These three defenders put forth amazing and impactful seasons.
June 16, 2025 by Keith Raynor and Zack Davis in Awards
Each year, Ultiworld presents our annual College Awards. Our staff evaluates the individual performances of players from throughout the season, talking to folks around college ultimate, watching film, and look at statistics, voting upon the awards to decide those to be honored. The regular season and the college Series are both considered, with extra emphasis for performances in the competitive and high-stakes environment at Nationals.
Our awards continue with the Defensive Player of the Year, recognizing the individual, and two runners-up, who we felt were the top defensive performers this spring. Whether through generating blocks, shutting down options, helping out teammates, or all of the above, these defenders stood out doing the tough work that too often go unrecognized.
- Player of the Year
- All-American First Team
- All-American Second Team
- Defensive Player of the Year Award
- Offensive Player of the Year Award
- Rookie of the Year Award
- Breakout Player of the Year Award
- Coaches of the Year Award
- Full Awards Voting Breakdown
D-III Women’s 2025 Defensive Player Of The Year
Milo Brown (Wesleyan)
In a first for the Ultiworld College Awards, a first-year player has earned Defensive Player of the Year honors. Though it may be unprecedented, it is far from undeserved. Milo Brown was simply one of the division’s best, earning a First Team All-American selection, and their defensive performance led the way. Most star players, especially young recruits, are known for their offensive production, but Brown was a defense-first player from day one.
Defensive highlights are often big plays, but what set Brown apart was all the little things that happened between the handblocks, layouts, and skies. It was the wide mark to force a swing pass to be a tougher and shorter catch, a lane poach to stop a huck from going up, or a smothered reset cut that left throwers looking for a high-stall bail out. Those moments happened what felt like every point, Brown’s defensive consistency and attention to detail providing a steady resistive presence.
But some big blocks doesn’t hurt, either. And Brown could come up with, especially as a smart, physical deep defender and in-your-business reset cover. Seven blocks at Nationals is a solid showing, but often Brown’s reset coverage would simply render their assignment unavailable. This was particularly swaying during the bracket at Nationals, where they contended with the likes of Leina Goto, Amelie Steer, and Phoebe Hulbert.
Co Runner-Up1
Erica Collin (Haverford/Bryn Mawr)
Erica Collin was the anchor for the Sneetches’ zone defense, towering over cutters both literally and figuratively. Their aggressive athleticism and disc hawking ability not only made the deep shot a non-starter for most teams going up against them, it also allowed for the rest of the D-line to cheat in and generate more turns themselves. In addition, Collin was instrumental in conducting the symphony, repositioning and reorganizing their teammates on the fly to maximize Haverford/Bryn Mawr’s effectiveness. There isn’t much to say about Collin’s person to person defending other than “lockdown.” It was nigh impossible for Collin to generate readable stats, because they made it nigh impossible for the disc to get to their cutter. It took a team with Wesleyan’s depth and ability to break down the Sneetches’ defense helmed by Erica Collin, and even then it was far from easy.
Co Runner-Up2
Rufus Helmreich (Haverford/Bryn Mawr)
There’s nothing more delightful to an ultimate captain than a rookie that plays hard defense. The Haverford/Bryn Mawr leadership must have been grinning all year with the way that Rufus Helmreich played. They had more run through blocks than seemed possible at Nationals and was instrumental to the Sneetches’ defense across the weekend. However, Helmreich really shined in the red zone, baiting throwers into looks that seemed open, but were anything but. Their speed and agility gave them a closing speed that’s rare in D-III and caught many of the top throwers unaware. Many teams tried the rookie, thinking them out of position, and all found that Helmreich was right where they wanted to be. It’s also worth noting that Helmreich’s pulls consistently gave opposing offenses terrible field position and was a significant advantage for the HBM defense, both giving time for the zone to get set and forcing the opposition to go the full 70 yards into the teeth of it.
