May 24, 2026 by Theresa Diffendal and Zack Davis in Recap
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#2 Middlebury Pranksters are the winners of the 2026 National Championship in the D-III women’s division, solidly defeating the #6 Whitman Sweets 15-6. They once again ascend to the top step of the podium, after only two brief years on lower tiers. Though Ella Widmyer was a clear driving force for the Pranksters, it was their depth that powered Middlebury to a win. After a first few contentious points, the Pranksters played like they had a flight to catch, and took charge well before the first half had ended.
The first five points had fans thinking the game would be very one-sided, in the sense that teams could only score on one side of the field. The midwestern wind that had been missing for the second portion of the men’s final made a dramatic re-entrance in the minutes preceding the opening pull for the women’s game and never really let up.
Middlebury elected to start downwind, and Whitman’s opening O-line couldn’t get anything going on the initial drive. After Whitman’s first turn, Kate Campbell went down with a non-contact knee injury while trying to defend Widmyer. She did not return for the remainder of the game. Her absence was definitely felt by the Sweets, especially down the stretch as Campbell’s ability to play both sides of the disc effectively was instrumental in securing holds in the windy weather.
The complexion of the early part of the game was also defined by plenty of calls. While it never got chippy, the calls were clearly setting the tone in two distinct ways. First, it was clear from the jump that both teams were not willing to abide anything that would give the other a clear advantage. Every stoppage of play came with at least a brief discussion, and many led to contested calls as a result.
The second: it was clear that neither team wanted to go to the observers. Many discussions went on for quite some time, but never to the observer. One early down call made by the observer was overruled by the players, and play resumed. Neither team seemed comfortable turning over the fate of their title to a third party.
Despite the high volume of calls, the lengthy discussions, and the clear intensity brought to the field by the players, there was never any real animosity between the two teams. The closest it got was a tense discussion between Gabbie Campbell and Sasha Hanna during the fourth point, when Campbell called an off-disc foul. Campbell then proceeded to hit the spin button and score out of the stoppage.
That was to tie the game at two apiece, and was the last time it felt competitive for Whitman. Middlebury proceeded to hold downwind, then a marathon point ensued that resulted in the first of many upwind breaks for the Middlebury Pranksters. The real standout performance during this point, and for much of the rest of the contest, came from Amy Li. A rookie, Li plays like someone with at least a hundred games of experience. On offense her cuts are sharp and confident, her movements efficient and compact, her throws accurate, flat, and seemed to ignore the wind that was plaguing the other 13 players on the field. She’s quite capable on defense as well, clamping down some of Whitman’s best cutters and frustrating handlers with an incredibly tight mark.
Middlebury’s initial upwind break was the start of a five point run for them, that was only ended by Julia Hanson, Ingrid Noren, and Gabbie Campbell offensive take over, but the Whitman D-Line just didn’t have an answer for the Prankster’s offensive prowess to claw back some of the point difference and Middlebury took half 8-3.
Out of the half Middlebury clearly wasn’t letting off the gas, as they opened with an upwind hold capped off by an amazing finger tip grab through contact by Avery Goldstein. Whitman wasn’t interested in going softly into that goodnight, and seemed to have found their footing, with Campbell going nearly every other, weaving very well with Ingrid Noren, Julia Hanson, Amelia Atack, and Josephine Bygrave to slice through the Pranksters’ zone. Unfortunately one wasn’t enough, as the Whitman D-line was again overpowered by the dynamic duo of Widmyer and DeSilva in the handler space, both of whom were making confident upwind throws to cutters Goldstein and Cece Rhyneer.
The rest of the game was much the same, with Whitman getting chances, but unable to convert as they just couldn’t get the disc into the end zone between the ever unpredictable gusts of wind and the pressure of the Pranksters’ zone defense. Particularly impressive for the Pranksters D-line was the fluidity of transition between zone and person defense. This was especially the case in the downwind red zone and allowed them ample opportunity to do what Whitman just couldn’t quite achieve with any level of consistency: score upwind. Li, once again, was instrumental in these moments, but also impressive was Sasha Hanna, who frequently matched up on Gabbie Campbell, Ruby Salisbury who constantly clogged the throwing lanes, Ellie Sebesta who made each throw high pressure from the cup, and Kaia Ganzell who won more than one point for the Pranksters with her legs.
Despite the fairly one-sided final, there were plenty of bright spots for the Whitman Sweets. Gabbie Campbell was, as she was all tournament, transcendent. Anja Floisand had an incredible performance throwing the disc for the Sweets in both directions, Ollie Fox was constantly threatening deep on offense, and generating plenty of turns via run-through blocks, and Wyatt Albright was as elusive as ever as a cutter. To highlight two Sweets in particular is maybe a fool’s errand, but Allee Garver and Julia Hanson’s performances make it worthwhile.
Garver was given the unenviable task of slowing down Ella Widmyer, an impossibility for most made merely difficult by Garver. Widmyer didn’t have quite the impact one might expect from the star player of the best team in the nation, and that was largely due to Garver’s lock down defense and good marking. Hanson was the Sweet that had the wind figured out the most, moving the disc with a lot of skill and hauling in more than her fair share of wayward passes while playing tenaciously on defense, flinging herself at anything remotely close.
At the end of the day though it was the Pranksters who ended up on top. The three seniors, Molly Snow, Avery Goldstein, and Cece Rhyneer, following the game were emotional. They were clearly enjoying the accomplishment of rising again to the championship after coming so close the year before, but also already reflecting on the long journey they had taken to get there, savoring the last vestiges of their college career. They were shocked out of their reveries by their teammates dumping water from their coolers on them in celebration.
What was going through Rhyneer’s head after her incredible journey is what she’s going to take away most from her four years as a Prankster. “Having a self-led team that’s intrinsically motivated led by your peers has a really powerful effect on the team,” she said. Rhyneer didn’t play a single minute of frisbee before going to Middlebury and now after playing four years and being a part of the leadership team in her final year. “What I hope that does for the rest of the team is just show that if you put in the work you can get anywhere you want.”
Snow too had some life lessons to take away from her experience. “The two words we were thinking about going to this weekend were just playing with joy and playing with trust, and by the end of this weekend and throughout the season we feel like we’ve developed so much trust within this team,” she said. “That’s what brings out depth and our fire to our team.”
“We’re a team of just three seniors,” Goldstein said, picking up the thread from Snow, “a majority freshman team, and everybody really bought into learning and I think that really showed today.” She also added that “I just feel so grateful to have done it with these two incredible people right next to me.”
The three of them also gave big praise to former players who inspired them and helped them in their journey. Players like Claire Babbott-Bryan, Keziah Wilde, Niamh Carty, Sarah Rifkin, Madelyn Lander, and “literally everyone.” To the players with some years as a Prankster still ahead of them they said: “Have fun, savor it, it becomes more special every single year.”
To be clear, although Middlebury is losing three incredibly talented players and three incredibly mature leaders, there are a plethora of very capable young athletes on this Pranksters team willing and able to take up the mantle and push this team to improve. While it may be lonely at the top, when it comes to the Middlebury Pranksters, they’ll always have each other.
