Lady'scjonctées 2012

Last Sunday the Dijon Ultimate club, Les Discjonctés hosted an all-women's tournament and four of us from Besançon plus two pick-ups from the Ultimate Troopers (near Nancy), teamed up to form the Free-Bises. The day started off right when upon entering Clémentine's car for the hour-drive to Dijon, Vanessa offered us all a potpourri of morning beverages, including, but not limited to: coffee, cappuccino (in both Milka and Toberlone varieties), hot chocolate, and tea. 

The day only got better from there... the tournament was a lot of fun -- very well-run and a very positive atmosphere. Since it was the tournament's first year there were only four teams (the ladies from Dijon, a high school team, and a middle school team coached by Bruno, the former captain of the Discjontés who is the girls' gym teacher). The set-up was a round robin in the morning, a 25-minute break for lunch, then another round robin in the afternoon. Only the matches against the Lady Discjontés were really challenging, but it was a good opportunity to work on the fundamentals and a good learning session for the two pick-ups, Marie-Eve and Pascale. 

And I had a wonderful time playing with Clémentine, Franzi and Vanessa, who all play for the Friz'Bistonins. It's unusual for us to have more than 2-4 girls total at any given practice (Lucie also comes regularly, and sometimes we have Caroline), so more often than not I'm playing against the only other girl on the opposing team. It was good to play together, since Clémentine is also going to be on the team for the phase retour (round 2) of the regional tournament, the last weekend in February.

For the record, we won all 6 of our matches and ended up also winning the "Spirit of the Game" award (which makes 3 weekends in a row for Friz'Bistonin teams).

Here we are proudly displaying our loot (from left to right): me with a bottle of Arbois, Franzi with the trophy for winning the tournament, Vanessa with a party game which was also part of the prize (?), and Clémentine with the trophy for best spirit, then Pascale and Marie-Eve. This was on top of the goody bag that each player received for attending the tournament (which had various contents including candies, a little toiletries bag, a Discjonctés cup and a small pot of Dijon mustard). We're going to save the bottle for the phase retour, because Pascale and Marie-Eve will be there and we can all enjoy it together then! Overall a really great Sunday!