Every Friday on the lower field, Monta Vista Ultimate Frisbee (MVUF) holds their weekly meetings where they play ultimate frisbee and spikeball. Seniors Niko Gustafson, Stanley Chen and sophomore Rudra Phalnikar use the club as a way to meet new friends and relieve stress. Whether it be running around screaming, getting hyped over a competitive game of ultimate frisbee or making a novel play in spikeball, members of the club reserve their after school time on Fridays to relieve stress from school, exercise and have fun.

Gustafson joined the club his freshman year, but with a majority of the active members and officers being seniors, he saw the club decreasing in attendance and took upon the task of continuing and expanding the club. Now, as MVUF president, Gustafson still enjoys everything about ultimate fri  sbee.

“Ultimate frisbee is my favorite sport. It’s beautiful. I love it,” Gustafson said. “It’s a non-contact sport. It’s pretty difficult to get injured. Just the mechanics of the sport, and the way it’s played is very attractive to me. And I think it’s worth sharing with other people.”

After playing ultimate frisbee in freshman PE, active member Chen decided to join MVUF and uses the club as a way to play a sport that he and his friends all love. Although the club was initially dedicated to playing ultimate frisbee, members of the club saw students from Cupertino High School playing spikeball and, upon seeing the uniqueness of the sport, they decided to try it out. They all enjoyed the sport and decided to add it as an option for members at their weekly meetings along with ultimate frisbee.

“We saw how popular [spikeball] was and we tried playing it ourselves and it was pretty fun,” Chen said. “We played over the summer and decided to get some sets and just play in our free time.”

Gustafson also greatly enjoys the culture of spikeball. He sees it as a sport that anyone can play and has received positive feedback from the rest of the members of the club. In the last few weeks, Gustafson claims that they have been playing more spikeball than ultimate frisbee.

“I think we all love the unique [and] fresh concept of the game,” Gustafson said. “It’s also really easy to improve and we improve quickly enough to be able to watch ourselves progress. I think it’s a really attractive game to play.”

Gustafson believes spikeball and ultimate frisbee perfectly complement each other. He claims that with ultimate frisbee being so tiring, they are able to use the low intensity sport of spikeball as a way to cool off during their breaks. 

“It relieves stress because I can just play with my friends and have a good time, and it’s [also] pretty good exercise, Chen said. “It doesn’t take too much time either. This club teaches me teamwork, especially in spikeball, where its only you and your teammate, and you have to position yourself in the right way and know what your teammate is going to do.”

Phalnikar also uses the club as a way to relieve stress and sees it as a great way to get away from whatever he is doing and have fun. As an underclassmen, Phalnikar expected to feel intimidated with the majority of the club being composed of upperclassmen. However, to his surprise, he found the members of the club were very welcoming and accepting.

“We played a lot and [the members] complimented everything I did well and told me how to improve on anything I did bad,” Phalnikar said. “When I won a game, they told me I was really good of a player for my first day and that kinda motivated me to get better at the sport.”

Gustafson is really proud of the culture the club has been able to foster and hopes that with these positive comments on the club being spread around, the club will be able to expand and gain new members.

“I don’t want them to be intimidated or feel excluded because the majority of us are seniors,” Gustafson said. “We all love spikeball and ultimate frisbee, and we really like playing them.”