– Sapan Kumar
When Discs Flew in the Sangam Ground
The morning of September 27 gave the sun a match to rise for. And thus flew the disc, marking the beginning of the frisbee feud for this academic year. This time we found new teams, an emboldened spirit, and some new lovers for the game. Leading the helm were the oldest frisbee teams currently in the department: the tacticians of 21 and the force of 22. The match began with a tension that transforms ordinary competition into prophecy.
That opening encounter: HS22 versus HS21, eleven to five: was not merely a victory but a declaration written in the language of athleticism. HS22 moved across that field not with calculation but inevitability. Every catch, every pivot, every moment of synchronized movement whispered a truth that would only fully reveal itself two days later: this team carried within them the ghost of HS20, those legendary giants whose dominance had set the standard for all who followed.
The way HS22’s players read space and time, anticipating trajectories before the disc left fingertips, echoed something deeper than training. It was inheritance, the passing down of competitive fire through the invisible threads that bind batch to batch, spirit to spirit.
In that first match’s eleven points lay compressed the entire tournament’s narrative. HS22 had not come to compete but to coronate themselves, to claim what they believed was their birthright. Their undefeated march through six matches was no accident of fortune but the manifestation of intention crystallized into action. Like HS20 before them, they understood that championships are won not in finals but in first principles, in the foundational belief that excellence is not a goal but a state of being.
Yet amid this dominance, other stories unfurled their delicate wings. HS25, the freshmen warriors who faced the tournament’s harsh reality without the luxury of substitutes. Four matches, four defeats; the numbers speak of loss, but the narrative speaks of something far more profound. To step onto that field knowing fatigue would be your constant companion, knowing no relief awaited on the sidelines, and still compete with full hearts.
This is where sport transcends into meditation on human will. Their bodies grew heavy, their lungs burned, but they played every point as though it were both first and last. In their perseverance lived the understanding that beginnings are never about victory but about establishing the foundation upon which future triumphs will be built. HS25’s grit was the seed planted in defeat’s soil, waiting for time and experience to transform it into triumph.
And then came Match 9. HS24 versus HS21, eleven to five; a seismic shift in the tournament’s plates. HS21, with their tactical sophistication and accumulated wisdom, had seemed destined for the finals by virtue of experience alone. But HS24 moved through that match like a phoenix awakening. They did not merely defeat HS21; they dismantled the very assumption that age equals inevitability. Their meteoric rise through the bracket was fueled not by chance but by the burning clarity that comes when a team discovers its own strength in real-time.
HS24 played that crucial match to overthrow expectations. They were not underdogs overcoming odds but potential realizing itself in the present tense. This was not weakness triumphing over strength but latent power awakening to its own nature. Every cut, every defensive stand, every assist was an argument made in the language of action, stating that determination can shatter expectation. They claimed their spot in the finals not by following the script but by writing their own, transforming the tournament from expected narrative into genuine drama.
The grand finale itself—fifteen to six—reflected not merely the gap in score but the different stages of evolution these teams inhabited. HS22’s championship was the culmination of everything their predecessors had built, the HS20 giants casting long shadows across Sangam’s grass, their legacy living in the instincts and strategies of their successors.
The way HS22 controlled space, the patience in their offense, the aggression in their defense. These were not innovations but inherited wisdom, refined and executed with the confidence of those who know they stand on the shoulders of greatness.
Individual brilliance illuminated these collective narratives like stars punctuating night’s vast canvas. Akhil’s twenty-one catches and fifteen assists were not statistics but poetry written in athletic motion, earning him both MVP and Most Catches honors. Santosh’s seventeen assists orchestrated offensive symphonies.
Gayathri’s eight catches and Women’s MVP recognition proved that excellence knows no boundaries but those we imagine. Sapan embodied spirit itself, while Vishnu and Deva represented the future emerging from the crucible of present competition.
What transpired across these September days at Sangam was consciousness examining itself through the medium of sport. Every throw traced question about determination across the sky. Every catch was an answer caught momentarily before dissolving back into the flow of competition and camaraderie.
HS22 stands as champions, their crown earned through the accumulated grit of those who came before and the fierce determination of those who wore the jersey in this moment.
The discs have fallen silent now, but their flight paths remain etched in memory. Luminous arcs connecting past to present, individual to collective, defeat to eventual triumph. In the end, we played not just for points but for the profound privilege of participating in something larger than ourselves, where sport becomes the language through which we speak truths too complex for ordinary words.
_______________________________________________________________
Designed and Edited by Article 19
Photos: Department Photography Club
Article 19 