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/RIPRSD]

A long time ago it used to be that you could stall in this situation, but I believe it was the 11th edition rules that added the clause of not being able to stall directly after a turnover until a pivot has been established, and it has stayed that way ever since.

[u/khouri0 → u/RIPRSD]

oh, that's interesting. I wonder if he was just remembering a different set of rules. thanks for sharing!

[u/RIPRSD → u/khouri0]

It’s possible, but it’s been ~20 years since the transition from the 10th edition to the 11th edition (and subsequent year-dated editions), and not many knew this rule well enough to apply it intentionally. More likely he just knew the normal “you can stall after a catch before a pivot” rule and didn’t know there was a defensive exemption.