Colorado Springs, Colo. (October 5, 2022)—USA Ultimate announced today the 208 athletes who were extended an invitation to try out for the U-24 National Team ahead of the 2023 WFDF World Under-24 Championships.
Of the nearly 400 applicants, team coaches and selection assistants pared the list down to the 104 men and 104 women who will compete for a spot on Team USA at one of two tryouts next month – a west tryout November 12-13 in San Diego, followed by an east tryout November 19-20 in Atlanta.
Following the tryouts, coaches will select a total of 72 players to represent the United States on either the mixed, open or women’s teams.
The 2023 edition of the U-24 World Championships will be the first since Team USA swept all three divisions in 2019 in Heidelberg, Germany. (The 2021 edition of the biennial tournament was cancelled due to lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
The dates and location for the 2023 U-24 World Championships have not yet been announced.
Coaching Staff Update
Last week, USA Ultimate added a trio of Team USA veterans to the coaching staff. Sarah Griffith and Rohre Titcomb will serve as assistant coaches for the women’s squad and Sarah Meckstroth will complement the staff as a selection assistant. Together, they will assist head coach Nancy Sun in selecting and preparing the team to defend their 2019 world title.
The additions to the coaching staff follow the departure of assistant coaches Alex Snyder and Courtney Kiesow and selection assistant Anraya Palmer.
The three additions are no strangers to success at the international level. Griffith won back-to-back gold medals at the World Games in 2013 and 2017 while also adding world titles at the 2016 WFDF World Ultimate Championships (WUGC) in London and the 2014 and 2018 World Ultimate Club Championships (WUCC) as a member of Seattle Riot.
A longtime teammate of Griffith’s on Riot, Titcomb also won a gold medal in London as a member of the women’s team and played on the same gold-medal-winning squad at WUCC in 2014. Titcomb was also named as an assistant coach for Team USA for the 2020 edition of WUGC before it was cancelled and served on the coaching staff when Riot captured a WUCC title in 2018.
Meckstroth most recently won a gold medal at the 2022 World Games last summer in Birmingham, Ala. She is also a two-time WUGC gold medalist (2016, 2020), a two-time U-23 World Champion (2013, 2015) and three-time National Champion (2013, 2014, 2015) as a member of Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust.
The coaching staff for the open and mixed teams remains unchanged from when it was announced in 2020. The open team will be led by head coach Bob Krier with support from assistant coaches Darryl Stanley and Hector Valdivia and selection assistant David Allison.
Patrick Sherlock will lead the mixed squad as head coach. Lauren Boyle and Hannah Baranes are assistant coaches and Isaiah Bryant serves as a selection assistant.