West Coast hopefuls stayed grounded as Slugs and Dirt overcome other top teams missing players at a U24 training weekend.
March 10, 2025 by Aidan Thomas 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.
A week after some of the nation’s top men’s college ultimate teams took the field in Knoxville for the Smoky Mountain Invite, providing some clarity to the upper echelon for rankings, some of the West Coast’s premier programs clashed at the 2025 Stanford Invite. #7 Cal Poly SLOCORE, #12 Cal Ursa Major, and #14 UC Santa Cruz Slugs headlined the field, jockeying for position in the Southwest region, with all three schools looking to secure a critical three bids for their region. Meanwhile, #22 British Columbia Thunderbirds provided some ranked competition out of the Northwest, a region eyeing three bids of their own – four if the Thunderbirds can sneak their way into the picture.
However, in a weekend that’s sure to shake up the overall rankings, the Stanford Invite saw unranked Western Washington Dirt, another challenger out of the Northwest, enter the fray and cause major chaos on both days. First, their pool play upset of Ursa Major sent Cal and SLOCORE into a quarterfinal clash between the tournament’s top two seeds, plus multiple Sunday victories to reach the tournament final. Let’s break down all the action from this weekend.
Slugs Overcome Early Season Question Marks
UC Santa Cruz began their season with a sluggish1 performance at the Santa Barbara Invite, finishing 3-3 with a bad loss to unranked Victoria.
I’ll see myself out ↩
Stanford Invite 2025: Tournament Talk (Men’s Division) is only available to Ultiworld Subscribers
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