The Alana spring mid-season tourney was hosted/run by Monarch HS in Louisville over the Apr 9-10 weekend. 8 Open div teams competed in a power pool type of format over 2 days and 5 Girls’ div teams played a full round-robin of games on Sat. The Girls div winner was a combo team of girls from East, Lakewood, and Lafayette, which also included a couple of Quandary/college women helping out so that more games could be played. Boulder HS won in the Open div.
It took some pre-event organizing and recruiting effort but the tourney offered a couple of features, unlike a traditional championship, in order to promote more play and fun and also deliver some special messages associated with this fundraiser tourney, honoring Alana Chen. In the Girls div, each team spent their bye doing fun activities with the Quandary college women, including face glitter and cheers and non-ultimate games, which were widely approved as much more fun than sitting around waiting for a bye round to end.
During the long lunch break on Sat, there was a short ceremony honoring Alana (Monarch class of 2013), with former high school teammates and also college teammates from CU showing up to be physically present to support an impactful message delivered by Alana’s sister, Carissa. Read more about Alana’s tragic story on the website for the foundation her mother Joyce, and her family, founded (AlanaFaithChen.org). The emphasis at the high school tourney was partially about looking out for the mental health of friends in the Ultimate community and getting help. Most of us understand that Ultimate can be a great refuge and place of acceptance and safety, but even so, people can still need help. Towards that end, $1,700 was raised, primarily via team fees, and donated to Alana’s foundation.
