A Jacksonville professional sports team is heading to the playoffs this weekend — but despite a successful season, the team hasn’t built up much of a fan base.
The Jacksonville Cannons are the city’s first-ever professional Ultimate Frisbee team, and this weekend they're heading to the playoffs of the American Ultimate Disc League in their inaugural season.
Head Coach Tuba Benson says his goals at the beginning of the season were long-term.
“One was to help build the foundation for a very competitive team,” Benson said. “Two was make sure that that team was going to have chemistry and friendship that were going to put us in a position where we were bringing back a very large portion of that team next year.”
“So going into this game, the mentality for my guys is that we are not the underdogs,” said Benson.
Ultimate is a team sport mixing elements from soccer, football and even basketball. Players come from as far away as Savannah for matches, and the team travels to cities including Nashville and Charlotte for away games. Some matches are televised on ESPN’s subchannels.
After a rough start, the Cannons finished the season with a record of 10-4, good enough to send them on the road to face the division-leading Raleigh Flyers on Saturday.
“So going into this game, the mentality for my guys is that we are not the underdogs,” said Benson. “It’s not us against the world; we are actually the guys who are supposed to win this game.”
If the team wins on Saturday, they’ll move on to the semi-finals in San Jose, California in August.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7qNUtZWbGc
