Liberty's men, seeded 14th, defeated No. 5-seeded Duke on Saturday and No. 8 JMU in Sunday's 11th-place game for its best-ever regional finish.
Seeded 14th out of 16 teams in the Atlantic Coast Regional Championships, held Saturday and Sunday at Smith River Sports Complex in Axton, Va., Liberty University's men's ultimate team staged a couple of upset wins to finish 2-3 and place a program-high 11th overall.
"It was a great tournament," Flames Head Coach Kevin Habermas said. "That's the best we've ever done. We have never gotten better than 15th. Typically, if you lose your first two rounds, you're playing among the bottom four in the playoffs. This was the toughest tournament we have ever had, playing the No. 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8-seeded teams in the tournament."
The Flames opened competition with a 15-8 setback against No. 3-seeded North Carolina State. The Wolfpack went on to finish runner-up to top-seeded champion UNC Chapel Hill, and both secured bids to the May 24-27 USA Ultimate National Championships in Milwaukee.
In consolation bracket play, Liberty upset No. 6 Duke, 15-14, before falling to No. 5 South Carolina, 15-9.
That sent the Flames to a ninth-place semifinal matchup with No. 7 Maryland, which pulled out a 15-13 victory, putting Liberty in the 11th-place final. There, the Flames edged No. 8 JMU, 7-6, in a game shortened by rain.
Both of Liberty's victories came in dramatic fashion on Universal points, with the Flames breaking Duke on a layout defensive knockdown followed by a layout game-winning catch by graduate Joshua Duke, who led the team with eight total defensive breakups.
"I was happy for Joshua Duke because he flew his brother up from Houston to watch him play for the first time," Habermas said. "He got a layout D on a Duke player that plays on the U24 national team, and then (senior handler) Ian Rankin threw to (freshman cutter) Rupert Armentrout who threw it in the end zone where Josh had to lay out to make the game-winning catch."
That knocked the Blue Devils down into the bottom four while sending the Flames to the bottom eight.
Liberty seized a 5-3 lead on South Carolina after two early breaks before the Gamecocks adjusted and pulled away. The Flames then played Maryland in a back-and-forth battle before coming up short.. Against the Virginia Sectional champion Dukes, the Flames won in a 45-minute contest on a second Universal point tie-breaker.
Rankin led Liberty with 20 assists and a plus-20 ranking, with scores, assists, or defensive breakups counting as positive points and drops or errant throws counting as negative points. Sophomore cutter Samuel Stow recorded a team-high 11 scores while sophomore Emerson Sites-Byers added six defensive knock-downs and three scores.
Meanwhile, at the same location, Liberty's women's ultimate team, also seeded 14th out of 16 teams, wound up in 15th place after going 0-3 in Saturday's pool play and 1-1 in Sunday's bracket play. The Lady Flames opened with a 14-7 loss to No. 7 Virginia Tech before being bested by No. 2 South Carolina, 15-1, and falling to No. 11 NC State, 11-5.
In the 13th-place semifinals, Liberty lost to No. 10 Appalachian State, 14-10, before edging No. 13 Johns Hopkins, 6-5, in the 15th-place final. UNC Chapel Hill captured the team title.
