"Bite the heads off animal crackers, bite the heads off first! Bite the heads off animal crackers, bite the heads off first..."

The players huddled together, jumped up and down in a circle, and repeated the cheer five times, getting louder each time. Then, each viciously bit the head off of an animal cracker, which had been previously distributed.

With that stunning display, Spank, the Penn State Ultimate Frisbee Team, began its third game of the day against the highly regarded University of Maryland team.

Penn State went on to narrowly defeat Maryland, 15-13, and advance all the way to the finals of its own tournament, the Spring Phling. Though they lost in the finals to Cornell, this past weekend marked one of Spank's strongest performances of the season.

Ultimate is not well known throughout the collegiate sports world. "Not many people know what the sport is all about," club president Paul Reigrod said. "A lot still think it's a sport where dogs run all over the field and not much skill is involved."

At its core, Ultimate is a simple game. A seven-player team tries to score a point by getting the disc (the players call them discs, not Frisbees) into the end zone. A player can't run with the disc, so players advance down the field by throwing the disc between them. If a pass is not completed (out of bounds, drop, block, interception), the opposing team gets possession of the disc and tries to score in the opposite end zone. The game is usually played to 13, with a halftime when a team reaches eight points.

But this simple game is growing; programs are sprouting up all over the place in high schools and colleges across the country.

Maryland, like 39 other men's and women's teams from all over the east coast, traveled to State College this past weekend to participate in the Spring Phling.

Despite the freezing temperatures and constant snowfall, every team showed up for the competition. Games took place all over the University Park campus, including the fields by the Flower Gardens, the golf course, and behind the Intramural Building.

Organizing such a large tournament was a huge task, which fell on Reigrod and tournament director Scott Duffy. Duffy said that the only way to organize such an event is to have lots of help, and start early.

The team requested the fields from the University over six months in advance. Since Ultimate is a club sport, the team receives little funding from the University, and gets most of its travel-money from fund-raising.

Ultimate is not like most other sports. For starters, there are no referees, but that doesn't mean that fair play isn't an important aspect of the game. Most players you speak to will talk about the "spirit of the game."

"It's a self-officiated game without referees, and we all abide by 'spirit of the game,'" Penn State captain Ian McClellan said.

The Ultimate Players Association, the governing body of all collegiate Ultimate, explains the concept like this:

"Ultimate relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship which places the responsibility for fair play on the player himself. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of the bond of mutual respect between players, adherence to the agreed-upon rules of the game, or the basic joy of play."

This unique aspect works surprisingly well during the game. With no referees, one would expect mass chaos, an all-out brawl, but that's not what happens at an Ultimate game. Each violation, including physical fouls, picks, traveling, strips and stalls, is self-called.

Every professional football game begins with a coin-toss to decide ball possession and position. Ultimate, as one might expect, begins quite differently. One of the more traditional versions is a simple method where two discs are flipped into the air and one team has to guess if they'll land "two-up or two-down," or "one-up, one-down."

A more popular method is ro-sham-bo, another name for rock-paper-scissors. Ultimate players sometimes put a different spin on it, playing bear-ninja-cowboy instead, where bear beats ninja, ninja beats cowboy and cowboy beats bear. To do this, captains from each team stand back-to-back, walk three paces, turn around and act out their chosen character.

On this day, Penn State and Maryland decided to "pokey" for possession, a procedure where two players from opposing teams lock hands, stick out their index fingers, and try to poke each other in the chest. Penn State won the pokey, and elected to pull (kick off) first, so they would receive the pull in the second half.

Penn State came on strong right from the beginning and dominated throughout, leading by at least 2 points for much of the game. But with the win within its grasp, leading 12-10, Penn State was unable to close out the win, giving up two points to Maryland, which tied the score at 12.

Maryland then scored again after a Penn State turnover, but since you have to win by two, the game wasn't over. Spank took a timeout, regrouped, and rattled off three straight points to win the game, 15-13.

For the tournament, Spank went 6-1, losing only to a very tough Cornell team in the finals. They established themselves as a very competitive program, and will look to improve upon their performance in the weeks to come.

Penn State hopes to qualify for National Championship Tournament at the end of May by doing well at Sectionals in two weeks, and then the Regional competition the week after.

Though Spank hasn't qualified for the National Championship Tournament in the last four years, McClellan is confident in his team's ability.

"I predict, can almost guarantee that we will be one of the 16 teams at Nationals this year," he said. "It's our time to do it, I just feel it."