-skirmishes.
Photo by Dustin Duong

Darkside has been a major player in men’s Ultimate for a decade, and their 2021 season was no exception.  

But that level of success was new for Pleiades — their fall 2021 season was nearly perfect; many of their games, including the championship, were blowouts. 

“People definitely talked about that college season potentially being one of the strongest seasons that any team has had,” said fifth-year captain Dawn Culton, who went on to win the 2022 Callahan Award, essentially the Most Valuable Player. 

When the spring tournament arrived, Darkside was ranked No. 3 and Pleiades No. 1. In pool play, both teams won all their games, advancing to the finals.  

As Darkside warmed up for their final, Pleiades was playing Colorado one field over. Darkside couldn’t watch, but they could hear the announcements, which was equally exciting and nerve-racking. 

One of the last points stretched on for 15 minutes. Pleiades struggled to get the disc all the way upfield, fighting against strong wind; their defense was the only thing that saved them. 

The final score was 12-11, and now the attention was all on Darkside, playing in their championship against Brown.   

“Going to the tournament, we were confident, and we set our sights really high, but we didn’t have the same amount of unprecedented success in the spring as we did in the fall,” fifth-year captain Andrew Li said. 

In the 2022 regular season, Darkside lost a handful of games.  

“That doesn’t happen to 2021 Darkside,” Li said.  

The team had to deal with those losses, be intentional with its leadership and come back with the same fire that has always characterized Darkside.   

“All season long, our narrative was, ‘We’re a different team. We don’t need to feel like we need to be the same 2021 team, because we’re not, and that’s OK,’” Li said.  

They won their final 15-10. 

One family 

Despite their differences — Darkside is almost entirely self-coached and has a sharp, businesslike style of play, where Pleiades is close with their coaching staff and practices feel inviting even to an outsider — these teams mesh uniquely both on and off the field. 

“For both of our teams, we have obviously had a lot of on-field success, and that’s what is going to get a lot of the attention,” Li said. “But I think that both of the teams will tell you that the most significant thing about these experiences is the love that our teams have for each other.” 

But it hasn’t always been this way. 

“Some vets on the team knew what it was like to have the teams be less close,” Li said. “We’re very invested in keeping that connection as strong as possible because of how beneficial it feels for everyone.”  

Coach Jessi Jones addresses a circle of Pleiades during a practice at Finley on September 15, 2022. Pleiades’ coaching is more hands-on, whereas Darkside relies on their veteran players to pass on knowledge.
Photo by Dustin Duong

In previous years, “there was a decent amount of drama and some animosity between the two teams,” Li said. 

That shifted in 2015 when Matt Gouchoe-Hanas’ joined the team as a freshman. Gouchoe-Hanas’ and his peers worked to strengthen the connection between the teams and improve Darkside’s emotional intelligence. 

“There was this phrase that we threw around a lot at this time,” Gouchoe-Hanas’ said, “which was that we don’t challenge people that we don’t care about.”

Gouchoe-Hanas’ said that concept helped people buy into the idea that they should want to be better teammates, better friends and better people. Gouchoe-Hanas’ went on to be a three-time captain and now-coach of the team.

By the time Li was a freshman in 2018, Darkside’s attitude toward Pleiades was far more supportive.  

“It’s important to respect women,” Li said. “That’s something that sometimes you have to say explicitly to a group of college guys, because they need to hear that.”  

“The relationship between Darkside and Pleaides now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” Emily Przykucki said. “The only thing that we care about is each other. The love that I have for my teammates extends beyond people that are on Pleiades. I love the Darksiders like brothers.” 

Pleiades gathers around to reveal new players’ Pleiabuddies. The team keeps up a buddy system, pairing rookies with veteran players. During the “ceremony,” frisbees on which names are written are cast out onto the field. Rookies then chase after them, trying to find which have their own names – and the names of their more experienced buddies to guide them on their ultimate frisbee journey.
Photo by Dustin Duong

One way they foster community within and between the teams is through “buddy groups.” 

At the beginning of the year, both teams divide their players into small groups of two or three, pairing younger and older players together.  

This is especially beneficial for newer players, Li said.   

“They get to be paired up with someone who’s more experienced and maybe has some more social capital on the team,” he said. “If they have a question about school or Darkside or anything that comes along with being a freshman in college, they have someone that they can go to.” 

This spring, the teams’ leaderships started a buddy system between the two programs that pairs two Darksiders and two Pleiads. Culton said that, especially after COVID, newer players were nervous to interact with the other team. Leadership wanted to provide an opportunity for the teams to get to know each other off the field.   

Culton’s buddy group frequently got bubble tea, which is well-loved by Pleiades. Other groups went to all-you-can-eat sushi; one group even tried an escape room.  

Many members of both teams also play three-on-three games together when they aren’t practicing. 

“Both teams have a pretty high drive to get better,” senior Darksider Jayden Feagans said, “so doing that alongside each other has really grown both teams.”  

“Obviously, winning the two national championships was pretty good, but I don’t think anything will ever feel as good as just playing threes with them on Friday nights on Hooker,” Przykucki said.  

The teams took their bond a step further over the summer when Li and some of his peers created a mixed elite club team called Wingdings made up of only Pleiads and Darksiders.   

Which is unique — there aren’t many elite teams made up solely of college students, let alone from the same university.  

Junior Rutledge Smith, a first-year captain, said that Pleiades and Darkside finding success at the same time is “a very special thing that most colleges and their men’s and women’s teams don’t usually get to have.” 

In 2022, Pleiades began nationals with a team meeting where they passed out “love notes” — letters of appreciation written by every player leading up to nationals to the rest of their teammates and sometimes coaches about their strengths on and off the field. 

And, at the end of every tournament, both teams have the same ritual. They sit in a circle with their teammates and go around, one by one, sharing their favorite parts of the weekend. At nationals, that gets upgraded to what junior Eugenia Chow called a “love circle” where they all share the things they love about the team and each other.   

“It’s just sobbing for an hour,” Przykucki said.  

Darkside lines up for a warm-up ahead of practice on September 22, 2022.
Photo by Dustin Duong

“One of the things that sets Darkside apart from other sports teams is our attitudes with each other and our culture,” Feagans said. “A lot of other sports can have toxic culture that is over-masculine; people yelling at each other and not learning how to communicate in effective ways.”  

Feagans said Liam Searles-Bohs, who was a captain on Darkside the last three years, was a big part of promoting a healthier culture.  

Li said Searles-Bohs was the one who took circles to a deeper level for Darkside. He would lead the group by presenting icebreaker topics that gave team members room to be open and honest — prompts like, “What are you afraid of?” with honest responses like, “that I won’t be as good as the team thinks that I can be.”  

“Something that I tried to promote was relentless positivity and support,” Searles-Bohs said. “When people speak and share parts of themselves, we support and affirm the risks that people take.” 

Anne Worth (left) and Dawn Culton (right) chat on the sidelines during a practice Pleiades skirmish on September 27, 2022.
Photo by Dustin Duong

Not just a pastime  

Despite winning six national titles for the University, these Ultimate teams only have club status. That’s because the NCAA doesn’t recognize Ultimate as a sport. 

Przykucki thinks that change will come, sooner than later, though “almost definitely not while I’m here.” 

Li estimated that Ultimate is a top-three club sport at UNC for the funding the University gives them, which averages around $5,000 a year. He said the highest is rowing, followed by Darkside, and Pleiades isn’t far behind. 

Przykucki said that while the University gives them a generous amount of money to cover everything except travel expenses, it would be nice to be recognized and to have the same resources as NCAA varsity sports, such as access to a weight room. 

“We’re a sport that is maybe one of the highest-impact sports that exist,” Li said. “We cut like we’re football players, like we’re all wide receivers, but we do it as often as soccer players run.” 

Both teams simulate real play, often at the end of practice, to put into practice the skills they learned or developed during that day’s session.
Photo by Dustin Duong

As a result, most of the players have nagging knee, ankle or hip injuries, and while they can go to Stallings-Evans, the sports medicine program at UNC, they don’t have their own dedicated personal trainers or medical support to rehab injuries the way NCAA varsity athletes do. 

They’re bringing recruits to the University, both for the undergraduate and graduate schools. Some players are already interested in graduate programs, choosing UNC because of Darkside. Others are taking a fifth year exclusively to continue playing Ultimate. They even have one teammate who came all the way from Australia to play for Darkside. 

Culton feels like most people don’t recognize that Ultimate is more than a fun activity to play at their apartment complex, but something she spends all her time working at. 

“But I don’t really care very much about external validation,” Culton says. “If that was something I really cared about, I would have picked the wrong sport.” 

Both teams had their first tournaments in November. They both won. 

As they head into their 2023 season, both teams are looking to secure another victory for UNC — to show the nation, and the NCAA, just how outstanding they are. But more than that, they’re looking to have fun, become better athletes and deepen their connections with each other. 

Art by Rylee Parsons
Art by Rylee Parsons
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