Everything you need to know after five rounds of pool play
May 24, 2025 by Kiana Hu and Bridget Mizener in Recap
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2025 college ultimate 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.
BURLINGTON, WA — Days like this are what college ultimate is all about. Top seeds stumbled (UBC) and tumbled (Tufts, Colorado), hungry teams rose (Washington, Vermont), and the circle of life kept on turning. After day one of pool play, nothing is set in stone, anything is possible, and the title race is as wide open as we’ve seen since before the pandemic.
Storylines
Washington Makes Contender Case with Upset over Tufts
- Washington 14-12 Tufts: Game Recap | Stream
This one’s easily the game of the day. Much of the credit goes to Lauren Goddu (4G/2A/3D), whose heroics especially on the defensive end against EWO’s Emily Kemp were so spectacular, they merited their own sizzle reel. If you’re looking for a game to catch up on from today, this is your best bet. As I said on the sideline: ultimate is full of good ultimate players. Goddu is not only a good ultimate player, but she’s an actual athlete to boot. Consider this the opening salvo for her DPOTY campaign — and she’s just a second-year. Washington ends the day the presumptive pool winner.
The loss is legitimate cause for concern for an 1-1 EWO side that didn’t get to test their mettle against the division’s best in the regular season. Their offense, normally explosive, looked absolutely one-note — and that note was flat. Tufts will need to explore new avenues on offense when Schwartz and Kemp are struggling if they’re to make it to Monday.
Vermont, UC San Diego Notch Key Upsets
- Vermont 15-10 Colorado: Game Recap | Stream
The meeting of the no. 4 seed and no. 5 seed at Nationals always has potential to be a clash of titans1, and #3 Colorado Quandary versus #6 Vermont Ruckus promised to be just that—until it wasn’t. Vermont came into this weekend with a lackluster resume in the regular season and was generally regarded as being below the top tier of championship contenders. Ruckus dispelled those doubts with a comprehensive victory over Quandary, in a game where they led the entire way after breaking to go up 2-1.
Vermont looked dialed in on their deep shots. On offense, Tatum Cubrilovic (2G/4A) and Caroline Stone (3G/1A) made leaping plays to keep Ruckus rolling. On defense, Emily Pozzy (1G/2A/2D) and Annie Pozzy’s (1G/3A/1D) ability to launch immediate counterattacks kept energy high and Colorado on their heels. Vermont’s top-tier recruits have finally come out to play, and if they keep this up a deep bracket run is very much in the picture. But first, they’ll need to avenge their 2024 semifinal loss against Stanford to clinch that coveted bracket bye.
- UC San Diego 13-12 UNC: Game Recap
#13 UC San Diego Dragon Coalition is back at the big stage in a big way. Their regular season was overshadowed by the overall strength of the Southwest, and their postseason up until now has been uninspiring with losses to Stanford, SLO, and UCSB. Turns out they were just biding their time before releasing the dragon.2 UCSD led UNC most of the way, breaking early to go up 3-1 and maintaining their lead all the way until UNC finally punched back to go up 11-10. As cool as can be, UCSD held until universe at 12-12, came up with a redzone D, and scored the other way in just three passes thanks to the heroics of Sophia Fitch (1G/1D), Tori Gray (1G/1D), and Abbi Shilts (2G/3A/3D).
This win is a testament to UCSD’s ability to perform under pressure. Callahan finalist Shilts was absolutely dominant for DCo, but core handlers Samantha Medina, Parissa Teli, and Margot Nissen looked calm and collected playing against the defending champion. Their ability to come out of this game ahead is a great portent for their matchup with UBC tomorrow.
Top Seed Whiparound: Carleton Rolls, Colorado Falls, UBC Wobbles But Doesn’t Fall Down
- Carleton 14-9 Oregon: Game Recap | Stream
Those of you who picked Carleton to make a deep bracket run should be feeling pretty good right now. They outclassed a wobbly, injured Oregon team from the very first pull. Carleton’s underclassmen put on an absolute clinic. Sophomore Chagall Gelfand (5A/1D) can do it all, and four separate rookies (headlined by Eliza Barton and Kyliah McRoy, though Melba Henley’s not far behind) scored eight of Carleton’s 14 goals. It may not matter for Syzygy’s awards total that they don’t nominate for the Callahan — expect a lot of Syzygy representation on awards podiums, especially ROTY.
Oregon, who started the season looking like a semis favorite, continued their downward trajectory. Injuries to Trout Weybright and Miko Magnant are part of the story, but they also looked plain uncomfortable playing half-court offense.
- Vermont 15-10 Colorado: Game Recap | Stream
The seesaw season continues for Colorado as they watched their quarters bye all but evaporate. It’s deja vu — and not in a good way — for Quandary; they were annihilated by Ruckus in this very 1v2 seed game last year. Maybe personnel tweaks could help right the ship — Clil Phillips (2A) didn’t spend all that much time on offense, and Faye Burdick’s (3G/2A/1D) defensive prowess is potentially underutilized — but the real key to success on day two will be to just throw fewer huck turns.
- UBC 13-12 UNC: Game Recap | Stream
The Thunderbirds, to their credit, flashed some of the mental resilience they’ve been lacking in previous campaigns in getting it done against UNC, converting the break on universe and avoiding a second consecutive pool play upset as the tournament one-seed.3 They’ll face an upstart UCSD team tomorrow, though, that’s playing at a level good enough to beat UNC. By the transitive property, that should be a barnburner. Of course, they do have Mika Kurahashi on their side.
UNC Drops Two Universe Point Games, Their First Losses at Nationals Since 2019
- UBC 13-12 UNC: Game Recap | Stream
- UC San Diego 13-12 UNC: Game Recap
It was inevitable that the Pleiades dynasty, so dominant since the pandemic, would come to an end eventually, but I don’t think anyone was expecting this. Two games in a row, with the disc in the red zone, the Pleiades offense — legendarily stingy — faltered, and their opponents marched it down the field to win the game. It’s hard to know how to interpret these results in relation to UNC’s overall fortunes — since UNC tested UBC, is the title race wide open for the 8-seed and beyond? Or, has UNC totally returned to earth? Whatever the case, Pleiades are absolutely, definitively mortal now, though there’s still life in them yet. The fact that Erica Birdsong was able to take the field (though clearly still not at 100%) is a big part of that.
Quick Hits
- Upstarts #20 Pennsylvania notched a nice win today over Cal Poly and the stars4 were shining: Chaily Derecskey (5G), Poppy Wagner (2G/4A/4D), and Grace Maroon (2G/7A/2D) were cooking.
- #12 Michigan ended the day 2-0 but didn’t pass the eye test as a potential semis team. They needed a Herculean, no-rest effort from Kat McGuire to close out UC Davis
- #9 Santa Barbara, in beating Utah and Georgia — the two teams ranked below them in Pool C — all but locked up a bracket spot today.
- UC Santa Barbara’s Laura Blume and Michigan’s Kat McGuire lead the division with 18 total offensive scores. Quincy Booth, Grace Maroon, Devin Quinn are all close behind at 14.
Other 0-2 Notables
- Pool 3-seed #11 Cal Poly SLO Motion’s first-ever Nationals got off to a less-than-auspicious start. They dropped their opening game against regional rival #13 UC San Diego Dragon Coalition — against whom they were 3-1 on the season — and stumbled against pool 5-seed Pennsylvania, dimming their bracket hopes considerably.
- #14 Santa Cruz’s two losses were by a cumulative five points. Even Rachel Chang’s (7A) return to the field wasn’t enough to get over the hump on Oregon and Michigan.
- #23 Georgia gave #9 UCSB a real run for their money in a universe-point nail-biter. Laura Blume (6A/3G/3D, and a callahan) willed the Skirts to the win despite Quincy Booth’s (2G/9A/2D) also-ridiculous performance.
- #17 Victoria couldn’t come close to Stanford or Vermont, effectively ending their bracket hopes. Part of the reason is the absence of Arabella Brudney, who isn’t in attendance this weekend for the Vikes.
That’s all for today’s pool play games, but there’s more on deck. Be sure to catch the game recaps as they’re posted on tomorrow’s live blog, and follow along with the action first-hand by watching tomorrow’s streamed games!
See last year’s match-up between UNC Pleiades and Oregon Fugue ↩
Namely, a super cute inflatable blue dragon costume spotted on their sideline ↩
They lost this very 1v8 game against Tufts last year. ↩
Planets? ↩
