The first weekend of big D-III on D-III action showed flashes of title hopefuls and resurgent squads
February 11, 2025 by Zack Davis, Graham Gordon and Josh Katz in Recap
Ultiworld’s 2025 college coverage 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.
After a couple weeks of scattered action across the country, this past weekend saw the first dedicated D-III tournament of the season, with some of the division’s top contenders converging on Portland, Oregon. With eight women’s division and 10 men’s division teams across three regions1, DIII Grand Prix also helps establish some early season connectivity for the precious algorithm rankings.
Shoutout to Lewis & Clark, who hosted the tournament, for streaming one game per round (plus a Mixed All-Star Game) on their YouTube channel, giving us a chance to catch a live look at many of these teams.
Men’s Division
Welcome Back, Wasabi
Atop my personal intrigues for the weekend were #18 Colorado College Wasabi, who followed up their championship run in 2023 by missing Nationals entirely last year. Are Wasabi ready to return to the spotlight? Or was 2023 merely the culmination of a powerful three year run, and 2024 the first year of a multi-season Nationals drought for Colorado College?
A 5-1 weekend, punctuated by an 11-9 victory over #4 Whitman Sweets on Sunday morning, proved Wasabi are back. Maybe not “championship contenders” back, but Colorado College should feel very good about their 2025 prospects. Oliver van Linder, in particular, was excellent. The 2023 ROTY looks ready to carry Wasabi back to Nationals, and maybe even deep into the bracket as well. Nothing is ever fully guaranteed in D-III with just six strength bids to go around, but DIII Grand Prix was an excellent start to Wasabi’s push for a strength bid for the South Central. One they’ll likely need, by the way, with #2 Oklahoma Christian still around atop the region.
Entropy Can Decrease, Apparently
On the other side of the South Central Stock Watch, #24 Colorado School of Mines Entropy did not play up to expectations on the weekend. A 13-7 win over #19 Claremont Braineaters was an excellent start to play, but they immediately followed it up with a confounding 13-10 loss to the University of Puget Sound Postmen. Things didn’t get much easier from there, with a pair of matchups with Northwest heavyweights rounding out an intense Saturday for Entropy. They fell to #7 Lewis & Clark Bacchus in a blowout, and finished up the day with a 12-7 loss to #4 Whitman Sweets on stream, a game that frankly felt even further apart than that score line indicates. Last year’s bid-earners did not look capable of repeating the feat this season, which leaves them in a precarious spot in the South Central picture.
Southwest Showdown
Well, not actually, as Claremont and Occidental Detox didn’t play each other this weekend. But with both in attendance, we got an early look at the pecking order in the (incredibly small) Southwest, with an eye on their actual showdown at Southwest ConfRegionals in a couple months. After the dust settled, the current favorite is… probably Claremont?
Both teams went 3-3 on the weekend, as part of a four-way tie with Entropy and Postmen. After applying tiebreakers, the Braineaters finished sixth and Detox seventh. The teams had two common opponents: Colorado College and Puget Sound. Wasabi won their games with the Southwest in landslides while Postmen split, taking down Detox 13-8 and dropping their matchup with Claremont, 13-9. Of the remaining four games, Claremont had the tougher schedule, facing Lewis & Clark and Colorado School of Mines (losing by large margins to both) along with cellar dwellers Air Force and Pacific Lutheran. Occidental, meanwhile, faced all three of the bottom tier (Reed, along with the aforementioned Air Force and Pacific Lutheran), defeating all of them, with their third loss coming to Whitman, 13-10.
In total, Claremont has the most impressive win between the Southwest, but comparing common results is a fool’s errand. For now, give them the slight edge, but there’s plenty of time before the season gets real.
Another Northwest Skirmish
For the last two seasons, as Whitman was finally able to make D-III Nationals work with their graduation schedule, it’s been a two-horse race in the D-III Men’s NW region. The Whitman Sweets defeated Lewis & Clark Bacchus in the regional final each of the past two years, and at Nationals last year, the Sweets were once again victorious in quarterfinals, eking out a 13-12 universe point win. At Grand Prix, we saw another similar result: 13-11 in favor of Whitman, who came back to win after Bacchus led 7-5 at the half. It is important to note L&C were missing Max Zwerin, who ceased play due to injury after proving to be one of the best players in the tournament earlier in the weekend.
As is often the case, Kai Kirsch was all over the field for Whitman. He always took the top cutter matchup on opposing O-lines, and was liable at any moment to get a huge block for the Sweets defense. Kirsch is also menacing off the turn, especially as a deep threat, and his presence helped Whitman convert an impressive amount of breaks on the weekend. On offense, Leo Dungan-Seaver and Nico Darringer were important pieces for their efficient attack. They scored strong wins over Colorado Mines and Puget Sound in addition to the aforementioned L&C game, but dropped a surprising one to Wasabi.
As mentioned, before going down with an injury, first runner-up for 2024 Breakout Player of the Year Max Zwerin was instrumental for Bacchus. With him on the field, they razed through their competition, beating Colorado College comfortably along with all their other opponents. Zwerin’s big frame allows him to dominate matchups in the air, and he also has the disc skills to go every-other throw. He threw a number of fantastic backhand hucks this weekend, continuing to cement his status as a PoTY candidate if he’s able to make a full return.
Postmen on the Rise
After being generally outclassed in important games the last few seasons, the Puget Sound Postmen look to be on an upward trajectory in 2025. Last making D-III Nationals in 2018, they have not been able to play remotely close with Whitman, Lewis & Clark, or other top dogs in the division recently. But this weekend, they put up respectable results against the top dogs at D3GP, with a win over Colorado Mines in addition. They’re attending D-III River City Showdown in three weeks, so we’ll get another shot to see if this resurgence is for real.
Women’s Division
In many ways, women’s D-III ultimate can be a black box. We, the Ultiworld reporters, spend much of the season staring at score reporter results with no film and try to project meaning onto mere numbers. But this year, we were graced with a filmed tournament early in the season. Will we hang onto these results with white knuckles? Yes, shamelessly. It’s all we have. And what a tournament, providing a first look at expected title runners while answering some of our burning off season questions. Such questions include: Is Carleton as good as we think? Does Portland have a chance to repeat? Does Whitman have It without Gemma Munck? Have I overhyped Colorado College? I have answers for everything, some more satisfying than others, but answers nonetheless.
Portland Back at Sea Level
Recap: #7 Portland UPRoar started on pole for this year’s Grand Prix, and got out to an impressive start. UPRoar breezed past two non-Nationals attendees in Claremont and Puget Sound for their first two games and were able to put #10 Colorado College to bed despite some second-half breaks to close out day one. Day two was less favorable for the Portland team, as they couldn’t get a lead against fellow Northwesters #9 Whitman and proceeded to get blown out by the dominant #1 Carleton Eclipse. They rallied to take their third match of the day against a surprisingly strong Oregon State, but couldn’t keep it together in their final contest of the weekend against Lewis & Clark, finishing 4-3 on the weekend.
Key takeaways: Hayden Ashley showed up and showed out. She’s just as good as was promised with some of the crispest throws at the tournament – and may have more to prove. Hana Elawady was a frequent target, often trusted to make plays under pressure and unafraid to hit the turf. It might be learning to play without a dominant player or simply a little bit of a hangover from last year, but UPRoar don’t have quite the same pop as they did last season. That isn’t to say there’s no chance at a deep run come May, simply that they will have to climb the mountain again, and they aren’t starting from basecamp 3. Take a look at Middlebury from last season as a comparison. The Pranksters lost a deluge of talent between seasons, had a shaky start at Centex, then still made semis. That might portend the Portland season.
Carleton Eclipse the Field
After a shaky start to the season at last week’s Stanford Open, Eclipse rebounded in a big way. They went undefeated through the round-robin format, with their closest win coming by two over Oregon State, the only D-I team in attendance. Otherwise, they got a good challenge from Whitman in their last game of the weekend, but truly blew out every other matchup. Throughout the weekend, Eclipse ran an effective zone defense that stymied opposing throwers in the wind, forcing many of their opponents to trust their less experienced throwers to take difficult looks, generating a banquet of turns.
As is to be expected, Carleton saw strong performances from Frankie Saraniti, Molly Horstman Olson, and Maddy Brown, who all racked up the (unrecorded) stats throughout the weekend. Also strong for Eclipse was center handler Kyla Christie, who was a steadying presence for any line she was on, with a strong arsenal of break throws and a consistent ability to get open in the backfield. Grace Prince impressed this weekend as well, particularly on defense, where her length allowed her to get numerous blocks on underneath throws and errant passes over the cup.
This weekend’s results point to another strong season for Carleton, who looks to be an even deeper team than they were last year, as Eclipse were generally running even lines throughout the weekend. While we have yet to see many of the East Coast’s biggest threats in action, Carleton have undoubtedly staked an early claim on title frontrunners.
Whitman’s Sweet Return
Aside from a tough loss to Colorado College, which this author is willing to chalk up to a last-game-of-the-tournament aberration given the rest of the weekend’s results, Whitman looked all the part of a Nationals team at D3GP. After an incredibly young team collapsed down the stretch at Regionals last year following Gemma Munck’s untimely injury, they appear to have reloaded as a much more balanced team. As mentioned above, they played Carleton to their closest divisional result of the tournament, avenged last year’s regional loss by three goals against Portland, and beat up on everyone else besides Zenith.
The Sweets were paced throughout the weekend by a deep roster, including the talents of Kate Campbell and top-level rookie Anja Floisand, hailing from the Seattle youth scene. A large number of the Sweets possess high-level disc skills (a rarity in the division), which contributed to their success against opponent’s zone looks. This was most evident in the Sweets’ impressive wire-to-wire victory over Portland, with Leah Uhlman unlocking the field for the offense with aggressive shots over and through the cup while Joey Biehl’s smooth backhand breaks get the defense going off dead discs in ways few other throwers could. It will be a tight race atop the Northwest.
A Tale of Two Colorado Colleges
Zenith had the worst of times, Zenith had the best of times. Colorado College was the first lucky team to taste the Carleton buzzsaw, and bookended a winless day one with a close loss to Portland. But they came out firing day two, separating themselves from the tournament’s lowest tier with resounding wins against Claremont and Puget Sound, and posted a statement win in a 13-9 victory over Whitman to close out the weekend.
How much does a close loss against Portland and a win over a Whitman team – likely tired from just playing Carleton – mean? Who’s to say. Close losses to Lewis & Clark and Portland aren’t shabby, but flipping the score lines is what separates this team from a quarters maybe to semis caliber. I still feel like this is a team with a high ceiling, but there were demonstrably four teams better than them in this (admittedly formidable) tournament field. It’s shades of 2024 Zenith, who earned the Nationals six seed but finished bottom of their (admittedly formidable2) pool. Staring into my crystal ball, the only clarity I see from this team is the talent of Zoe Posner and Kelsey Viadro. The two promising players looked confident in their play, even in the loss to Carleton, while Mia Smith and Isabel Cody were critical in racking up scores in the win over Whitman.
What to Make of Lewis & Clark
At this point you look at these results and tell me. Of everyone at the tournament, Artemis seem to be the team with the widest range. A win over the reigning champs is a feather in anyone’s cap, but losing to Eclipse and Whitman by such a large margin is not what you want as Nationals hopefuls. The Oregon State game could be the kind of close loss you think about for a while. If that game goes Lewis & Clark’s way, they cement themselves as a clear top three team at the tournament. Playing close with fellow Northwest team Puget Sound is perhaps the most troubling result, heightening the stakes in an already difficult region.
One clear bright spot apparent for Lewis & Clark was Katelyn Osborne. She looked fearless in the middle of the ho stack, unafraid to both fill in the handler slots and cut deep for the score. Mikah Keetch and Amelie Steer both were confident in the handler space, with sharp throws and good decisions.
Tournament Tier List
S Tier
- Carleton Eclipse
A Tier
- Whitman
B Tier
- Portland
- Lewis & Clark
- Colorado College
We’ll Have to C Tier
- Claremont
- Puget Sound
D-I Tier
- Oregon State
