The D.C. Shadow battled the Raleigh Radiance Saturday night in the semifinals of the Premier Ultimate League’s championship weekend. On D.C.’s Carlini Field at Catholic University, the Shadow’s early lead in the game slowly melted away with the Radiance pulling ahead by two points at halftime. D.C. Shadow closed the gap to one point with a little over two minutes left in the game, only to see Raleigh successfully move the disc down the field and score again as time ran down. Raleigh Radiance won 18-16.

Co-captain Adilina Malave said her team had an incredible season. “We played with so much heart and grit and it just didn’t go our way.”

It was a weekend of fierce competition for the growing sport. Though the history of Ultimate stretches back to the late 1960s — with Frisbee games coalescing into a game of “ultimate Frisbee” at Columbia High School in New Jersey — the pro scene is very new. The male-dominated American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) started play in 2012, followed by the women’s Premier Ultimate League (PUL) since only 2019.

D.C. Shadow was founded and joined the PUL the very next year, in 2020. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they didn’t get to play their first full season until 2022. That year they went all the way to the finals, before being bested by the Medellín Revolution from Colombia.

Participation in Ultimate has grown tremendously over the years, from middle school and high school through college and adult club levels. From 2003 to 2019, the number of players that belong to the sport’s governing body in the United States, USA Ultimate, grew three times larger. There are world championships that match up teams from around the globe, and there has been a long-standing push, so far unsuccesful, to get Ultimate into the Olympics.

Steve “Scuba” Kreider, the executive director of D.C. Shadow said Ultimate is one of the fastest growing youth sports in the world. “The youth scene is just blowing up and we’re just going to see in ten, fifteen years the development and the growth in the sport in the adult — in the pro leagues as well — because of that massive growth in youth development.”

The board president and treasurer of D.C. Shadow, David Tornquist, has also been involved in the Youth Ultimate League of Arlington, YULA. He said D.C. Shadow tries to support growth by having youth Ultimate clinics before games and sending players to youth events. “On June 4th, we were up in Montgomery County at a middle school tournament. They had 125 middle schoolers out there. We had players out there who were not only introducing themselves but actually showing them how to play and being the example of what they can grow up to be,” Tornquist said.

The Shadow/Radiance game was the second semi-final played on Saturday. In the first, the wildcard team, N.Y. Gridlock, bested the Minnesota Strike 20-13. In the finals on Sunday, Raleigh captured the PUL trophy, beating New York 18-16 in a grueling match of two teams in top form.

Nearly 500 people came out to see the games on Saturday. One of the Shadow fans, Lindsay Pennella, recently moved to D.C. and said enjoys the people and culture that surrounds the sport. “I know that I can move anywhere in the country … and find a community that’s super welcoming, friendly, active, but also like queer-friendly and a great place to just be yourself,” Panella said.

In addition to high-level women’s Ultimate, there were clinics for area youth, a Fan Fest before the games, and fun activities in the stands and on the field during breaks in play. For Father’s Day on Sunday, parents and their children came onto the playing field during halftime and paired in a disc game to see which could throw the farthest without dropping it.

For The Shadow, the quest for the Premier Ultimate League title will have to wait until next year. Veteran player Jenny Fey shared her feelings after the tough loss: “I’m really proud of the team. I thought it was an incredible battle. Beautiful battle, I would call it. Which is, to me, the best kind of Ultimate game.”