Recognizing the top seven performers of the 2025 season.
November 10, 2025 by Graham Gerhart and Edward Stephens in Awards
Ultiworld is pleased to announce our annual Club Awards, starting with the All-Club First Team and Player of the Year finalists in each division. While we consider both regular season and postseason performance, because of the nature of the Club division, we weight success in the Series and at Nationals above all else. The Club Awards are voted on by Ultiworld reporters, contributors, and editors.
Our All-Club teams recognize the top performers across the division. Our First Team and Second Team display the top seven and next seven players who had the best seasons. As our voting process is ordered, the top vote-getters for All-Club honors function as the ordered list in our Player of the Year voting — our highest individual award. The seven players listed here are finalists for the Player of the Year.
Player of the Year Award
All-Club First Team
All-Club Second Team
Offensive Player of the Year Award
Defensive Player of the Year Award
Breakout Player of the Year Award
Coach(es) of the Year Award
Club Awards Voting Breakdown
Snubs and Superlatives
All-Club 2025 First Team
Manuela Cárdenas (Molly Brown)
Cárdenas kicked off Nationals with three layout blocks over the course of a Molly Brown universe point thriller over Scandal and didn’t look back. Taking every other pass, every brutal matchup, and every tough shot, she was at the forefront of every attack. The way the team rose alongside her confirmed that she sparked Molly’s run to semis, making what had seemed improbable before the tournament suddenly feel inevitable.
Dena Elimelech (Fury)
Elimelech’s game continues to age like a fine wine. She’s never needed a new facet to her game or some crazy ramp-up with her ability. Each new season with her is the same as the year before, just slightly more refined and abundantly more clear that she can make plays on the field no other player can. You can count on one hand the number of players who are worth a block a game, Elimelech is not only at the top of that list, she might also be the only player you can pencil in for a handblock a game. Somehow, despite all of this, it’s been her offense this year that has raised eyebrows. She’s Fury’s multitool. One that happens to contain a buzzsaw, a jetpack, and a flamethrower for good measure.
Kaela Helton (Flipside)
It’s unclear why the Spaniards spent centuries searching South America for the Fountain of Youth when they clearly could have just asked Kaela Helton. San Diego’s team leader once again led Nationals in cumulative goals and assists, combining for 39 on only 7 turns1. That’s efficiency to its highest degree. The savvy playmaking and field vision has overtaken Helton’s sheer athleticism, but you’re not going to find a single player in the division who’d want to take her on in a footrace, either. Helton’s everything you could ask for as a teammate, her spot on this list was never in question.
Liv Player (Brute Squad)
Shifting between divisions can be rocky, but Player didn’t spill a drop of her overwhelming skill in the move from Sprocket to Brute Squad. She torched the women’s division in 2025 the same way she torched the mixed division in 2024: with assured power cutting, extreme focus in contested disc moments, and a wicked away flick. She is one of the primary reasons Brute were able to capture the championship.
Anna Thompson (Fury)
What verve, what nerve, what energy, what ambition! Thompson’s rampage through the tail end of the 2025 season – she sat out some of the beginning in preparation for what would be a world-beating World Games appearance – was a wonder to behold. Refusing to give ground at any point, Thompson used her unmistakable attack-always style to power Fury all the way to the championship game.
Claire Trop (Scandal)
Taking more shots than ever before, Trop was once again Scandal’s most potent offensive star. She owned the lanes, owned the wind, owned the skies, and owned her matchup en route to a fifth consecutive First Team All-Club selection. She capped off her double-double (10G/16A) with a big third-place game to propel Scandal to the World Ultimate Club Championships in 2026.
Levke Walczak (Brute Squad)
Big game moments help separate the good from the great: Levke Walczak lives for them. Unabashedly fearless with her throws and her defensive plays, Walczak has become the face of European ultimate and is quickly taking over US ultimate, too. There are stories of her joining league teams and pickup games from around the nation and absolutely dominating the competition just for the fun of it. That’s a player who loves this sport, loves to win, and deserves every accolade she gets.
The next closest was Brute Squad’s Levke Walczak, 37 combined assists and goals but more than double the amount of turnovers at 16 ↩
