Pride jerseys and big plays as some teams are already halfway through the season!
April 18, 2025 by Emilia Scheemaker and Keith Raynor in Recap
This week, we have split the WUL and PUL Updates into separate articles, with each covering the last two weeks of action. And we are introducing a new format: Four Quarters. We’ll highlight four things that caught our eye or got our brains going from around the league, catch you up on the games and news you may have missed, and update our Power Rankings.
Let us know what you think!
First Quarter: Hello to the Pride Collection
Breakmark and the Western Ultimate League dropped their new Pride collection of jerseys, with every team presenting a new alternate look. Integrating the rainbow color scheme into every team is a fun exercise and led to some compelling designs.
Our own jersey expert Alex Rubin was a big fan of the Utah Wild’s rainbow-splashed alts. “I really like the leafy rainbow pattern on Utah’s Pride jersey, incorporating the colors of Pride into something wild to tie in to the team name,” said Rubin. “I also like that they came up with the unique ‘Big Sky, Big Love’ slogan. There’s nothing wrong with ‘play with pride’ (which many other teams are using here) but I like it when teams build individual identities.”
One of the WUL’s most noticeable aspects has been a fairly daring aesthetic in both branding and design, so we are always on the lookout for the latest looks.
Second Quarter: Colorado and Arizona Make a Blowout Fun
It isn’t often we get a kick out of watching a team win 26-12, more than doubling up their opponent, but the Alpenglow’s Week 4 home win over the Sidewinders brought just that. This was just a fun game to watch. It’s not the back-and-forth battle or technical clean ultimate of some other games. But both teams took a lot of shots and gave their players chances to make big, flashy plays, and it was objectively fun. Colorado Alpenglow cruised to a very comfortable 26 to 12 win over the Arizona Sidewinders.
There’s not a lot of strategy to break down in this game so we’ll keep it short. Both teams looked really good in flow and started out making good, quick decisions early in the stall count. Arizona had a few more unforced errors and Colorado converted them. Arizona needed to win the point with their legs and not rely on their handlers to bail them out with throws. The handlers tried and it made for some really interesting plays.
Chip Chang, Melissa Dunn, and Lauren Pisani were up and down the leaderboard for the visitors. Dunn pulled in three goals and 279 receiving yards in the game. Pisani’s quick feet gave her the space to keep the offense flowing. Chang, working closely with Paige Applegate and LP Aragon, navigated the backfield as well as could be expected against an energized Alpenglow squad, leading the team with 306 total yards. The Sidewinders had their own energizer in Alix Goldstein, who proved to be a stout defender after the turn, even when the disc looked out of reach.
On the other side of this game was Ari Nelson absolutely having a field day with hucks (going 4 for 6) and rewarding any cutter with the legs to find open space. Nelson found Abbie Thorpe at the back of the end zone once in the first half, but that was just a fraction of time Thorpe spent pulling in goals. Thorpe pulled down four goals in total. One of those came from Sarah Itoh, who notched two assists early on. The play was set up by Mei Hecht and was a sparkling moment for Colorado with a great grab by Itoh and then a tricky cut to tie it off from Thorpe. Not to be outshone, Rena Kawabata and Rory Veldman ran up and down the stat sheet collecting assists (Kawabata 1, Veldman 3), goals (Kawabata 3, Veldman 1), and blocks (Kowabata 1, Veldman 5).
The Alpenglow are halfway through their regular season with only three games remaining, with a league-leading +24 differential after this win. They’ll be off next week. Colorado will return to play in Week 6 (April 26th) against the Utah Wild. The Sidewinders won’t have the luxury of a break as they gear up to take on San Diego in Week 5 (April 19th).
Third Quarter: Hell of a Play
Rory Veldman was so effective gathering up blocks and distributing the disc for Colorado. This clip really encapsulates what we were talking about in the Second Quarter. Veldman is not in advantageous position when this goes up, but eats it anyway. And it is a great look downfield to her streaking teammate , but incredible defense from AZ’s Alix Goldstein batted the opportunity away.
Seattle Tempest successfully carries out what we all think should work best despite our coaches’ best efforts to persuade us otherwise: jam it in the jam hole. They work it straight down the sideline and into the end zone with little horizontal room to spare. Proof of concept.
Can we even talk about this weekend’s games without talking about Lauren Page absolutely eating up the disc? She was all over the field wracking up Ds and then streaking deep.
Fourth Quarter: A Little Endzone Dessert
Abby Thorpe smuggles a pie out of the end zone just in time to land it in a teammate’s face. When you score as often as Thorpe does it’s got to be difficult to come up with original celebrations. Here’s hoping we see many more from this season.
Matchup Notes
Week 3
- San Diego 17-8 Utah: Hard to believe the Wild were up 5-4 after the first quarter, given that Utah scored just three more goals in the game. The Super Bloom’s zone clamped down once the wind kicked up and could be a scary tool for them this season.
- Colorado 17-14 Oregon: Credit to Soar for gritting it out in front of the home crowd, going down 12-5 at half and bringing it in the third to close the gap. Their deep game was strong, going 8 for 11 on deep shots, but their inefficiencies — 8 players had multiple turnovers — were too much to overcome.
Week 4
- Seattle 19-14 Utah: Utah is really having a heartbreaker season. They played another first quarter, showing consistency across the early portions of games. But Seattle landed seven goals in the second quarter to put the game out of reach, a part of their cleanest offensive performance of the season, led by three goals and two assists from Hana Kawai.
