D-III action was in full swing all over the country. It's shaping up to be a great season packed with intrigue.
February 10, 2025 by Edward Stephens in Preview, Recap
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2025 college season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
Throughout the spring season, we’ll publishing a bite-sized weekly recap of the action across the college division. This will serve as a supplement to our standard tournament reporting and offer a high-level look at the latest happenings and the biggest stories of the week.
Want your tournament listed? Submit a recap of what happened right here.
D-I Women’s Division
Around the Division
- Miami Southern Tropical Depressions triumphed in a small Southeastern round robin, fending off Florida Tech Flux and South Florida Scallywenches at Tropical Toss-Up.
- Tulane Muses, traveling out of region, fell to a pair of D-III teams at Antifreeze (see below) but topped a short list of D-I programs in attendance.
Looking Ahead
The Big One: Pres Day and Queen City
Clear your calendars and make sure your internet connection is fast because you will want to go multi-screen for what will be one of the biggest weekends in regular season history. In a rare coincidence, Presidents’ Day Invite and Queen City Tune-Up will take place concurrently. All in all, 20 of the 25 teams in our power rankings will be in action across the two tournaments, including representatives from every region except the Metro East. Ultiworld will have streaming and in-person reporting coverage from both events.
Queen City features the official debuts of New England giants #1 Vermont Ruckus and #8 Tufts EWO1, as well as four-time defending champions #3 UNC Pleiades, #6 Carleton Syzygy, and #11 Michigan Flywheel. There will also be a host of challengers from around the Eastern half of the US trying to break through to that top grouping.
Pres Day, is, if anything, even more packed with talent. #2 UBC Thunderbirds look to defend the ground they gained by winning last month’s Santa Barbara Invite against a similar slate of opponents, including #4 Oregon Fugue, #5 Colorado Quandary, #7 UC San Diego Dragon Coalition, and #9 Cal Poly SLO SLOmotion. A pair of teams from the South Central, Texas Melee and Colorado State Hell’s Belles, will do what they can to ply strength bids away from the Northwest and Southwest schools who have been hoarding them.
Other Upcoming Tournaments
- D-I teams from the Atlantic Coast, Southeast, and Great Lakes will square off in the first weekend of Commonwealth Cup.
- Santa Clara Rage are set to host a tournament, presumably featuring local competition. As of this writing, there is not a posted schedule or team list.
D-I Men’s Division
Around the Division
- Indiana Hoosiermama?s finished off an undefeated weekend at Bulldog Brawl, beating the up-and-coming Southern Illinois-Edwardsville SIEGE program in the final to reaffirm their status in the Great Lakes.
- It was a battle of the B-teams in the Stanford Open final. UBC-B B-Birds triumphed 13-11 over Cal Poly SLO-B Slobs to qualify for next month’s Stanford Invite.
- Uncooperative weather prevented Sunday bracket play at NJ Warm Up, so the TD pivoted and set up a de facto championship game on Saturday between pool winners Connecticut Huskies and Columbia Uptown Local. Connecticut took the game by a comfortable 13-8 margin.
Looking Ahead
- Presidents’ Day Invite is, as usual, the marquee event over Presidents’ Day Weekend. #3 Colorado Mamabird are set to make their season debut against a tough top end, including #1 Oregon Ego, #5 Cal Poly SLO SLOCORE, #8 Washington Sundodgers, and #11 Oregon State Beavers. The results will have major implications for the national landscape, both in terms of championship potential and the regional tug-of-war for bids.
- On the East Coast, #7 UNC Darkside, #12 WashU Contra, #15 Penn State Spank, and #24 South Carolina Gamecock Ultimate take the field for Queen City Tune-Up against a bevy of programs hovering just outside of our power rankings.
- The first weekend of Commonwealth Cup in Virginia, Palouse Open in Eastern Washington, and the cheekily titled Vice Presidents’ Day Invite in San Diego round out the D-I Men’s action.
D-III Women’s Division
Eclipse Overshadow Northwest Hopefuls
#1 Carleton Eclipse continued to impress, using the back half of a back-to-back-weekends road trip to run through the competition at D-III Grand Prix. They finished 7-0, and their closest intradivisional game was a 12-9 victory over #9 Whitman Sweets. (They also beat D-I’s Oregon State Dinos 12-10). Every other game was a blowout.
At 5-2, Whitman took a solid second place, although they dropped their last game of the weekend against #10 Colorado College Zenith. Zenith did not have quite as much luck against #7 Portland UProar and #14 Lewis & Clark Artemis, who both beat the South Central visitors on Saturday and finished ahead of them in the tournament standings. The parity (beneath Carleton) bodes well for a cracking D-III Championships in May.
Around the Division
- At Antifreeze, hosts #25 Rice Torque kicked off their South Central challenge campaign with a pair of wins over #17 Trinity Altitude. They finished the weekend undefeated against Trinity and a handful of D-I teams.
Looking Ahead
- #8 Davenport Panthers and #23 Richmond Redhots lead the D-III charge at the first weekend of Commonwealth Cup. A handful of other divisional opponents will also be on hand in Axton, Virginia.
D-III Men’s Division
Circle of Success at D-III Grand Prix
#4 Whitman Sweets took down #7 Lewis & Clark Bacchus, #18 Colorado College Wasabi handed Whitman a loss, and Lewis & Clark handled Colorado College at this years’ D-III Grand Prix. They all finished 5-1 to lead the tournament. (It was a match play format, so there was no bracket or championship game.) Those are good opening volleys for programs who will likely tangle again at D-III Nationals.
The next level down from the top showed similar parity, as #19 Claremont Braineaters, #24 Colorado School of Mines Entropy, Puget Sound Postmen, and Occidental Detox2 all finished 3-3. There’s no telling where that leaves the second tier of the division. The tit-for-tat nature of play so far portends a wild late spring push for Nationals.
Lipscomb and Berry Lock Horns
#13 Berry Bucks rebounded from an early defeat at the hands of #20 Missouri S&T Miner Threat to take third at Bulldog Brawl, finishing a point shy of making the tournament final. That performance likely cements their status as Southeast favorites.
There is an emerging challenger in the region, though, in the form of surprise semifinalists Lipscomb Bisons. The Bisons, a program in their first year of existence if our reporting is correct, leapfrogged regional regulars Union Jaxx with a prequarters win on Saturday before smashing Missouri S&T 15-6 in quarters. Based on the 13-10 scoreline in the third-place game, Berry could have their hands full later this spring trying to retain their Southeast title.
New North Central Pecking Order
Meanwhile, in the North Central, there appears to be a changing of the guard in progress. Both #8 Carleton CHOP and #14 Macalester Flat Earth beat reigning national champions #11 St. Olaf Berserkers at the Gopher Dome round robin. CHOP lead the charge after smashing Flat Earth 13-3 in what ended up being the tournament’s de facto championship game. Between Eclipse’s work at D-III and CUT’s performance at Florida Warm Up last weekend, the various Carleton programs are riding a 20-game win streak. That’s not quite Pleiades-level, but it’s pretty impressive.
Looking Ahead
- #1 Davenport Panthers make their season debut at Commonwealth Cup. They’ll look to establish themselves against #10 Elon Big Fat Bomb, #16 Davidson DUFF, and #17 Oberlin Flying Horsecows.
