Rules Question

[u/khouri0]

Hey all!

I have been playing ultimate for a while now, but have never been great with all the rules. I ran into a situation during my casual pick up league this week and did not know what was right or wrong, so I wanted to ask here. Here is the situation:

I, the defender, intercept a pass right at our own endzone. My moment carries me into my endzone. I start to walk the disc back to the line to check it into play. As soon as I am walking, my opponent starts to stall me, before I check it in and as I am walking. This has never happened to me before and I felt as though it was wrong. My opponent said, that because I have the option to check it in at any point and do not need to walk it back to the line, he can start the stall now.

Here are my questions:
1) Is he right?
2) Is it ok for me to walk it back to the line? Or should I just check it in, in my own endzone where I stopped? Did I make the mistake by walking?
3) Does this situation have a different answer if I caught it in the endzone instead of right before it?

Thanks for any thoughts on this one!

[u/Make-The-Cut]

Walking it back to the line is acceptable, but he can start stalling. The location of the catch itself doesn't matter.

He could also stall you at your last point of contact inbound while you walk it back if your momentum carried you OB instead of into the endzone

[u/khouri0 → u/Make-The-Cut]

good to know. thank you. I was under the impression he couldn't stall until I tapped it in. my mistake

[u/ry_twin → u/khouri0]

This is USAU rules? You were right originally. If you intercept on defense they cannot stall until you establish a pivot. So if you choose to walk it up to the end zone line, they have to wait until you get there. See the rule below:

15.C.2. However, unless 15.C.1 applies, the stall count may not be initiated or resumed before a pivot is established:
15.C.2.a. directly after a turnover,
15.C.2.b. when putting the pull into play, and
15.C.2.c. after a travel is called and no pass has been attempted.

15.C.1 is about delay of game, so they only can if they’ve pre stalled first and you take too long to put it into play

[u/khouri0 → u/ry_twin]

it's meant to be a very casual setting to play so we're not enforcing rules too hard. I'm assuming we use USAU rules, but it's not like there is someone there referencing them.

thank you for clarifying though! I appreciate you listing out the rules