The winners and the results from this year's D-I contests.
June 4, 2025 by Keith Raynor in Fantasy
With the 2025 USA Ultimate Division-I College Championships in the book, the Beat Charlie Challenge and #TheGame are all wrapped up. We picked the winners, guessed the props, and tried to find the upsets and which favorites to target. Hopefully, following along was fun. We keep trying to improve the mechanics to make it as fun as possible!
#TheGame
The Winners
Rising to the top was Derek Lin, who led the win with 326 total points. In what I believe is a first for #TheGame, Lin earned the win with the low price bonus! His picks: UBC and UPenn in the women’s division, WWU; Carleton, and Utah in the men’s division. Obviously, getting both of the champions and staying under the bonus line is a pretty impressive feat and hard to beat. What enabled that? Three $1 picks, including two that made it to the bracket in WWU and Utah. Add in 11 points from the most valuable bonus and that’s the recipe.
Derek wins a free month of Standard subscription and an Ultiworld hat.
Max Jabrixio finished second with a very different lineup, with only WWU and Carleton CUT the same. WWU was basically a fixture among top lineups, and was the third-most selected men’s division team in 26% of lineups. But Max earned plenty from Carleton and UCSD in the women’s division and UNC in the men’s division. Both CUT (5%) and Syzygy (13%) were selected at relatively low rates. His lineup made 316 points, as he also hit the 11 point bonus question.
Cameron Brock took third with 310 points, despite only earning 9 bonus points. His lineup included both women’s division finalists, UBC and Carleton, while also getting to semifinalist UMass in the men’s division and prequarters opponents WWU and Michigan, who quietly earned 20 points on the cheap.
Max and Cameron each win a free month of Standard subscription.
Even with more points available for hitting the low price bonus than there were last year (up to 25 from 20), we saw a dip in the number of entrants taking advantage, down to about 17% from 20%+ at Club last year.
Selection Stats
Top 5 Women’s Division Teams
- UBC (29.3%)
- Stanford (21.8%)
- Tufts (21.1%)
- UC San Diego (20.8%)
- UC Santa Barbara (17.6%)
The spread here is great and let me say that I love it. There’s a whole bunch of teams between 5-10% (the only teams lower are Cornell, Victoria, and Utah) and a bunch between 10% and 20%, and then your championship favorites above 20% plus a few others. Only 12.7% on the no.2 seed, Carleton, though? Meanwhile, Tufts was one of this year’s landmines, as was UNC, who had almost 17% of the entries, too.
Top 5 Men’s Division Teams
- UNC (47.4%)
- Western Washington (25.6%)
- Northeastern (20.8%)
- Cal Poly SLO (19.9%)
- Colorado (19.4%)
Oh and the spread in the men’s division is just as wonderful! There are seven more teams about 10% off of this list. And the landmines — UC Santa Cruz and Oregon State, who each scored 10 points for $4 — were some of the least selected squads. With all of Utah, WWU, and Michigan providing good value, that opened up a lot at the top, where it became about picking the right teams.
The Perfect Lineup
UBC W ($5)
Carleton W ($5)
Carleton M ($5)
Western Washington M ($1)
Utah M ($1)
The Bonuses
How many teams from the Northwest region will reach the quarterfinals, across both divisions? (11 pts)
The most popular choice was four (47%) and the second-most popular was five (36%), and the latter was our winner.
How many teams seeded no.1 through no.4 will win their pool, across both divisions? (7 pts)
With 61% of the selections, six both the most popular and most accurate response.
What will be the result of the pool play game between UBC W and UNC W? (7 pts)
While UBC wins by 2 or 3 goals was by far the most popular of the three (55%), the other two were almost dead even, with UNC loses by 1 or wins being the right answer.
What will be the result of the pool play game between Colorado M and Cal Poly SLO M? (9 pts)
Basically the same as the previous: Colorado by 1 or 2 was about half of the picks and an even split between SLO winning a close game and Colorado winning by a larger margin. Almost nobody picked SLO to win by the large margin and Bird’s 15-12 gave that 22% of entrants a payout.
What will be the result of the pool play game between Washington W and UC Santa Barbara W? (5 pts)
We got another good split here, although with 44% on Washington by or more, this was another popular source of a few extra points.
Beat Charlie Challenge
But let’s see how Charlie did, talk about the popular picks, and announce the winners for this round of the BCC.
Charlie’s Picks
It was not a great showing for Mr. Eisenhood. With 22 points, Charlie was beaten out by 85 entries, giving him a 67th percentile score. The average score was 22.11, so he was about in the middle when you add in all the ties with him.
Charlie’s Most Recent Result: 91st percentile (Club Championships 2024)
Charlie’s All-Time High: 97th percentile (D-I Championships 2021)
Charlie’s All Time Low : 47th percentile (Club 2023)
This run’s top scorers: Famed elevated sideline cameraman, Scott Dunham, was actually the highest scorer, clearing the field by a good distance with 34 points. He even did it with only 3 points from Fantasy! Julian Kagi, Nathan DeMorgan, Stephen, Connor McGinley, and Max Pettenuzzo all tied for second with 29.
Women’s Division
- Quarterfinals
- #1 UBC
- #2 Carleton
- #3 Tufts
- #4 Colorado
- #5 Vermont
- #6 Washington
- #7 Oregon
- #11 Michigan
- Semifinals
- #1 UBC
- #2 Carleton
- #3 Tufts
- #4 Colorado
- Final
- #1 UBC
- #3 Tufts
- Champion
- #3 Tufts
- Scored: 10
- Avg. Entry: 10.4
At first blush, it is easy to see Charlie’s women’s division picks and think this is what sunk him. He did leave a lot of potential points on the table that might have allowed him to separate from the pack. But his score was about average. Obviously, hitching his wagon to Tufts did him no favors, nor did fading Vermont, but the public was on the same path. Tufts was the second most popular champion (28%) while only 8% of entries had Vermont making semifinals.
Men’s Division
- Quarterfinals
- #1 UMass
- #2 Oregon
- #3 Colorado
- #4 Carleton
- #5 UNC
- #6 Cal Poly SLO
- #8 Oregon State
- #11 Northeastern
- Semifinals
- #1 UMass
- #2 Oregon
- #3 Colorado
- #5 UNC
- Final
- #1 UMass
- #3 Colorado
- Champion
- #3 Colorado
- Scored: 10
- Avg. Entry: 9.7
And again in the men’s division, Charlie just failed to gain anything over the average player. Colorado ended up actually being the favorite, with 50% of entries taking them to the final and 28% calling for them to hoist the trophy, just ahead of UMass; Charlie was stride for stride with the field. Even Charlie’s riskier quarterfinals picks — Oregon State and Northeastern — were actually the most popular last teams in.
Fantasy
Denotes a a pick that was in the top ten for the category. An additional point is awarded if the player selected was top 3 the division.
- Women’s Div. Goals: Emily Kemp
- Women’s Div. Assists: Quincy Booth
- Men’s Div. Goals: Raekwon Adkins
- Men’s Div. Assists: Mica Glass
- Total: 3 points
Charlie did garner a couple of extra points in fantasy, with all three coming in the women’s division. He missed one with Mica Glass in the assist category by one throw, as he finished with 19. Women’s division assist leader, Quincy Booth, did land him an extra point.
| Women's Div. Goals Leaders | Goals | Women's Div. Assist Leaders | Assists | Men's Div. Goals Leaders | Goals | Men's Div. Assist Leaders | Assists |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sage McGinley-Smith | 20 | Quincy Booth | 33 | Elijah Diamond | 17 | Dexter Clyburn | 31 |
| Mika Kurahashi | 18 | Chagall Gelfand | 29 | Xavier Fuzat | 17 | Elijah Diamond | 28 |
| Mars Bau | 17 | Grace Maroon | 25 | Alex Nelson | 17 | Ben Dameron | 26 |
| Mina Brown | 17 | Harper Baer | 23 | Justin Podnar | 17 | Rex Yuen | 26 |
| Sophia Harvey | 16 | Clil Phillips | 22 | Thomas Simms | 17 | Aaron Bartlett | 25 |
| Eliza Barton | 15 | Abigail Shilts | 22 | Ethan Lieman | 16 | Anton Orme | 22 |
| Lauren Clayter | 15 | Emma Williamson | 22 | Kristof Rohaly-Medved | 16 | Nathan De Morgan | 20 |
| Annabel White | 15 | Ella Bolan | 21 | Ryan Shigley | 16 | Cedar Hines | 20 |
| Chaily Derecskey | 14 | Katrina McGuire | 21 | Jack Dinsmore | 15 | Wyatt Kellman | 20 |
| Emily Kemp | 14 | Lia Schwartz | 21 | Scott Whitley | 15 | Kyle Lew | 20 |
| Devin Quinn | 14 | Caroline Stone | 21 | Will Selfridge | 20 |
The Winners
While Dunham’s score is impressive, he isn’t prize eligible. By random draw, Connor McGinley wins a free month of Standard subscription and an Ultiworld Hat. as the top scorer.
Stephen Eichinger and Keegan Miller were randomly selected players who outscored Charlie who will both also receive a free month of Standard subscription.
Feedback Welcome!
Did you play? Did you not play? Why or why not? What rules would be fun to play with? What tweaks can be made?
This is perhaps the most satisfied I’ve been with outcomes here from a game-design standpoint. But I’m always open to new ideas!
We want the Beat Charlie Challenge and #TheGame to be fun and have different strategies be viable without being too complicated for lots of people to enter. You can contact me by emailing [email protected].
