These three defenders put forth awesome and impactful seasons.
June 17, 2026 by Aidan Thomas in Awards
Each year, Ultiworld presents our annual College Awards. Our staff evaluates the individual performances of players from throughout the season, talking to folks around college ultimate, watching film, and look at statistics, voting upon the awards to decide those to be honored. The regular season and the college Series are both considered, with extra emphasis for performances in the competitive and high-stakes environment at Nationals.
Our awards continue with the Defensive Player of the Year, recognizing the individual, and two runners-up, who we felt were the top defensive performers this spring. Whether through generating blocks, shutting down options, helping out teammates, or all of the above, these defenders stood out doing the tough work that too often go unrecognized.
- All-American First Team
- Player of the Year
- All-American Second Team
- Offensive Player of the Year Award
- Defensive Player of the Year Award
- Breakout Player of the Year Award
- Rookie of the Year Award
- Coaches of the Year Award
- Full Awards Voting Breakdown
D-I Men’s 2026 Defensive Of The Year
Nima Lhamo (UMass)
2026 Defensive Player of the Year honors belong to Nima Lhamo of national champion UMass Zoodisc. The senior played every key defensive point for UMass, and while Lhamo certainly could provide strong defense on opposing cutters, he made his living in the opponent’s backfield, marking the best handlers in the country in Zoodisc’s title run.
As UMass dispatched Cal Poly-SLO, Oregon and Carleton, Lhamo stepped up and shut down players like 2026 OPOTY runner-up Anton Orme, All-American Mica Glass, and 2025 OPOTY Declan Miller. As fifth-year teammate Jonah Stang-Osborne put it after a dominating quarterfinal win over SLOCORE: “Nima here is unbelievable…we were like ‘Nima want to go guard their best player?’ And Nima just says ‘yeah.’”
His five blocks are a part of the story, with Lhamo certainly providing some highlight moments, such as a late-game layout block on Max Massey during Zoodisc’s late-game surge past Ego. But even more than that, Lhamo’s intelligence and physicality as a defender sets him a cut above the rest. “If someone comes at me, I hold my space, find the set up I like, find their rhythm,” Lhamo said after that SLOCORE win.
Lhamo’s ability to consistently gain the edge in matchups against elite handlers and his constant, suffocating reset defense led to a countless number of “coverage sacks” that cannot be quantified in a stat book, and were part of the tipping point en route to a national championship.
– Aidan Thomas
First Runner-Up
Ryan duSaire (Carleton)
For the second straight year, Ryan duSaire is the DPOTY runner-up. The junior, playing his second collegiate campaign, was the lynchpin of the Carleton D-line, a true D-line stalwart on a team that liberally utilized crossovers from their O-line stars. duSaire was routinely relied on to provide suffocating matchup defense, with head coach Tim Schoch often opting to stick duSaire on powerful cutter and hybrid threads on opposing teams. At different times in bracket play at Nationals, duSaire stayed step for step against the likes of Pitt’s Micah Davis and Ezra Beidler-Shenk, and Colorado’s Zeke Thoreson. His three blocks at Nationals, after a seven-block performance at 2025 Nationals, was more representative of opponents being unwilling to throw it near the junior star, who will be eyeing his first DPOTY and third podium when he returns for CUT in 2026.
– Aidan Thomas
Second Runner-Up
Logan Piercy (Penn State)
One of the most versatile all-around talents in the college game, Logan Piercy is both an All-American and the DPOTY second runner-up. Piercy was one of the key architects in Penn State’s second-straight quarterfinal run in which Spank needed their D-line to produce two jaw-dropping comebacks from 11-6 down. In a stunning pool play comeback against Washington, Piercy ripped down multiple blocks in the deep space against the ever-threatening Carter Bayer as part of a three-block effort against the Sundodgers. Later, Piercy added a two-block performance in an equally impressive comeback, this one in prequarters against Oregon State. On the tournament, Piercy led the field with nine blocks, despite sitting Spank’s pool play game versus Carleton.
– Aidan Thomas
