Swiss-style rounds brought clashes between D-I and D-III titans as the regular season draws to a close
March 29, 2026 by Zack Davis and Aidan Thomas in Recap
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.
East Coast Invite has an unusual format and a great blend of teams and programs to serve as a regular season finale. There are D-I programs in the women’s division battling for strength bids, D-III title contenders in the women’s division, and a few men’s division clubs looking to make a name for themselves. And everybody’s tuning up for the Series.
D-I Women’s (and Men’s)
Wind Was the Great Equalizer
Nothing impacts ultimate frisbee like a nice, strong wind, and that was once again the case on Saturday, with a consistent 15-20 mph wind creating an upwind/downwind game for virtually the entire day. This led to a lot of low-scoring games with tight margins, as upwind breaks were at a premium and often accompanied by an ensuing downwind break.
Tight margins are the enemy of teams trying to maximize their algorithm points in the regular season’s final weekend, as it makes it difficult to create the large margins of victory that teams on the bubble desire against lower-ranked opponents. That being said, virtually every team campaigning for one of the two available strength bids powered through, garnering strong results throughout the day.
Women’s Division Bid Watch
It’s hard to argue that anybody had a better day than the #16 Northeastern Valkyries. Entering the day hanging onto the final strength bid, the Valkyries powered their way up the rankings with a 4-0 day that included three wins by at least six points and a big universe-point win over #20 Notre Dame Echo. Sonja Lee quarterbacked the Valkyries alongside Taylor Kenneth with their fluid handler movement opening things up for the Northeastern offense.
#22 Georgetown Huckin’ Foyas and #23 Wisconsin Bella Donna also put together strong day one performances to find their way into the first-place bracket on Sunday. Bella Donna squeaked past Columbia to start the day, and then blew out lower-ranked Rutgers and D-III Wellesley sandwiched around a 13-6 loss to Penn, the ninth-ranked team on Projected Rankings. The blowout loss should be the death knell to Bella Donna’s strength bid hopes, as Wisconsin needed a Herculean effort to climb the 200-plus points into bid range.
However, Wisconsin, whose offense flowed through handlers Hannah Nygard and Abigail O’Callaghan and a deep cutting corps, will get another shot at Venus in the semifinals on Sunday morning.
Georgetown suffered a damaging loss to D-III Middlebury in their second game, a universe-point defeat. However, they throttled Pittsburgh and NYU before closing with a statement performance — 12-8 over Echo, who had beaten Georgetown 9-4 earlier in the season. The Huckin’ Foyas’ offense was engineered by lefty handler Sophie Westen, while Eleanor Heller was frequently open in the cutting space.
Ohio Stacked Cats put forward a 3-1 performance on Saturday, but they finished in fifth on tiebreakers, just short of the first-place bracket. A windy, 6-5 loss to D-III reigning champs Wesleyan was a bit of a gut punch for the Stacked Cats, who gave up a brutal mid-game upwind break on a point that took north of 12 minutes. Ohio handled business in their other three contests, but their relegation to the fifth-place bracket will make obtaining the necessary algorithm points a little more difficult. They’ll take on in-state regional rival Ohio State Fever Sunday morning, with a D-III opponent awaiting them in their tournament finale, regardless of result.
With the Projected Rankings being updated after the first few results of Saturday, some intriguing updates included #18 Vermont Ruckus climbing back into the top 20 (likely due to the quality of that Northeastern loss continuing to improve) and giving New England both the strength bids outside of the Northwest and Southwest.
Major Moments & Standout Performances
Northeastern’s universe win over Notre Dame was one of the biggest moments of the day. While Echo didn’t have much in the way of bid-earning possibilities at stake (with the Great Lakes a one-bid region), Northeastern needed the signature result in a big way. The Valkyries opened up a 7-3 halftime lead beyond Lee’s calm backfield presence, and an opportunistic defense that generated multiple upwind breaks.
However, Echo battled back to get the game to 8-8 and double-game point, and they even got a turn on the game’s final point. Faced with a nervy situation, Northeastern stayed calm, got the disc back almost immediately and punched in a downwind hold for a critical victory in one of the best games of the day at Delaware Turf Complex.
Elsewhere, a few other teams clinched breaking seed in convincing fashion. Liberty Flames, seeded no.17 in the 32-team field, rattled off three straight victories to start their tournament, including wins over a higher-ranked NYU squad and D-III power Middlebury. They gave UPenn their toughest test of the day in a 12-8 loss to round out their day. The Flames ran through Mallory Clark, who was impressive both defensively and as the centerpiece of the Liberty offense and led her squad to multiple Saturday upsets. Liberty will join Penn State, Notre Dame, and Kenyon in the ninth-place bracket.
Columbia Chimera (no.28 seed) rolled past no. 10 American in a 10-5 upset as part of an impressive 2-2 day in which they also took Wisconsin to universe. Chimera find themselves in the 13th-place bracket on Sunday.
Men’s Division
While the men’s division had significantly less in the way of bid-earning drama, there were a lot of regional seeding battles playing out. The Cinderella story of the day belongs to Temple Alert, as the no.11 seed went 4-0, upsetting no.6 seed Notre Dame to claim their pool before throttling fourth-seeded Cornell 13-6 and advancing to the semifinals on Sunday. They’ll take on SUNY-Buffalo, who upset no.2 Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals.
The other semifinal will be top-seeded Georgetown, who used a late surge to pull away from Syracuse in quarterfinals, and Yale, who didn’t give up more than five goals in any game on Saturday.
D-III Women’s
Wind Resistance
The wind served as an all-time defender for the first two games of the day, with wind holding steady around 15 mph. Teams struggled to score upwind, with some electing to just punt and play defense when given the chance. Luckily, the wind calmed considerably after the midday break, and teams could play some normal ultimate in the last two games of the day.
Sneetches Ascend
The one team that didn’t have much trouble in the wind was #3 Haverford and Bryn Mawr Sneetches. They logged an 8-3 win in their first game against #11 Mount Holyoke Daisy Chain and a 10-6 win over reigning D-I Metro East champions Cornell. Wind or no wind, it didn’t matter to HBM. The Sneetches came back from the midday break and won the 2025 championship rematch against the #1 Wesleyan Vicious Circles in dominant fashion, 10-5. Unfortunately, they couldn’t quite keep it going in game four, falling 12-6 to D-I #16 Northeastern Valkyries.
In what was definitely their best game of the day, the Sneetches scythed through the Wesleyan zone on offense and smothered their handler set on defense. Wesleyan, who found success in their first two games with the zone, couldn’t adjust their defensive set enough to account for the significant decrease in wind. Not that Haverford and Bryn Mawr gave them much of a chance to set up: half of the time, the Sneetches were in the red zone before Wesleyan could catch up. This was a dual effect of HBM outpacing Wesleyan in transition and the Sneetch defense forcing a number of turnovers in the backfield. As good as Scout Noble, Maggie Brown, Milo Brown, and Sofia Canoutas-Nadel can be with the disc in their hands, the Sneetches were piling pressure on the Vicious Circle handlers.
Particularly impressive for the Sneetches was 2025 DPOTY co runner-up Rufus Helmreich, who was impactful on both sides of the disc. They were flying around on defense, setting up a no-fly zone in the deep space that allowed the rest of the defense to force so many turnovers from the handlers. On offense, Helmreich was immensely patient with the disc and incredibly explosive when cutting. Not to be outdone in the handler space, co-DPOTY runner-up Erica Collin (who gets taller every point) was conducting affairs from the center handler space. The Sneetch veteran was surgical with passes and would find the perfect moment to fly towards the end zone. She was also instrumental in limiting break chances for opposing teams. Sonia Nicholson was another key component of the Sneetches’ success, finding pay dirt and giving the Sneetch handlers an easy target.
Bad (Good) Moon Rising
Despite faltering early to the #2 Middlebury Pranksters 10-9, #4 Carleton College Eclipse went on to win their next three by multiple goals over Case Western Reserve, #19 Williams Nova, and Pittsburgh. Their opener against the Pranksters was particularly unlucky, as the only upwind break of the game was on universe, where Middlebury worked the disc nearly full field to punch it in. Much of Eclipse’ success was driven by the usual suspects in Molly Horstman Olson and Maddy Brown, but outdoing them all was Sadie Begtrup, who logged a callahan on the stat sheet in the Middlebury match.
Bracketology
Carleton and Haverford and Bryn Mawr will face off tomorrow morning for a chance at fifth place. It’s hard not to think of the Sneetches as a favorite, but Eclipse continue to surprise.
D-III fans will get more matchups in the 17th-place bracket, which houses Middlebury, Wesleyan, and Mt. Holyoke, along with Case Western. Should Middlebury and Wesleyan advance, it will be the second time we’re treated to a 1v2 power ranked matchup this season, and hopefully a less windy one.
Around the Complex
- Most of the D-III field finished 2-2, including Wesleyan, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Kenyon, and Middlebury. Williams is the only D-III team that finished below .500 with a 1-3 record.
- Milo Brown’s fake flick to breakside backhand is unguardable.
- The Sneetches have far and away the best cellies, but Sonia Nicholson is on another level entirely. I hope the Sneetches are saving some sauce for natties.
- Ella Widmyer’s vision is second to none. Middlebury’s ace is a scary talented thrower at her age.
- Ohio Stacked Cats veteran Cat Turney had an incredible performance against Wesleyan. Turney had a massive layout block in the later stages of the game.
