Revolver return to the Championship Game for the first time since 2018
October 26, 2025 by Alex Rubin in Recap
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2025 Club National Championships 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.
SAN DIEGO –#1 San Francisco Revolver return to the championship game after a thrilling 15-13 victory over #5 Portland Rhino Slam! in Saturday afternoon’s semifinal.
Against the toughest defense they faced, Revolver played a near perfect game. In fact, both teams played a near-perfect game. The first half was a parade of tightly contested but beautifully played one-possession holds. Revolver took half on serve with each team coughing up one turnover and scoring one break. Bouncy inside backhands from Raphy Hayes and Mica Glass matched fluid dominator movement from Leo Gordon, Nate Prior, and Adam Rees.
When Rhino Slam! closed in on the backfield, Mac Hecht often found a way to push the disc to another open spot. In a game that required precision, Hecht approached perfection. He got open against a Rhino defense focused on limiting his impact, and made his mark with zippy tight-window flick hucks past some of the best defenders in the division.
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Hecht tossed daring shots that few other throwers would feel comfortable attempting, let alone completing. The touch and placement on his throws built Revolver’s confidence and produced the perfect antidote to Rhino’s defensive game plan. “Revolver has a really, really good offense,” Rhino Slam!’s Daniel Lee said. “They move the disc quickly–they move it counter motion very quickly–so our gameplan was to keep them on the sidelines and protect the middle of the field as much as possible, and to be okay with some of the down-the-line shots that they had. Those were the spots that we wanted to try and go make a play, and we were close on a couple of them. We had the looks that we wanted, but we couldn’t necessarily get those. We were inches away from a couple and at this level, that’s the difference.”
The Rhino defense forced Revolver to go through their second and third reads over and over again; Revolver didn’t just bring their library cards–they might as well have owned the keys to the building. The egoless movements of Hecht, Leo Gordon, Nate Prior, and Walker Frankenberg kept Rhino guessing who should receive the toughest matchups.
The one mistake Revolver can clearly claim happened early in the first half. Rhino played the early portion of the game with a slim lead after Henry Ing blocked an ill-advised set-play huck to Hecht and ran deep on the counterattack to put Rhino up 3-2. Given their defense-first charge to the title last season, it seemed like Rhino Slam! were improbably repeating their title winning efforts–a feat no team has accomplished since Revolver in 2011.
“We’re proud of our growth and the mentality of how we approached the season,” Lee said. “A lot of times when you win a championship you have a championship hangover; you think things will come to you. I think for us, especially at Nationals, the mentality was that we want to go out and take it. We’re not going to wait for it to come to us…we did a good job of that every game this tournament.”
Rhino took their early opportunity, but Revolver answered just before halftime when Henry Ing left his swing aimed for Aaron Kaplan a bit too low. Kyle Lew did his best Hecht impression with a darting flick away shot towards Rees to give Revolver an 8-7 lead at halftime. With Revolver able to hit the difficult shots Rhino were forcing them to make, there was little Portland could do but hope for a mistake.
At the break, @RevolverIHD grab the lead and take half on serve! Tune in for the second half, live on @Ultiworld!#USAUNats | #USAUltimate pic.twitter.com/YlmPUgZ5fj
— USA Ultimate (@USAUltimate) October 25, 2025
Instead, it was Rhino who offered Revolver a gifted break opportunity. Kaplan again was at the center of the action when Revolver broke on the first point of the second half to extend their lead. Just a few yards in front of their own end zone, Kaplan put a backhand too far behind Hayes and Revolver took advantage of the short field opportunity to build a two goal lead.
With their offense producing at a level just a step ahead of Rhino’s elite defense, the two goal lead was all they would need. Revolver’s offense varied their looks to keep Rhino Slam! guessing. One point they would center to Hecht and scheme a deep look, another they would open with a fast-paced dominator set.
“We don’t really have that many specific game plans for specific teams,” Hecht said. “It’s really just that we have a lot of different tools that we’ve been working on all season. We get the luxury of having incredible players, and that means we can do different things at different times. The gameplan is always to keep them on their toes and use a bunch of different things and that will be the case no matter who we play.”
When the Rhino defense clamped down on Revolver’s primary initiators, Simon Higgins and Dillon Whited each spotted moments in the second half when they filled in the offensive set after the primary looks got shut down. While they produced a modest statistical impact, their importance to this Revolver team was evident with every late-stall under cut that opened a new window and relieved the immense pressure.
“Everyone on the O-line has our trust,” Hecht added. “We chose the group very specifically and with a lot of thought. Dillon [Whited] has been an O-line guy for many years–I think he led Revolver in goals scored in 2021 or 2022. He’s been in kind of a beast mode situation for most of his career. We have the luxury of having him be one of the people that other people consider fill cutters, but is actually a top tier cutter.”
In the second half, Revolver’s defenders came alive to match their offenses output. Not content to wait for Rhino Slam!’s O-line to make another mistake, Revolver’s D-lines started to find ways to force turnovers. “We were trying to think about alternating when we were going tight on cutters vs when we were going tight on handlers,” Revolver captain Nick Tolfa said, “and just trying to do a lot of changing that situation over the course of points to be really disruptive and not let them find the easy connections in that middle layer.”
Sean Liston’s rotating mark and Dan Ritthaler’s hustle to block a stall-nine huck gave Revolver’s D-line another second half chance that they could not convert. Liston added a layout block too as Revolver’s D-line tired out Rhino’s cutters in a way they have yet to be challenged during this tournament. Even without converting the breaks, Revolver’s defenders tired out the top end of the Rhino roster–the same players Portland would need to rely on to steer any potential comeback.
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Facing a rare three-goal deficit as the score crept to 13-10, Rhino Slam! stacked their lines with seven of the best defenders in the country–needing some of those tired O-liners to play double duty. Revolver moved backwards as Rhino Slam! were able to disconnect the handler and cutter layers while preventing upfield resets. Glass, one of those offensive starters called in for defense, laid out to block a little flip, and Rhino charged forward with life. Dylan Freechild rarely lets counterattack possessions go to waste, and he found the end zone to bring Rhino within one.
In the late stages of the game, Freechild, Glass, Ing, Sealand, Lee, Rehder, and Lukas Ambrose hunted for one more game changing block. Despite their imposing presence, getting one more break was too much to ask. Rhino’s tight defense forced Revolver to attack unconventional spaces, but such challenges barely fazed nor troubled the Revolver O-line.
Gordon gathered himself near midfield and threw a flick to the soft open side space that a cutter might typically cut, but Rees made a more narrow move with a defender squeezing the available space. Realizing the reality before him, Rees turned the corner and chased down the floaty disc, which he caught with a powerful slide just above the turf. Revolver survived another narrow-margin moment, and kept moving towards the end zone undeterred. Rees and Hecht confidently maneuvered in the backfield, shaking free from their marks and springing forward to press their slim advantage. Looking for the final goal, Rees shook free near the front cone and lifted a backhand to Whited for the win.
REVOLVER’S GAME WINNER. 🔥@RevolverIHD punches its ticket to the finals and will try for the Triple Crown tomorrow!!#USAUNats | #USAUltimate pic.twitter.com/6zXdC1SLmV
— USA Ultimate (@USAUltimate) October 25, 2025
For the first time since 2018, Revolver advance to the final where they will face #2 Chicago Machine in a pool play rematch. “I’m so excited for tomorrow,” Tolfa said. “It’s been a long process of building to get back to this moment. We’ve had a core older leadership group that’s been working together over these last five or six seasons now so it feels like a really cool moment. Revolver is named for the idea of cycles of the moon, and so it feels like we’re nearing one of those pinnacle points of the cycle…it’s really exciting to be back to this level. It feels like it has been multiple years in the making. I’m really proud of this group of people.”
Rhino Slam! will surely be disappointed with the final result, but should also proudly acknowledge the positive growth from this edition of the storied franchise. After an up-and-down regular season, Rhino returned to the showcase games at the end of the bracket and put themselves in position to appear at the 2026 World Ultimate Club Championships with a win on Sunday morning when they play #4 New York PoNY in a 2024 title game rematch. “We got another game tomorrow,” Lee reminded. “Four out of five semis is cool, but the opposite side of that coin is that we’re one for four on making finals. We understand this and it sucks, but we’re going to process this the way we can. We’ll get ready for tomorrow and get ready for the next steps to season 2026.”
