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Date: 5/3/2022
AMHERST – Amherst Ultimate will host its annual Amherst Invite, a high school tournament with over 25 teams, on May 7 and 8 at the MacDuffie School in Granby.
The teams are split into three divisions with one of those being for girls. The two boys’ divisions have eight teams each while the girls’ division has 10. Jim Pistrang, the Amherst Regional Middle School Ultimate coach, has seen demand for the invitational grow since becoming one of the Amherst Invite tournament directors in 2000.
“That year was the first year that we expanded to two open divisions, and the Amherst Middle School team was added to the Open Division II,” Pistrang said. “In the early years, one of the biggest difficulties was that there were very few high school tournaments on the East Coast, and we would routinely get 40 teams bidding for 18 spots. Ongoing difficulties and opportunities are the huge numbers of logistics involved in putting on a safe and organized tournament. We have a huge outpouring of support from the players’ families, we could not do this without them.”
The Amherst Invite hosted its first tournament in 1992 when Bronx Science High School teams took both first and second place. Amherst won for the first time in 1995 and would go on to string together five more consecutive wins. The girls’ division was introduced in 1997. Starting in 1998, the Amherst girls won 10-straight Amherst Invites.
Josh Seamon is a current ultimate coach at Amherst Regional High School. Seamon went undefeated and won the Amherst Invite with the Amherst Varsity Boys team in 1997 and 1998 before going on to win a high school national championship in 1998. Seamon later returned to the sport as head coach of the St. Johnsbury Academy boys’ team from 2005 to 2013. Seamon then became an assistant at Amherst Middle School before returning to Amherst Regional High School where he coaches today.
“The Amherst Invitational taught me everything I know about how to run tournaments,” Seamon said. “Since 2005 I have run over 40 tournaments, some of which are among the largest youth tournaments ever held anywhere – for example, the Pioneer Valley Invitational hosts over 60 teams. My events are amazing because they have been built on the bedrock of the Amherst Invitational.”
Seamon said that playing in two and coaching in eleven Amherst Invites taught him key lessons that he now uses every day as a coach. He emphasizes being professional and setting high standards, controlling what you can control, and creating a welcoming and fun event for all types of teams, regardless of competition level or composition.
“I absolutely love seeing so much amazing ultimate being played all at once,” Seamon said. “I love looking out onto the fields and being totally surrounded by the best sport on the planet, at the model event for all youth ultimate events.”
Local teams to watch this year include the Amherst boys and girls varsity and junior varsity teams, Northampton’s girls and boys varsity squads, and the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter school.
“The Amherst Invite is a great opportunity for the players to meet with and compete against their peers,” Pistrang said. “It offers the players and the community a glimpse into the huge and active world of ultimate.”