These big time scorers helped ensure their offenses would keep the points flowing.
June 13, 2024 by Jenna Weiner, Felicia Zheng and Edward Stephens in Awards with 0 comments
Each year, Ultiworld presents our annual College Awards. Our staff evaluates the individual performances of players from throughout the season, talking to folks around college ultimate, watching film, and look at statistics, voting upon the awards to decide those to be honored. The regular season and the college Series are both considered, with extra emphasis for performances in the competitive and high-stakes environment at Nationals.
Our awards continue with the Offensive Player of the Year, recognizing the individual, and two runners-up, who we felt had the most impactful and productive seasons helping their teams score. They set up goals, finished off points, and produced yardage at consistently high levels against the top defenders.
- Player of the Year
- All-American First Team
- All-American Second Team
- Offensive Player of the Year Award
- Defensive Player of the Year Award
- Breakout Player of the Year Award
- Rookie of the Year Award
- Coaches of the Year Award
D-I Women’s 2024 Offensive Player Of The Year
Jolie Krebs (SUNY-Binghamton)
I have questions.
What sorcery did we just witness? What kind of player is obstinate enough to take every other pass1 through every important game all the way through Nationals? What kind of player is slippery enough to earn the reset when every single player on the field knows the disc is going to her? What kind of player is fit enough to remain at full speed through the 25th point of a slog of a game while carrying that sort of tonnage? What kind of a player can maintain the poise necessary to find and hit the miniscule creases in a Nationals-level defense 50+ times per game? What kind of player soaks up nearly every scoring play in a Metro East final against Metro East-level competition and then, as if that didn’t challenge her enough, does the exact same thing three more times against Nationals-level competition? What kind of player averages more assists per game (7) at Nationals than her team even scored in two of those games?
The same kind of player who takes a program in a 30-year drought – and coming off a season in which they ranked 201st in the country – back to Nationals as soon as she arrives on campus. The same kind of player who makes a storied perennial Nationals contender look shell-shocked in pool play. The same kind of player whose utter inevitability on the field can turn jaded and unaffiliated spectators into unabashed partisan fanatics. The same kind of player who not only gave us the offensive performance of the year, but perhaps the offensive performance of the modern era.
Reader, there is only one answer: Jolie Krebs.
– Edward Stephens
First Runner-Up
Kennedy McCarthy (Vermont)
It’s not news that Kennedy McCarthy is really, really good at offense. This is her second-straight appearance on the Offensive Player of the Year podium after all, and she’s been known as one of the best offensive talents in the game since her breakout year in 2019. In 2024, though, McCarthy took her play up another notch, adding a more potent throwing element to her game than we’ve seen in seasons past. While she’s always been a fantastic finisher, this season McCarthy served more as an offensive hub for Vermont, seamlessly rotating between being a primary assist thrower and a no-questions-asked guarantee downfield. That do-it-all role led to the Ruckus superstar finishing with more assists than goals at Nationals for the first time in three seasons as she continued to assert her place among the top offensive players this division has ever seen.
– Jenna Weiner
Second Runner-Up
Madison Ong (British Columbia)
Madison Ong helmed one of the smoothest offensive lines in the division this season, and its effectiveness was in no small part due to her field general skills. She has all the qualities of a top-notch center handler: break throws for days, pinpoint precision, and ambitious vision. Those traits, paired with her propensity for explosive cuts that left her defenders in the dust, made her one of the most productive players in the division. Even at reduced capacity in Madison, she elevated the Thunderbirds’ play every time she was on the field. As the anchor of one of the best teams in the division, Ong deserves nothing less than a spot on our OPotY podium.
– Felicia Zheng
Approximately… but seriously it’s not far off ↩
