Sweets Earn 2nd Straight Nationals Trip

Photo+by+Tywen+Kelly

Tywen Kelly

Photo by Tywen Kelly

The Sweets (formerly known as The Lady Sweets) have had an incredibly successful season, posting 3 tournament wins. This included a victory at the Stanford Invitational, one of the most competitive Division I tournaments in the country. For a stretch of time they were the number one DI team in the country, and they are now sitting comfortably in the number four spot nationally. Now, they are on their way to Raleigh, North Carolina for nationals after earning themselves a bid by coming in third place in the Walla Walla-hosted Northwest Regionals.

To get their bid to compete in regionals, the Sweets handily won their conference championships in Missoula, beating out the other five schools in the Big Sky conference.

According to first-year Mackenzie Timbel, “[We’re] feeling really strong. We have this mentality of … well, we’ve won 3 of the 4 tournaments we’ve played in, and winning Stanford was just amazing. Last year it was a huge honor to even be there, and this year we really showed up.”

The captains attribute much of their success to a focus on proactivity. Senior Captain Ari Lozano says: “This leadership team of me, Marlena [Sloss] and Nina [Finley] … worked really hard, and recognized different flaws and things from last season we can work on. Our theme this season was to be proactive rather than reactive, really thinking about problems that might arise before they happen [in order] to be as successful as possible without having to deal with negative repercussions that might randomly come up. I think for us it’s been planning ahead, and outlining things to work on.”

Photo by Tywen Kelly
Tywen Kelly
Photo by Tywen Kelly

The team has focused extensively on honing their skills, and really making the sport a central focus in their lives. “[We’ve had] coaches from outside of Whitman come and … put on clinics, so all that and a lot of pre-season weightlifting has really helped us develop,” Lozano said. “Our practices have been very intentional. We’ve been figuring out what clicks with our team.”

Timbel elaborates, “The success of the team … well, we came back from winter break and really dialed it in. We had a month-long period of tournaments and clinics every week, which was pretty hard to deal with academically. But, we all got so much better in that time period.”

Another key to the Sweets’ success is their culture of inclusivity, something they’ve been highly intentional about. According to Lozano, “We take pride in being a very inclusive group. We encourage people of any level of ability to come and join us. It varies, we have people who started playing in the fourth grade and people who just picked up a Frisbee in the first few weeks of freshman year.”

This inclusivity has led to quite a large team—24 people. “It’s been really exciting to watch people grow to the point where we felt comfortable enough to split into two teams,”  Lozano said. “[We have] our DI team, which is more competitive, and we have a DIII team which is a really good developmental team for people who are interested in playing, but aren’t ready to be as competitive at the DI level. We don’t want to exclude anyone from playing if they want to. It’s been a really fun thing that the captains are all really excited about.”

Now, the Sweets are headed to nationals for the second year in a row to compete against the best teams in the country. The tournament will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina from May 27-30.

Photo by Tywen Kelly
Tywen Kelly
Photo by Tywen Kelly