Nickname: Bones
Height: 6′-1/2″
Weight: 180 lbs.
Position: Cutter
Years w/ESN: A 2016-2021
Major: Computer Engineering
Hometown: Bryn Mawr, PA
Former Teams:
Radnor HS, Radnor, PA (2012-2015), Captain 2013-2015
Forge, Philadelphia, PA (Summer 2015), Captain 2015
DEVYL, Delaware Valley (Summer 2014)
AMP, Mixed Club, Philadelphia, PA (Summer 2015 and Summer 2016, 6th at Nationals)
Dating Status: In a relationship
E-mail: MCI10@pitt.edu
Awards:
2020 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American (5th Year/Grad)
2020 Ultiworld D-I Defensive Player Of The Year Second Runner-Up (5th Year/Grad)
2020 Callahan Award (5th Year/Grad)
2019 Ohio Valley 1st Team All-Region (Senior)
2019 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American (Senior)
2018 Ultiworld D-I Player Of The Year Second Runner-Up (Junior)
2018 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American (Junior)
2018 Ohio Valley Player of the Year (Junior)
2018 Ohio Valley 1st Team All-Region (Junior)
2017 Ultiworld Defensive Player of the Year First Runner-Up (Sophomore)
2017 Ohio Valley 1st Team All-Region (Sophomore)
2016 Ohio Valley Men’s All-Freshmen (Freshman)
2016 Ohio Valley Men’s Freshmen of the Year (Freshman)
Biographies
2018-2019 Michael Ing was captain of the Radnor Varsity Ultimate Frisbee team for the second year. He participated in the Youth Club Championship Tournament in Blaine, Minnesota in the summer of 2014 and was named to the 2014 USA Ultimate First Team, All-State for Pennsylvania. He also played cello in the RHS orchestra, was second chair in the Delaware County Youth Orchestra and successfully auditioned for the district orchestra festival in his junior year. Michael was on the Radnor Robotics team and participated in Model United Nations. He received the Rensselaer Medal award and the Middlebury College Spanish book award his junior year. He won a National Spanish Exam silver medal as a sophomore and gold medal as a junior. He will attend the University of Pittsburgh with a probable career field of Engineering.
2016-2017 Michael Ing, or “The kid who went to the same high school as Trent” as he is known in some circles, is a sophomore engineering student here at Pitt. He laid out into the college ultimate scene last year with an instinct for defense most players can only wish they have. That ability to play got him a starting spot on the D Line, the only freshman to do so. He continued to prove himself all season through nationals and looked like a veteran doing it.
Mike’s roles this year include being on the treasury and website teams (he’s part of the reason you’re reading this right now). He takes care of all our money under the wing of Kevin Tang. They both claim that being Asian has nothing to do with the accuracy of their calculations, but we all know otherwise. Mike’s intelligence allows him to excel in math, science, the arts, and any other topic you can come up with. The dude knows how to play the cello and the piano. God, I wish I was him.
Mike doesn’t spend too much of his free time with the team. We all assume he is doing school work or hanging with Annie, but he might be hunting animals with his bare hands in Schenley park. That would explain his whole killer instinct thing. Everyone gets excited when Mike does make it to the occasional party. Not only does that make it a special night, but one of his strengths is making it weird (in a good way) too.
All in all, Mike is one of the most genuine dudes on the team and a role model to us all. But don’t get on his bad side, or he’ll probably make you give up on ultimate.
2020 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American For the first couple years of his career, there was a sense that Pitt was keeping Ing in the garage instead of letting him turn the speedometer up to 120 out on the highway. Deployed on the D-line or in a utility role on the offense, Ing was showcasing all of the component parts to be a takeover player but not getting the kind of spotlight that usually accompanies such talent.
But as the years passed it became clear that Ing was a different kind of franchise player. Instead of being a guy who goes every other with the disc or whose big throws were the focal point of an offense, Ing became a one-man rising tide, lifting all boats on his team and doing whatever was needed of him. He started this season playing defense for Pitt at Warm Up, then shifted to the offense at Smoky Mountain Invite when the need was there. The team was always better when he was on the field, no matter what role he was playing, because he could play any role better than anyone else.
2020 Ultiworld D-I Defensive Player Of The Year Second Runner-Up Michael Ing has long had the makings of a great defender. Okay, forget makings: he’s actually been a great defender for years now, the absolute class of a Pittsburgh program that hasn’t lacked for great defenders at any point in his five-year college career. Add him to the honor roll again in 2020. Ing still smothered unders, he still had a top-five mark in the country, and he still played last back a few yards beneath the deepest cutter to bait hucks like a fairy-tale troll.
But this year, Ing did himself one better by blending his talents with that rarer element: foresight. In 2020, he began to disrupt the opposition’s plans even earlier, almost right as they were unfolding. The result was that one of the country’s premier defensive athletes put himself in position to make plays even more often than normal. Powerful, prescient, preposterous: put any way you want, Ing was simply a brilliant defender. Again.
2020 Callahan Award
2019 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American “The Pittsburgh senior has been one of the best cutters in the division for multiple years now, and he padded his world-class résumé with another fantastic season in 2019. Chasing down and blocking laser hucks on defense, serving up 70-yard backhands on a platter for Pitt’s other bigs, and dominating from the front of the stack in redzone sets, Ing was the most impactful player on a top team from start to finish. Even in the pressure-cooker of Nationals, every time Pitt needed a point, they dialed up a play for Ing to score. He almost always delivered, blazing away from his defender to clap catch an easy goal before nonchalantly jogging back to the sideline collecting high fives and back-slaps – it was just that easy for him.”
2018 Ultiworld D-I Player Of The Year Second Runner-Up The rise of Michael Ing has been steady and loud. The 2017 College DPOTY runner-up shifted his attention to offense this season, to thunderous results. Ing carried a heavy load for the Pitt offense and he hefted that weight all the way to an unexpected appearance in the National Championship game.
Matching the 2018 POTY Gouchoe-Hanas’ goal and assist totals while also earning seven blocks in Milwaukee, Ing led the men’s division at Nationals in overall +/-. His explosiveness as a receiver, reliability as a thrower, and instincts as a defender made him one of the most productive players in the division all year long.
2018 Ultiworld 1st Team All-American It’s hard to imagine that Michael Ing spent his first two college seasons as almost strictly a defensive specialist. Ing took on a much bigger role in 2018 and did it all for Pittsburgh. As a defender he took the most dangerous downfield matchups, which is nothing new, but he usually also pulled double duty on the O-line. His disc skills and speed gave Pitt’s offense tons of versatility; he can initiate as a cutter, he can pick up dead discs, and he can patiently pick his spots in the red zone handler set. In this expanded role, Ing excelled and posted the best +/- in the division at Nationals. The kinds of players that win major end of season awards are rarely specialists. With two years of eligibility left, expect to see Ing continue to succeed with this workload and play himself in those conversations.
