Machine reached the national title game at the end of a thrilling, back-and-forth semifinal
October 29, 2025 by Edward Stephens 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 – The crowd of fans at Canyon Crest Stadium on Semifinal Saturday afternoon witnessed one of the most thrilling games in the history of ultimate frisbee as #2 Chicago Machine eked out a 15-14 win over #4 New York PoNY. It was an instant classic, as explosive and desperately contested as a custody battle. And with 11 breaks and six lead changes, it was a kind of custody battle in which both sides made ironclad arguments that they should get to keep the coveted spot in Sunday’s final. Very little separated them, as the score difference between the teams never exceeded two goals. The momentum shifts had been so regular that it was not until the very moment that an ebullient Rutledge Smith raised Machine’s 15th goal over his head that anyone could count PoNY out.
Tricky conditions were part of the recipe for the game’s volatility. The wind had changed since the earlier men’s semi (a great game in its own right between #1 San Francisco Revolver and #5 Portland Rhino Slam!), growing from a barely perceptible whisper to a stiff blow just in time for the opening pull. PoNY handler Harper Garvey, who had been having a brilliant tournament, did not adjust to the new reality in time: his first throw after the centering pass, a short space throw around the mark for Chris Kocher, went straight to the turf. That set up a gimmie putt for the Machine break.
Garvey would be at the center of the next big moment, too. Unfortunately, it was for a much more tragic reason than a turnover. Making an astounding play to keep possession of a flick that had sailed too wide, he leapt up, grabbed the out-of-bounds disc, and planted a toe inside the white line. But as he did, his ankle twisted gruesomely. He collapsed in pain. After receiving medical attention on the spot, he rode off the field in a golf cart.
It was undoubtedly a blow to New York to lose a player who had been so integral to their offense all season long, and it’s reasonable to speculate on how the game might have played out had Garvey not been hurt.
“Something like that happening early in the game is just so tough. He’s a big part of the game plan, obviously, and we just had to adjust,” said PoNY’s Scott Heyman. “I think it kind of shook us a little bit, and we had to throw some stuff at the wall and see what stuck. It’s horrible what happened, and maybe it’s a very different game if he stays in.”
In the immediate aftermath, however, PoNY were as strong as ever. Kocher, Sam Little, and Ben Dameron bumrushed the red zone when play resumed to force a small ball hold.
PoNY put the game back on serve on their first defensive point as the wind claimed another victim. This time, it was Machine’s star power thrower Paul Arters whose touchy throw failed to withstand the weather and set the PoNY D-line up with a red zone possession. Leaving two players near the back line as a countermeasure to Machine’s frontloading – in a way strikingly reminiscent of Brown’s endzone schemes in the college game – had the intended effect, clearing the way for John Randolph to blade a forehand to Vinay Valsaraj.
At that point, it was game on. Sofiène Bontemps, who has been somewhat reserved on offense for Machine at Nationals, unexpectedly unleashed a perfect deep forehand to Sam McGuckin to get Machine back on track. PoNY ran a dizzying weave (Kocher, Dameron, and Little again) all the way to the red zone with perfect precision when the wind claimed one more victim, this time popping up a Kocher backhand. William Wettengel rose above the pile to block the pass.
A word about Wettengel. The young University of Cincinnati player has grown into one of the sharpest spikes of Machine’s 2025 defensive corps. His playing status was doubtful for semis, however, after a bad landing near the end of their quarterfinal win over #8 Denver Johnny Bravo.
“You see someone go down like that… and you’re pretty sure about what happened,” said Tim Schoch, superstitiously careful not to mention any common sports injuries by name. “And thankfully it wasn’t [that]. We’re really lucky that he was able to go today.
“He’s got the heart of a champion. He’s so competitive. He wasn’t going to not cleat up unless he had no ligaments left in his leg. But everything’s there, structurally good, and he was ready.”
Ready is an understatement. No single player tilted the semifinal one way or the other, but you could make a reasonable argument that Wettengel’s ability to turn iffy passes into blocks was the most critical factor in Machine’s eventual victory. Another of Machine’s critical D-line pieces, Jeff Gao, won a race to the front cone to put in the break.
Savvy readers will notice the lack of Daan De Marrée’s name so far in this recap. There’s a good reason for that. John Randolph took on PoNY’s most important defensive assignment – slowing down the Belgian superstar – and succeeded with flying colors. Without any exaggeration, De Marrée had been by a good margin the tournament’s best player heading into the semifinal round: Randolph’s hyperfocused effort reduced him to little more than stackmeat in the first half.
“We had two D-lines, and each [Machine offensive player] had two people on them in the game plan,” said Heyman. “But not [De Marrée]. JR was on both of those lines covering him every time. He was the only one doing double shifts, and we just put a lot of trust in him. JR’s one of the best defenders in the world, and he did a really good job today.”
The PoNY D-line effort began with Randolph’s neutralization of De Marrée, but it extended from there to make the remaining Machine O-liners uncomfortable. The many-headed unit forced uncomfortable turns out of veterans Nate Goff and Keegan North to retake and then extend the lead before half. Heyman, one of the fastest players in the sport, has had an outstanding season, and the semifinal was his best performance yet. Valsaraj, Antoine Davis, Isaac Kaplan, and Cam Wariner also put in superb shifts to power New York into the second half.
After the late first-half lull sent them into halftime trailing 6-8, Machine entered the third quarter on a mission. The 4-0 run, by far the game’s most lopsided sequence, included a rare Bansfield O-line appearance (he hit on a deep shot to Kyle Rutledge), three blocks on inside flicks (De Marrée, Adam Stautberg, and Ben Preiss), and Wettengel bookends.
It took some (vintage) superhuman downfield cutting from Chris Kocher, blasting past Gao in a way that very few receivers have been able to manage all season, to arrest PoNY’s skid and shrink the Machine lead back down to one goal.
That’s when De Marrée finally broke out of his cage. McGuckin, ignoring PoNY’s deepset double-team entirely, put a backhand huck toward the endzone. De Marrée levitated in front of both of them, reached out with one hand over one of the defender’s shoulders, and plucked the speeding disc from an impossible position. Allow me to break the fourth wall: my immediate thought was that it was the best catch I have ever seen. Whether that impression was born out of a momentary rush of excitement or it fades with the passage of time, there is no doubt that we are all witnessing the first full flowering of one of the sport’s all-time great careers.
Is this what it was like to watch Michael Jordan take over the title of best player in the world from Larry Bird and Magic Johnson? De Marrée plays as if the rules that govern everyone else’s reality don’t apply to him. His brilliance is as matter-of-factly reliable as a sunrise. Without a shred of amazement about the catch he had made for even a fraction of a second afterwards, without setting his feet, almost without looking, while the two unlucky defenders were still trying to process what had happened to them, he sent the continue pass the rest of the way into the goal.
Somehow, the De Marrée miracle was only the first note in a crescendo of intensity as Machine and PoNY fought tooth and nail through the end of the game. The defenses had been pointed and physical throughout the match: the fourth quarter was a full-on conflagration of bids.
It began with a PoNY goal line stand that saw Heyman make a heady play read and pinch the lane for a layout poach block to save the goal.
“I could kind of sense – I was betting that the weren’t going to throw something over the top, and I was just trying to kind of sneak around,” said Heyman. “They made the throw I wanted them to make, and I was able to pick it off.”
They couldn’t score on the countering huck, though, and a Bugatti Veyron-esque moment of mid-cut acceleration from De Marrée to run down a deep throw kept the two-point lead intact.
PoNY’s deep game was one of their strengths all tournament. Garvey, before he went out with the injury, had been the primary deep distributor, but Kocher, Ben Dameron, and Marques Brownlee often got in on the act. Anders Juengst, Jacob Cowan, and (of course) Jagt released to the endzone with regularity. The sole O-line regular who had contented himself with both a throwing and receiving a diet of chisels, unders, swings, and upline strikes was Sam Little. Or anyway, that was the case until late in the second half of the semifinal. Little must have been hiding an ace of a big backhand up his sleeve: he hit on two of them to Jacob Cowan.
It was curious to watch Little step outside his normal role as one of the quickest and most reliable midrange players in the division.
“Sam is excellent at knowing the situation and knowing what he has to do,” said Heyman. “A lot of times if those [other O-line] guys are hitting their shots, he doesn’t have to.
“And that’s what makes him an exceptional player,” Heyman continued. “He steps up and does exactly what you need him to do when you need him to do it. Today he needed to hit some shots, and he did.”
With Cowan and Ben Jagt both functioning effectively as field-stretching threats and Little stepping in to the Garvey role, the PoNY offense stayed versatile enough to keep Machine guessing and to keep themselves in the game long enough to give the defense a chance to strike back.
The strike came in full force. Valsaraj and Wariner swarmed a long shot to McGuckin to pressure the turn. Kaplan and Randolph warily reset it a few times to one another in the defending end zone before finding a safe window to get the disc slightly downfield to Heyman, who sent a big away shot to Wariner to set up the equalizing break.
Somehow, despite the fuel he had already burned through in a scorching second half, Heyman had more in the tank. He drafted Bontemps’s away cut for a moment and then overtook him in a breathtaking display of sheer speed, running through the space, past the receiver, and straight into the disc. De Marrée did everything he could to keep New York’s counteroffensive at bay. He looked high and low but couldn’t find a way through Matt LaBar’s expert seal-out in the lane. LaBar held on for a stupendously determined and skillful catch through De Marrée’s best bid and staked PoNY to another lead with a big throw to Jagt.
Trailing 12-13 and having fully lost the lead they were so careful to build up, Machine badly needed a break. Luckily, they have trained for these moments all year long.
“In that fourth quarter, when it was blow for blow, we just kept yelling ‘Wash Park,’ which is where we practice in Chicago. Emerald of the South Side,” said Schoch. “We do games to five, games to three all the time. And that’s just what this was. We do pressure cooker where the O has to hold twice in a row. And that’s just what this was.”
A De Marrée deep goal evened the game, and then PoNY went back to the well that had brought them back into the game: shooting deep. Brownlee collected the disc near the backhand sideline and set a majestic OI forehand to the back corner on the same side of the field. The throw may have been a degree too majestic for its own good, though. Wettengel had been fronting Jagt with an eye toward the disc, and he read the play immediately. A fair portion of players at Nationals – or even players anywhere – would have been able to see the play develop and make an effort to disrupt it. But very few indeed could actually have closed the gap and timed a leap at the last second to get a hand to the pass before Jagt. Wettengel did. It was the best block yet in his highlight-filled young career.
PoNY nearly got the disc back at four different moments in the backfield, bidding for virtually everythrow with abandon, before Bansfield, De Marrée, and Xavier Payne could gain any ground. Finally, Bansfield found a window to get a throw off to De Marrée to force the issue – but Brownlee defended the space well and guided De Marrée into a jump that was too early to come down with the catch.
A disastrous turnover on their own goal line on the very next play – Juengst slid for a centering pass and dropped the disc as he attempted to get to his feet – gave the half-break advantage back from PoNY to Machine, though.
It was such a bizarre moment that one cannot help but wonder, against all reason, if fate has been taking an active role in the team’s outcomes. Garvey’s injury on the second point recalled other injuries PoNY have suffered at Nationals in recent years – Jimmy Mickle, Sam Little, Jeff Babbitt, Grant Lindsley – as well as the one that felled Calvin Brown in July.1 Some unknown power, goes this line of reasoning, has blessed them with the greatest continually replenishing collection of talent but cursed them with such a burden of tragedy and folly that they have been unable to extract that collection’s fullest potential since 2018, when they won their first and only championship.
Such magical thinking is nonsense, of course, but it did not feel so far fetched when, on the very next point, the surefire PoNY equalizer transformed into yet another unexplainable mistake. Randolph, accepting a pass from Little as he leapt across the goal line, fumbled the disc. They would recover possession immediately, though, when Machine’s Jake Steslicki could not hang onto a tricky pass under intense pressure from Dameron.2 Dameron and Randolph opened a seam in transition to net PoNY’s 14th score and force universe.
“I kind of expected it to be like that,” said Schoch. “Their D’s really good, our D’s really good. They’re really athletic, we’re really athletic.”
“I think this one will go down in the ages,” said Heyman. “I grew up watching on YouTube. I would see great semis games, great finals games that were on universe. I’m glad that this will go down as one of those games that people will get to watch and hopefully learn from and enjoy for years.”
PoNY’s defense made one last stand. As he had during the first half, Randolph virtually erased De Marrée, allowing only a short away cut for a high-difficulty touch flick from Arters. But if Randolph’s excellent containment job was one of the game’s prevailing themes, so was Machine’s ability to work the offense through the other six players on the line.
“That’s something that’s been a real theme of our O this entire year,” said Schoch. “Obviously we’re not playing with Joe [White] this year, and he was such a gravitational pull. So something we talked about all year was spreading out the load.”
For much of the tournament, that kind of talk would have seemed like mere lip service: De Marrée, after all, had been amassing stats like an incorrigible hoarder. But Schoch’s statement was true when it mattered in the semi, both at the game’s start and and its end. It was with two of their most effective non-De Marrée weapons — Smith’s nimble cutting and Arters’s bazooka of a forehand — that Machine iced the game. Smith planted a foot at the front of the stack to deke Wariner into thinking he wanted the centering pass, giving himself a half-step of freedom on the open side for an away cut; Arters blasted a forehand down the line to hit him in the chest before Wariner could close the gap.
With the win, Machine advanced to the club’s third ever final – following appearances in 2019 and 2023 – in a bid to capture their first championship. A win there against Revolver would make them the ninth unique champion in the past nine seasons.
While PoNY’s loss, the latest in a string of year-end results that have left them just shy of a second championship, is a disappointment to a team built to be the best in the world, their play on the field was inspiring. Adjusting on the fly to losing Garvey, limiting De Marrée to absolute minimum productivity, pulling off a late comeback to regain the lead: the entire effort was championship-level.
“They made a couple more plays than we did,” said Heyman. “It was fun to be a part of. Unfortunately we couldn’t get it done.”
These injuries exhibited varying degrees of severity, but the upshot of each is that a crucial piece of the team’s game plan was unavailable. ↩
A replay showed such heavy contact after the turn between Dameron’s arm and Steslicki’s head that did not result in a card, but probably should have even though the turnover itself was clean. ↩
