Kicking off the 2026 college season!
January 22, 2026 by Edward Stephens and Kiana Hu in Preview, Video
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2026 college ultimate season 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.
The first leg of the Southwest Triple Crown Tour1 kicks off the 2026 season in style! Most of the top programs in California, a host of strong Northwest teams, Canadian contenders, and a smattering of travelers from the Eastern half of the country will step onto the line in Santa Barbara. Almost to a team they have their eyes set on Nationals, and this weekend will provide the first major proving ground.
The women’s division, with six preseason top-10 representatives, could provide an early preview of the national final (and a rematch of the 2025 final!), and will likely only be rivaled by Northwest Challenge at the end of the season in terms of overall strength. The men’s division does not have quite as sterling a top end, with only one team in our preseason top 10, but, like the women’s division, features a crowded and intriguing field one tier down and will have serious bid implications.
We’ve got you covered for all the exciting action this weekend. Follow along on the Santa Barbara Invite 2026 Event Page for livestreams and updates throughout the weekend. The event begins January 23rd, LIVE on Ultiworld.com. Read on for streaming details and previews of all the main storylines.
How To Watch
You will need an Ultiworld Standard or All-Access subscription to be able to watch games from the Santa Barbara Invite. Or get access for your entire team and coaching staff with a 2026 College Team Pack!
All broadcasted games will be available on-demand for viewing immediately following the live broadcasts.
Full Broadcast Schedule
Tournament Preview
Women’s Division
The Return of the Greats
It seems like the women’s division field at Santa Barbara Invite gets stronger every year as top teams are drawn to the allure of establishing themselves as contenders from the get-go. Reigning champions #1 British Columbia Thunderbirds and runner-up #2 Carleton Syzygy headline the tournament, but the field is even deeper than that: #4 Oregon Fugue, #5 Stanford Superfly, #7 Colorado Quandary, and #10 Cal Poly SLO all look to prove they’re within striking distance of the top two.
It’s easy to imagine that UBC and Carleton, returning most of their key players from the championship game just seven months ago, will be able to just cleat up and dominate. After all, these are deep, proven rosters led respectively by Mika Kurahashi, World Games silver medalist and 2025 Player of the Year, and Chagall Gelfand, a leading assister for Drag’n Thrust at Club Championships and 2025 POTY runner-up. With such a cornucopia of talent, SBI will be a chance for both teams to try out some new schemes in what will likely be a finals rematch.
But not so fast—every team has kinks to work out at the first major tournament, and another squad may just find the Achilles’ heel of these two teams with the right arrow. Returning another 2025 POTY podium finisher in Clil Phillips is Colorado, a team which has also honed rising stars such as Faye Burdick and Leyla Williams.
Oregon may not be too far behind either, similarly looking to the veteran leadership of Trout Weybright and Acacia Hahn. With the (re)debut of Esther Filipek, anything is possible for #5 Stanford Superfly, especially if their morphing zone can catch teams off guard. The hype has been real for Cal Poly SLO after their first Nationals appearance, and their grit and determination may just be the edge they need to outlast the competition.
Early Season Proving Grounds
With such a strong field present, bear in mind that SBI is the first stop on a much longer journey. Some teams are notorious for their gradual ramp up, while other teams come bursting out the gate and lose steam later down the line. These are some questions that will be top of mind while watching.
What impact will we see from this year’s rookie class? We already know some of the big names: Zsa Zsa Gelfand for Cal Poly, Chloe Hakimi for Carleton, Grace Liu for UBC, Kate Barry2 for #20 Utah Spiral Jetty, Eva Hayes Bell for BYU. But just how strong of a mark will each of these players make on already talented teams?
Who will step up to fill roles left behind? #21 UCSB Burning Skirts lose a powerhouse duo in Laura Blume and Devin Quinn. Regional rivals #16 UCSD Dragon Coalition lose a similar pair in Abigail Shilts and Tori Gray. Who will we see rise up from each of these teams to drive their offense and put the clamps on defense? Utah will be without Lily Terpstra due to injury—could we see aforementioned transfer Kate Barry stepping into a similar dynamo role?
Which Teams Will Show the Highest Ceiling?
The chances for upsets are high while all the teams are still figuring out how to put the pieces together. We may very well see some flashes of brilliance from unexpected contenders. Can #11 UCSC Sol use their gunslinging prowess to top their pool? #15 UC Davis Rogue has a slightly different handler core—will they utilize this to throw some new looks and challenge their Saturday match-ups? Perhaps a resurgent #22 Victoria Vikes team will put together a clean performance to surprise favorites Colorado and Cal Poly SLO.
Which region is the bid cap most likely to affect? With a 5-bid limit per region imposed by USAU, the Northwest and Southwest teams may both potentially get shortchanged. Both regions have six teams in the power rankings, and a clustering of those teams are right around the cutoff range. SBI will be our first glance of which unlucky squads will find themselves on the right side of the rankings but the wrong side of USAU guidelines.
Men’s Division
The Reading on the Orme-ometer
This time a year ago, the annual Friday night showcase match highlighted two things. The first was, obviously, that we had seriously missed on BYU when we didn’t rank them. But more tellingly for the shape of the championship season, it showed how dependent SLOCORE were on Kyle Lew and Anton Orme for offensive production. Now that Lew is gone, where does that leave Orme? He’ll be great, of course, that’s not the issue. But keeping an eye on how much the other pieces (Alex Nelson, Max Gade, Ari Pincus, Hayden King) are able to accomplish without involving him should be a key indicator for what we can expect from them all season long.
Utah’s Ceiling
A year after they broke through to Nationals, are #15 Utah Zion Curtain ramping up for a serious bracket run? The talent remains stellar: Will Selfridge is stratospheric, and any of Oscar Brown, Grayson Rettberg, Elijah Watchalatone, and Henri de St. Germain could take a big step forward to join him at that level. Furthermore, they’ve picked up a crucial transfer in Utah native Max Dehlin, who spent a few years in Minnesota before returning home. Tests against both #12 UC Santa Cruz Slugs and #8 BYU CHI await them on day one. Winning both of those games is possible, and it would mean that we’ve severely underrated them.
UC Santa Cruz’s Floor
Speaking of UC Santa Cruz, we could learn a lot about them after only a single weekend of play. There’s little doubt that with an established star (Toby Warren), a cast of key returners in leadership positions (Milan Moslehi, Selim Jones, Mario Ambrose), and a couple of budding stars with a crucial year of experience under their belts (Cole Mires, Gabriel Schwartz-Ketchner) they have the pieces to push for a quarters finish at Nationals, which would be a high watermark for the program. That said, we don’t have a sense of where the low end of the range is – yet. If they take care of business on Saturday without issue and, if not win the tournament, lose respectably in semis or the final, then it’s not far below their ceiling. But if they stumble here against a lower seed, it will be hard to shake the feeling that they could do so again down the line at Nationals, or even Southwest Regionals.
Center Stage for BYU
Real talk, just like at various points in recent years, BYU could be the best team at SBI. The front half of their annual cross-country sixteen-games-in-eight-days gauntlet – they’ll be at Florida Warm Up next weekend – begins with a pair of Friday night showcase games against Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara Black Tide. BYU retains the scintillating two-way duo of Simon Dastrup and Jensen Wells, but are down to just one Yorgason (McKay) now that Luke and Chad have graduated. That should be enough to be very good, particularly with Justin Mecham, Evan Miller, and Sean McDonald still in the fold. Whether they become once again the world-beating CHI of the past will depend in large part on how much production they get from a pair of very intriguing rookies, Everett Saunders and Preston Hawkes. The two of them were last seen as high schoolers alongside Will Selfridge making big contributions for the Killjoys at Club Nationals in 2021.
Dark Horses Abound
The real meat to nourish the college ultimate sickos is found below the headline teams, though, as various Nationals and sub-Nationals contenders look to force their way into the limelight. Could #23 Washington Sundodgers (Carter Bayer, Ben Bolan) actually put it together in 2026 en route to becoming a divisional powerhouse? When – O when? – will #18 UBC Thunderbirds (Justin Podnar, Rex Yuen) and #22 Victoria Vikes (Max Pettenuzzo, Nyle Lebbell) seriously capitalize on their star potential? What can #20 Cal Ursa Major (Carter Lankford, Ridge Huang) accomplish in the post-Clyburn era? And is there an unranked team – like Utah Valley Ultimate or UCLA Smaug – that we’ve completely missed in the preseason build-up?
