Which regular season results had the most impact on the way we think about the 2025 college season?
April 22, 2025 by Aidan Thomas in Analysis, Opinion
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2024 college ultimate season are 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.
The Line brings together lists of sevens from our reporting staff.
The college frisbee season is a regular season comprised of tournaments. Premier tournaments bring together top programs that clash and help sort out the rankings and provide some level of clarity towards the national title picture. But not all tournaments are made equal, and neither are all games within that tournament. Almost everyone knows that focus (and frequently tightness of line rotations) falters once a team enters the consolation bracket. And other games just mean more for a specific team proving a storyline wrong (or right), or establishing themselves as a true title contender. Entering the season there was plenty to watch for, including how far top players in the division like Dexter Clyburn and Tobias Brooks could lead Cal and Colorado, how UNC would rebound from their failed title defense last spring, Oregon and Carleton’s return to the top of the rankings, and much more. Here were seven individual games that shaped the college frisbee regular season and the storylines that we’ll carry into the postseason.
7. Notre Dame 12-6 Virginia, East Coast Invite Pool Play
On the season’s final regular season weekend, 30 teams converged on Frederica, Delaware, with several harboring hopes of clawing their way into the back-end of the bid picture and getting a second bid for the region. Notre Dame Echo and Virginia Hydra were both among those bid-earning hopefuls, with Hydra’s stronger performance to date and a head-to-head win over Echo putting them on the inside track. Virginia started the day 2-1, losing to No. 1 Tufts but upsetting the Northeastern Valkyries – knocking them outside bid-earning range in the process – and dominating a strong Cornell squad. A win over Echo would put them in the first-place bracket, with an opportunity to make a final statement on Sunday.
However, Echo entered the tournament on a mission, needing to not only win games, but also to win by a large margin in order to earn a second bid for the Great Lakes. 3-0 on the day, Echo wasted little time in burying Hydra, scoring the game’s first three points, racing to a 6-2 lead and pouring it on from there, winning 12-6.
For Hydra, it was their worst result of the season and the death knell to their bid-earning hopes, as their Sunday march through the ninth-place bracket wasn’t enough to recover from the loss. However, for Echo, their dominance wasn’t quite enough to overcome some early-season hiccups. A 6-1 weekend ended with a rough loss to unbeaten No. 1 Tufts Ewo, and Echo wrapped up the season ranked 19th, the highest-ranked of all the bid-earning hopefuls at East Coast Invite but unable to secure a bid for the Great Lakes. Both Echo and Hydra now face daunting challenges at regionals with No. 7 Michigan Flywheel and No. 10 North Carolina Pleiades, respectively, standing in the way of a Nationals bid.
6. Tufts 11-8 Stanford, Stanford Invite Final
Tufts are going to be an interesting story to watch at Nationals. Their unbeaten season and win over Carleton Syzygy certainly showcases their talent, but it’s hard to ignore the lack of major wins on the resume beyond that Carleton win. This mid-year tournament victory featured a lot of good-not-great wins, but it was an important display that Tufts were a clear cut above the rest of the field, with five wins over top-20 squads on the weekend, four of those by three or more points. The final followed a familiar script for Tufts, as Ewo poured it on early with strong D-line play and opened up a 4-1 advantage in high-wind conditions. After exchanging breaks prior to half, Tufts settled into an upwind-downwind affair, content to let their efficient offense do the work.
For Stanford, this game ended their best tournament of an up-and-down season. Had Superfly followed this up with a strong effort at Northwest challenge, this storyline may have been about the emergence of last year’s national runners-up. Rather, Stanford heads to the postseason with a 13-11 record, including a 2-8 record against top-ten opponents. This game was one in a litany of results that showed Stanford to be a tier below this year’s top contenders.
Meanwhile, Tufts may not even be the No. 1 seed at Nationals, but they’ve proven to be a very difficult team to beat. In three tournament finals this year, Tufts has been broken just twice in total. You can only play the teams on your schedule and Tufts did just that, riding a defense that thrives on momentum and collecting breaks in bunches, and a calm and efficient offense that is going to make this team nearly upset-proof and a tough out for anyone in bracket play.
5. Michigan 12-11 Oregon, Northwest Challenge Pool Play
Michigan Flywheel will be an intriguing story this postseason. This team may have a ceiling far higher than most teams thought ahead of the season. Weather cancellations saw them go 5-0 at Queen City yet not get a chance at the first place bracket. They entered Northwest challenge with an opportunity to earn statement victories, and they didn’t disappoint in their tournament opener, facing No. 5 Oregon and coming away with the universe-point victory. They overcame two turns on that final point, showcasing a comfort in working the disc methodically against high-pressure defense from one of the nation’s top teams.
For Michigan, this game might have revealed that Flywheel could make a quarters – maybe even semis with a good bracket draw – run. However, Michigan can’t get caught looking ahead. They have to beat out No. 18 Notre Dame Echo, who toppled Flywheel at conferences, in a one-bid Great Lakes region. But if they get to Memorial Day weekend, remember this result as the game where teams realized this might be the most dangerous iteration of a Flywheel squad in recent memory.
4. Colorado 12-11 UNC, Northwest Challenge Pool Play
A lot of pool play games are on this list, but this game makes the list for a whole host of reasons. As we’ll see from later in the list, Colorado Quandary made up for a somewhat shaky start to the season with a late-season rally and very impressive tournament at the Northwest Challenge. Meanwhile, Pleiades stumbled (by the standards of their recent history, anyway) to a 13-5 record, and they’ll enter Nationals, quite frankly, as an extreme dark horse to win the championship this season, which is a wild statement to make about the four-time defending champs. So the storylines alone of this high-powered clash, with Quandary showcasing their season-long improvement, and UNC battling to garner a much-needed signature victory, qualified the game for the list. But also, let’s talk about the game itself.
From the outset, it was an absolute battle between two strong programs, and UNC finally managed to garner some separation, earning a break to go up 10-8. When soft cap went off, UNC led 11-9, but Quandary proceeded to hold and break twice to claim the stunning victory. The win had a whole host of ripple effects as well. The loss sent UNC into a pre-quarters game, necessitating an earlier start to their Sunday. Although Pleiades won that pre-quarter, they lost in quarters and then their ensuing two consolation games, results that dropped them nearly outside the top ten in the rankings. It’s hard to write off Pleiades but those Sunday results following this loss are tough to ignore.
For Colorado, they used the UNC win as a launching pad to a second place finish in the tournament, their signature result of the regular season, earning some major wins along the way that cemented Quandary as the title contender many believed them to be in the preseason.
3. Tufts 11-6 UNC, Queen City Semifinals
One of the season’s early tournaments featuring clashes between top East Coast programs, Queen City produced plenty of storylines this season. One of the biggest in 2025 was Tufts Ewo, a team that entered the season on the national radar, but outside the top tier of contenders, ranking eighth in the preseason rankings. A dominant Saturday at Queen City set the tone for Sunday’s semifinal against four-time defending champions North Carolina, the preseason No. 3 squad.
Pick your favorite moment from this one. Was it Tufts using just four throws to score their first three O-line possessions? Followed by a gritty fourth possession against a tough UNC zone that Ewo grinded through? Or was it a monster sky for the first game’s break to make it 4-2, or the near-Callahan on a first-throw D for a second break that pushed the game to 6-3. As they did all season, Tufts rode an efficient offense, as Pleiades couldn’t punch in a single break, while Tufts earned four, three of them coming in consecutive fashion to extend a 5-3 advantage to 8-3 early in the second half. An 11-6 bracket-play win over the four-time defending champs and No. 3 team in the country? Statement made by Tufts. And for UNC, it was the first sign of trouble that this wasn’t quite the same version of Pleiades past, and that UNC may not be the bona fide favorites in the women’s division.
2. Colorado 13-7 UBC, Northwest Challenge Semifinals
Remember that late season surge from Quandary we discussed earlier? We’d be remiss to not mention easily their most impressive win of the season and a late twist in the women’s power rankings. Quandary were blown out by UBC in their opening tournament this year, a result that for a while clearly stood as the Canadian squad’s signature result. Nearly two months later, Colorado lined up against a still-unbeaten UBC squad in the Northwest Challenge semis, and they didn’t blink.
Quandary held serve in the first half and punched in two key breaks to open up a halftime advantage over the nation’s No. 1 team. They didn’t even begin to falter in the second, rattling off three consecutive breaks and opening up a dominating 10-5 lead over the Thunderbirds. Since suffering two blowout losses on January 26, Colorado have lost just two games and avenged one of those blowout teams over the Thunderbirds and cemented their status as one of the premier title contenders in the division. For UBC, it was perhaps a needed wake-up call for a team that had been incredibly dominant in 2025, not winning a single game by less than three points. But without having clashed against Carleton or Tufts, and the recent result against Quandary, UBC will enter Nationals with plenty to prove.
1. Carleton 12-5 Vermont, Northwest Challenge Quarterfinals
Carleton delivered several signature bracket results this year, with their Northwest Challenge title march producing a handful of key wins. one being their most recent, a 13-7 win over Quandary in that Northwest Challenge Final. That game may belong on the list for a late-season verification that Syzygy may be the title favorite entering the postseason. However, we’re going with Carleton’s second domination of No. 6 Vermont Ruckus in the 2025 regular season to top this list.
The two squads previously met at Queen City, with Syzygy dominating 11-6 in an early-season statement between two promising programs with young rosters. Since, Carleton have largely risen up the rankings, and Ruckus have slid, unable to pick up much in the way of a signature win. When the two sides met again at Northwest Challenge, it was a chance for Ruckus to show their improvement from Queen City and re-establish themselves in the national picture.
Instead, it was Syzygy who doubled down on that early season statement. They buried Ruckus from the start and dominated, 12-5 en route to a quarterfinal victory. As we look towards the postseason, it’s hard to not picture Carleton as the title favorites, as their young roster has improved throughout the season, after losing Tori Gray from last year’s roster, and more importantly, it set a pretty clear tier within the women’s power rankings. At No. 6, Vermont does not feel like a title-caliber team, particularly after this result, leaving Carleton and unbeaten Tufts as your title favorites, with Colorado, British Columba and (maybe) Oregon as your spoilers in a five-horse race.
