How Sacramento Tower built their way to Nationals
October 19, 2024 by Laura Osterlund in Profile with 0 comments
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2024 club season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
Flashback to Sunday of Southwest Regionals, September 2023. The favorites, San Francisco Polar Bears, were knocked off in the first-place semifinal by Mischief, the eventual region champs. As the Bears made their way through the backdoor bracket, they found themselves facing Sacramento Tower, who’d placed ninth at Regionals the previous year and rarely got close to a game-to-go. In a game where betting lines would heavily favor the Polar Bears, San Francisco instead found themselves in a knock down drag out universe point slog, Nationals on the line.
With a clean hold off a fast breakside throw from Megan Schoellhamer to Sean Treacy, Tower ended Polar Bears’ four-years Nationals streak and sent a shockwave around the mixed ultimate community. The home-grown team from Sacramento won the game and found themselves one step closer to the game-to-go.
But one team stood in their way: Sunshine, another team looking to rise in the ranks and pull off enough upsets to qualify for Nationals, and Tower found themselves down several breaks in the first half. While they came up short, the Sacramento team got a much larger takeaway from the whole experience – a sense of their potential, and how much higher their ceiling reached.
Laying the Foundation
Despite being the capital city of California, a state home to a plethora of mixed teams, the ultimate scene in Sacramento boasts few club squads. Players wanting to compete generally travel over an hour to the Bay Area rather than play with Sacramento’s three1 teams – the women’s team Sac Lunch (established in 2021), and two mixed teams, Sac City Quails (established in 2022) and Sacramento Tower (around since 2011 in one form or another).
A mainstay of the Sacramento club scene, the team now known as Tower has gone through several identities. Named Capitol Punishment at their inception, they had a culture of being a more serious team and were competitive at the mid-to-lower regionals level. After 2015, with the Southwest producing strong teams such as Polar Bears, Blackbird, and Seven Figures, they readjusted their purpose and expectations as Buckwild. Turning into a party and “vibes” team, Buckwild ceased having practices and only showed up to play at tournaments. While they won games, the team known as Buckwild never made it to regionals.
Lighting the Torch
Starting in 2021, players on Buckwild decided they wanted to return to being a practicing club team. The cultural shift came with another rebrand. Buckwild became Sacramento Tower, named after the Sacramento Tower Bridge and Tower Records, two landmark locations in the California capital city. Not only did Tower take their fitness more seriously, but leadership knew they had to make some tough choices.
“Two years ago, the team decided ‘We want to grow and we want to reach the next level of the sport.’ One thing I took to heart was [investing] in young people,” said current Tower captain, Lucy Campbell. To make room for new talent, leadership made the most difficult decision to cut some of their foundational players. “It was really hard and I think about those people at almost every tournament we’re at because they’re the same people texting us saying ‘Congratulations, we’re rooting for you at home!’ and it’s so special.”
“It feels like you’re leaving people behind, and I think during tryouts everyone was prepared for that,[but] it didn’t make it any easier,” captain Jules Madigan added. “It was so awful to build a competitive team that felt like it was leaving people behind, especially because there’s not as much frisbee infrastructure.”
But players of Tower and Buckwild past stay connected through a group chat with over 90 members. From well wishes to live game updates, members of the Tower community continue to stay involved and lift up the team.
“When you ask ‘what does Sacramento ultimate look like?’, it’s messages like that. Full investment from our previous players who helped lay the foundation who are just hyping us up every step of the way. And that’s meaningful,” continued Madigan. “That’s where it feels like Hometown Glory. We have this pride in Sacramento that I’m not sure you feel in a big city. [In a small town] everyone knows everyone and you’re rooting for each other.”
In the team’s first season as Tower in 2022, they won every game against teams outside their region. They ended their season placing third in the Nor Cal section (behind Polar Bears and Mischief), but missed out on the Southwest Regionals bracket due to a pool play upset from American Barbecue.2
That season, however, was not about the results as much as it was a step in the process. In addition to growing more intentional about practicing and playing together, Tower started to figure out their identity and values as a team. And crucially, Tower’s efforts played a role the following seasons in pulling Sacramento players who’d elected to play elsewhere back to their roots.
Bringing in the Tugboats
Ever since the team switched tones, their roster continues to evolve to reflect the increased competitive drive. The 2021 season brought the likes of Kevin Cocks and Sonny Zaccaro. In 2022, players such as Tyler Bacon, Molly Hallweaver, Dom Leggio, and Sean Treacy joined the scene and helped lead the team to a successful season. Come 2024 and the team added a handful of world-class players with experience playing at the highest level.3
When Tom Doi joined the team,4 he slotted into the role of O-line coordinator, talking through problems and creating string plays. Another former Bay Area asset, Nicholas Alexander came over from Polar Bears and is hailed by Tower captains as a “superstar” center O-line handler. Morgan Greenwood also fills an instrumental offensive role, serving as a hero in disguise time and again.
“[Greenwood] is a starting O-line cutter with an incredible motor. The separation she can generate from her defenders is next level and makes her easy to connect with time and time again,” said Campbell. “She is an on-field leader and has been foundational to our success and confidence this season.”
And of course, the list of big pickups for Tower would not be complete without 2022 Mixed Club Player Of The Year, Robyn Fennig.
“On any team that Robyn is on, she is going to make big plays and have a huge impact,” Campbell said. “But in my opinion, the ‘Robyn Fennig Effect’ is just as much about how she elevates her teammates as it is about her personal contributions on the field.”
There is something to be said about the “Robyn Fennig” effect on teams – every team she’s been on has made Nationals: Madison Heist, Madison NOISE, and now Tower. Though Fennig wanted to spend one last season with Madison NOISE, she rostered with Tower as a practice player in 2023 to begin investing in the team and their ongoing cultural shift.
“It’s not like there weren’t other elite frisbee players around, I just think that they were less ‘in your face’ about what they were doing and how they were doing it,” said Fennig.
“She works extremely hard on her craft and she inspires others to do the same,” Campbell said. “I think one of Robyn’s superpowers is her ability to identify people who are flying under everyone’s radar and finding ways to utilize them on the field and empower them.”
“I can be a demanding teammate and person, in terms of expecting people to show up as their full selves and push for folks to be really considerate and supportive of their teammates,” Fennig said. “That can be hard for folks for a lot of reasons, but it’s important to me that dynamic exists. There are a lot of sacrifices that go into a lot of us being here, so in order to access those best parts, we have to rely on other people to help fill us up, and also give to fill the collective pot.”
Illuminating the Way
2023 marked a turning point for Tower. While their results in the regular season appeared to be those of a regionals-level team, something was still brewing. When they stood across the field from the top team in the tournament in the regionals’ backdoor bracket, players on Tower felt they had what it took to win the game. And they were right. Though their quest for a Nationals berth that year was later stymied, their hopes were not.
“There was kind of a collective conclusion of ‘oh, wait, we might be really good,’” said Campbell. “As soon as the tournament was over, everybody was already talking about Nationals the next year.”
“We were just fired up,” said Madigan. “[The end of the year party] happened right after regionals and Lucy gave one of the most incredible speeches of all time and we wanted more, we wanted to come back and see Tower be better than we were this year…It set this tone of excitement, enthusiasm, and maybe a little bit of expectations for the next season to come.”
When 2024 rolled around, Tower’s captains listed a trip to Club Nationals as one of their goals for the team. But just one goal, determined as they were to focus on the process rather than the result. They broadened their definition of success to include the amount of growth sustained throughout the season.
“Of course, [going to Nationals] would be such an incredible thing to do, but we don’t want to build a whole season around something so narrow,” said Madigan. “That’s where our values keep us grounded. If we’re getting better together, we’re building a team…and that can exist whether we meet our performance goal or not.”
Throughout the season, the team found ways to develop their identity. At a practice weekend, Tower’s D-line started playing tugboat noises through the team speaker and hyping themselves up in the process. Now, they use the small but mighty tugboats as a mantra.
“It’s a symbol of resiliency. It pushed this lock-in mentality,” Madigan explained. “It gets us focused and it’s just silly and stupid in the best way possible. It’s healing to be like ‘Oh why are we tugging?’ ‘We don’t really know but just keep going.’ Frisbee is played with six to seven games in a weekend and if we don’t have that grit, that resiliency, then you can’t win championships. The tugboat lifestyle is rooted in resiliency: The Secret Sauce.”
On the field, Tower saw themselves in more elite tournaments, opening the season with Pro-Elite Challenge West. Tower caught fire their very first game, taking Seattle BFG to universe point. While it ended in a loss, the Californians showed they could hang with the very best.
“[The BFG game] was really good at settling the tone. We had been telling ourselves that we could be an elite team, and to immediately come out and then compete with an older team was really cool,” said Fennig. “We were getting blocks and forcing turns against one of the best teams in the country. I think that because that was our first game, that set us up for a lot of success.”
Like any rising team, Tower suffered some setbacks, finishing the regular season 6-6. A loss to Red Flag at PEC West resulted in short-term frustration but lit a long-term desire for improvement. At Elite Select, feeling the pressure to retain a bid earned at PEC W, they suffered a puzzling loss to Chicago Parlay. But that fall loosened up the Sacramentans, fueling them to victories over Public Enemy, Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust, and DC Rally.
“It was cool to see the mental resilience of our team,” said Fennig. “For a lot of folks on our team, that’s a really tough thing to do. We haven’t had a ton of opportunities to practice that…Once we lost that [Parlay] game, there was a mentality shift. And just talking about it openly was really helpful to get people’s minds to go earn a bid as opposed to being afraid to lose a bid.”
Navigating Success to Sit Seaside
Since their loss against Sunshine to miss the game-to-go in 2023, the team has had a lot of time to grow, improve, and learn exactly what they’re capable of.
“We can play with any team in this country, I’ll say it with my chest,” said Madigan. “We want to be proud of how we’re playing for ourselves before we really think about winning or losing. But just looking at the numbers, I think we can get [to Nationals].”
“We definitely can do it,” added Campbell.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in Temecula, California, this time in 2024, Sacramento Tower again found themselves facing off against San Francisco Polar Bears in the backdoor bracket with the opportunity to make good on Madigan and Campbell’s statements. Even though Tower lost in the high-pressured Southwest Regional final against an experienced Arizona Lawless, they had one more chance to qualify for Nationals for the very first time.
That chance did not start off too smoothly for the Sacramentans, as the Polar Bears rushed out to a 3-0 lead. To make matters more difficult, a level-two heat advisory was in effect, resulting in shortened caps and mandatory heat timeouts. But the depth and resilience of Tower’s D-line brought things back to a tied game at 3-3. The teams traded holds with half cap approaching until a Tower miscommunication let Polar Bears march the disc down the field to take a 7-6 lead.
In their huddles, leadership turned to the mental resiliency the team spent the season developing: “We know that ultimate is a game of runs and there will always be highs and lows for each team. Ignore the total score. Let’s narrow the scope and attack the game like it is 0-0 game to three, and we focus on one point at a time to get there. We trust each other and trust that our teammates will be there for us on and off the field.”
And so, the tugboats kept on tugging.
Coming out of half with a mere 10 minutes until soft cap, Tower’s D-line regained momentum and a 9-8 lead. Receiving with a chance to punch their ticket, it took 11 throws for Morgan Greenwood to find Ryan Takayama and send Sacramento Tower to their first-ever Nationals.
“On the field, throughout the season we have gotten better at every tournament. Our goal for Nationals is to be the best version of ourselves we can,” Campbell said. “We’ve accomplished every other goal we have set for ourselves this year and I feel confident in our ability to continue to play up to our own standards.
“It is a dream come true for our team and our community to finally have Sacramento qualify for Nationals. We cannot wait for the opportunity to show what Tower can accomplish in San Diego.”
And a half – a sister team of Tower, Bridge, was created in 2024 but did not compete ↩
An upset Tower avenged on universe in the ninth-place final ↩
Of the 13 new players to join Tower in the 2024 season, only four of them have not played at Nationals before ↩
Although living in Sacramento for years, Doi previously traveled to play with Revolver ↩
