The three-day premier February tournament brings the long-awaited debut of teams seeking a national title
February 11, 2026 by Matt Fazzalaro and Edward Stephens in Preview, Video
Ultiworld’s 2026 college coverage 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.
Every year the middle of the D-I college season is inaugurated with Presidents’ Day Invite. The final few expected contenders in both divisions will be getting their first taste of sanctioned competition, and much of the rest of the field will be implementing improvements and dialing in their sets. The competitive level is staggeringly high for both divisions, with the entire top-six power ranked teams in attendance on the women’s side, and four of the top ten (including two of the division’s vaunted top four) on the men’s side.
The Monday holiday provides the opportunity for a third day of competition, which Pres Day famously uses to facilitate power pool matchups on Day Two before the start of the bracket. That means there will be more occasions for the best teams to get reps against the best competition – and for fans to enjoy those battles – before devoting Day Three to cracking semis and finals. Read on for our full streaming schedule and a full tournament preview for both divisions.
Check out our full streaming schedule below and read on for everything you need to get prepped for three days of prime college action.
How To Watch
We’ve got you covered for all the exciting action this weekend. You will need an Ultiworld Standard or All-Access subscription to be able to watch games from the Presidents’ Day Invite 2026 Event Page. Or get access for your entire team and coaching staff with a 2026 College Team Pack!
The event begins February 14, LIVE on Ultiworld.com. All broadcasted games will be available on-demand for viewing immediately following the live broadcasts.
Full Broadcast Schedule
Tournament Preview – Women’s Division
Round 2… FIGHT
The first time this spring that the 2025 finalists and 2026 co-title favorites met – a few short weeks ago at Santa Barbara Invite – was pure cinema. #1 Carleton Syzygy, riding the powerful throwing of Chagall Gelfand, the overwhelming downfield cutting of second-years Kyliah McRoy and Eliza Barton, and the controlled chaos of Naomi Fina, staked out a sizable lead despite #2 UBC Thunderbirds star Mika Kurahashi’s heroic efforts. The T-Birds were staggered; Kurahashi left the game with an injury and the coaches chose to rest some of the other big names like Ella Bolan, Amelie Marshall, and Lauren Szeto-Fung. They brought in the second string, a furious comeback ensued, and players like Nina Tsai, Grace Liu, and Makenzi Harris immediately became figures on the national radar.1
The fact that Syzygy eventually survived the scare and closed out the game does little to dim the one key fact: the struggle of these two titanic programs against one another figures to be some of the most dramatic ultimate of the year. As the top two seeds at Pres Day, they are lined up for another battle in the final. Everyone who knows anything about ultimate should be crossing their fingers that we get Syz v. UBC Round Two on Monday.
The Dark Horse
Not so fast though. While Carleton and UBC separated themselves from the pack of challengers at SBI, there was at least one other championship hopeful biding their time: #3 Washington Element, who make their sanctioned season debut in San Diego this weekend. The 2025 semifinalists couldn’t quite finish their late run against Syzygy at Nationals last year and will no doubt want to make up for it in 2026. That starts now.
As good as UBC and Carleton have been, there’s reason to believe Element can hang with them. You don’t return players like Savanna Tucker, Lauren Goddu, Lucy Tanner, and Rowan Lymp (to say nothing of half a dozen other star-level athletes) just to hang around in the second or third tier. And it’s not just about the returners: Element boast a full line’s worth of top-notch rookies, any one of whom could make a big splash this spring. (Personally, I have seen Rachel Joy-Rocha in action and am very excited to watch her on the college stage, but she’s hardly the only major first-year.) They figure to be a traveling fireworks show, at least – don’t take my word for it, just go watch the highlights from their early January unsanctioned friendly with UBC – and, at best, 2026’s third title contenders.
Cali Supremacy
The below-the-fold success story from Santa Barbara Invite was the way #4 UC Santa Cruz Sol and #5 Stanford Superfly outperformed even our fairly rosy expectations to vault themselves to the front of a crowded Southwest. Esther Filipek’s return from injury was as good as ‘Fly could hope for, and Harper Baer and Sage McGinley-Smith continued their now routine excellence for the offense ahead of at least two more lines of high-level players. They’re a deep team, and they could make a deep run on Memorial Day.
But can Superfly handle the surging Sol? On the contrary, Sol handled the region’s longtime overlords in the SBI third place game. Rachel Chang, Ruby Gholston, Zane Bird Smith, Goodness Nwakudu, and Viola Deszily were simply sensational to start the year: they have the look of a team who know they have reached a new collective ceiling. It isn’t out of the question that they can take it up another notch and even challenge the division’s top dogs with so much skill on display. To pump the brakes on the excitement a little bit, though, it’s also conceivable that opponents will scheme a little better against their isolation long throwing (both unders and aways) and force them through an uncomfortable period of adjustment.
Lurking just off the radar, meanwhile, are tournament hosts #11 UC San Diego Dragon Coalition. Mars Bau and Sanam Rozycki-Shah led an impressive first effort at SBI, and they’re close enough to Stanford and UC Santa Cruz that they could take another step forward and leapfrog them this weekend.
Redemption Song
Seasons aren’t made in January (or February for that matter) and not every brilliant campaign starts with the most brilliant first step. With that in mind, we’re anxious to see how #6 Colorado Quandary and #12 Oregon Fugue bounce back from disappointing results at SBI.
Quandary’s case really boils down to a single game: quarters against Stanford. Their execution in that one simply wasn’t up to scratch as they tried to work through the Superfly defense and slow down the Superfly offense. There were enough good moments not to cause too much of a worry – transfer Chaily Derecskey looks great alongside Colorado’s other stars – so it was probably just a blip. Still, Quandary will be angling to be back inside the semis bubble at Pres Day, and anything less will be cause for some concern.
The situation for Fugue is a bit more severe, if only because at SBI they were so far off the mark they set last year. They barely scraped by #15 UCLA BLU before caving in – 13 to 1! – to Carleton in quarters. The day before, they put up a similarly appalling scoreline against UC Santa Cruz. There were rumblings (unconfirmed) that Fugue were dealing with some temporary off-field issues affecting the on-field product: we have to hope that’s true. Otherwise, it boggles the mind that a team with a core consisting of Trout Weybright, Syris Linkfield, Miko Magnant, Acacia Hahn, Anna Carlson, and Mara Hindery-Glasinovic would struggle so mightily. Putting it plainly, they need to perform at Pres Day.
Shaking Up and Breaking In?
A couple of interesting teams besides Washington are using Pres Day as their season debuts. #18 Western Washington Chaos are one of several Northwest region teams (like Utah Spiral Jetty and Victoria Vikes) who could be on the bubble for getting into Nationals. They fell just short last year, but the top-end talent (Amaya Krutsinger, Alexa Coca, Ollie Bunson) suggests they can get back to at least 2024 form.
The prospects for Minnesota are much more theoretical: they haven’t made Nationals since 2019. That was two team names ago, and the entirety of that gloomy period has been played in the shadow of nearby Carleton. A reason for hope, however, lays in the idea that the brimming youth programs in and around the Twin Cities are pushing college-ready athletes into the state’s flagship research university. That matriculation has begun, and we expect that it will yield results in the near future – possibly this year.
Tournament Preview – Men’s Division
We All Know What You Came Here to See
President’s Day Invite 2026 has title contenders abound, but there is no sense beating around the bush about what the people truly want. That’s right, #2 Colorado Mamabird versus #3 Oregon Ego, a rematch of last year’s D-I College semifinal is on the horizon and we are thirsty for it. The boys from Boulder got the best of Ego the last time these two met but it is a new day as they say and anything could happen this time around.
Oregon are coming off a win at PacCon where they tested this year’s mettle against regional familiars like #7 Western Washington Dirt, #6 Oregon State Beavers, and Portland UPRise. It was an uneventful tournament one would say as the collection of Mica Glass, Aaron Kaplan, Max Massey, and Raekwon Adkins unsurprisingly handled the above teams with relative ease.
Mamabird have yet to take the stage that is the 2026 College Ultimate season, and we are all eagerly awaiting their entrance into the fray. With very little turnover from their championship appearance last season, this could be the year Colorado matures into the championship team that they have been dreaming of ever since the Tobias Brooks era began. Brooks is surrounded by talent once again in the way of Nanda Min-Fink, Ryan Shigley, Sam Kilgore, and the Thoreson brothers, Zeke and Ezra. A matured Elliot Hawkins is an exciting piece to keep an eye on as well. He enters his sophomore season with experiences at the highest levels of the club and professional divisions of ultimate.
If I were a betting man, which I am, I would expect to see this clash on Sunday afternoon as one of the best matchups of this infant season we find ourselves in. When Brooks and Glass take the field separately it is always one to poke your head in on. When they take the field together… honestly buy a plane ticket to San Diego and amble out to the fields yourself.
Canadian Conquest
The Santa Barbara Invite winners, #10 Victoria Vikes, will return to California this weekend in search of another early season tournament win. Presidents’ Day Invite will be a different beast with several more ranked teams in attendance than at SBI. In order to win games, the Vikes will look to rely on their stars Max Pettenuzzo and Nyle Lebbell, who were nothing short of tremendous at SBI in January. We will see if Tasman Millen (who caught the game-winning callahan in the final) has any more of that defensive magic in his bag.
Bid Hunters and Fun Spoilers
#11 UC Santa Cruz Slugs will be looking to assert some dominance in the Southwest region this weekend. They looked large and in charge during their crusade at SBI, save for the game they dropped in the semis to eventual champions Victoria. With #18 Cal Poly SLO SLOCORE potentially fading this year after the graduation of some pivotal players, it could be time for Toby Warren and his Slugs to assume the throne in the Southwest region.
Another team you absolutely will want to keep your eye on is #6 Oregon State Beavers. We have not seen much of them this season save for a few contests at PacCon, where they dropped games to Western Washington and Oregon. On paper they have some serious talent in leaders like Ben Thoennes and Felix Moren, as well as developing young talent like Collin Kaperick. It all just depends if they can string a few good games together like we expect them to.
California Ursa Major fall into a similar category as Cal Poly where we don’t really know where they can go without their graduated players that were good enough to have their numbers retired. For SLO it was Kyle Lew and for Cal it’s Dexter Clyburn. Cal still has Carter Lankford who had some jaw-dropping individual performances at SBI, but it seems there will be work cut out for this seemingly very young team.
#20 Stanford Bloodthirsty are another team that really surprised everyone at SBI and, with the talents of Max Lee and Alexander Belfiore, could be looking to play spoiler once again this weekend. A universe point win over Cal Poly in quarters had them facing off against #16 Utah in the semis. Stanford bested Utah in pool play but unfortunately could not steal two universe wins in a row as Utah punched their ticket to the final. All that to say, this Stanford team could be legit and we are excited to see what they have this weekend as they stack up against bigger and better opponents.
It could go without saying, but let’s say it: the major contributors on these teams were far more than the handful named in the paragraph, but you can’t list everybody every time. ↩
