Hybrid eye a third title in a Worlds year, while the division recovers from last season's regionals shockers by welcoming new college stars.
July 10, 2026 by Laura Osterlund, Alex Rubin, Josh Katz and TJ Lee in Preview
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Just after Pro-Elite Challenge, the first stop on the Triple Crown Tour and first big event of the 2026 club season, we’ve got you covered on all the major storylines, players to watch, and reporter hot takes in the Club Mixed Division.
Club Division 2026 Primers: Men’s | Mixed | Women’s
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Major Storylines
Can Hybrid Three-Peat?
It’s been over a decade since Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust went back-to-back-to-back at the Club Championships, and only a few teams have even had the chance to replicate that feat. Ann Arbor Hybrid are the latest team to earn a chance at a three-peat, and they’re poised to make a serious run for another title.
Fueling that challenge is Hybrid’s roster, and in particular a defensive group that brings back nearly every key contributor from last year’s suffocating unit. Two-time DPOTY Nathan Champoux leads the group, but with Lili Hobday, Ben Lewis, Dalton Smith, Annalise Meilink, and many others still on the roster, Hybrid’s defense should again be the best in the division. The offense is similarly mostly-intact, with 2025 POTY Rachel Mast leading the way, alongside Jonathan Mast, Maketa Mattimore, and Laura Gerenscer, but there’s one large hole on this line: Aaron Bartlett. He completed a three-peat of his own last year1, but has left Ann Arbor and the mixed division entirely, joining Chicago Machine this year. Hybrid have plenty of options to replace his production – imports Kai Creed, Jack Shanahan, and Eileen Bequette stand out – but Bartlett’s double-doubles won’t be easily replaced.
Also standing in Hybrid’s way is the simple fact that it’s just plain hard to win as often as they do. No team that previously won the Triple Crown was able to retain their National Championship the following year, and just two of the four even made it back to the final. There’s also the World Ultimate Club Championships later this summer, and as we’ll probably reference numerous times, it’s hard to “double peak” in one season.2 If Hybrid pull off the three-peat, they’ll be bucking a lot of historical trends in the process.
Stardom From College to Club
Every year younger players make a name for themselves in the college scene before turning around and ramping it up in the club season. And there are a lot of names to cover this year! While he may not be the biggest name player wise, the stardom of Kai Creed is impossible to ignore on Hybrid. Fellow Davenport Panther and D-III Second Team All-American Elley Smith is on Space Force, Pennsylvania’s Sydney Neal and first runner-up for D-I Player of the Year Grace Maroon take their talents to AMP, and Austin Disco Club welcomes D-III Player of the Year Ria Stevens from Rice. Drag’n Thrust adds D-III Offensive Player of the Year first runner-up from Macalester Claire Lee, who will be joining her open division peers the Suelflow twins, and while they were absent for Colorado Summer Solstice, Polar Bears pick up both Chagall and ZsaZsa Gellfand. The last couple names to rattle off here include D-III All-American Geir Hartl from Middlebury playing for Boston Slow, and Oregon Scorch adding more Lewis & Clark players in the form of Sam London and Amelie Steer.
There are so many other stars taking their talents to the mixed scene this year, it is simply impossible to name them all. But some quick numbers from these players: these twelve players combined for 86 goals, 216 assists, and 119 blocks. Whether you’re looking for someone to quarterback the offense from the handler set, complete hucks, lock up on defense, or get crucial handblocks (Bonus points for turning said handblock into a callahan), these are the players you want. And since most of the turnovers these players produced came from them having to do everything for their team, you can count on the deeper rosters that club provides to see some cleaner statsheets, too!
Five of the twelve names listed above have been in action at PEC East, so you get to see the impact they have provided. For the remaining seven, fans will have to wait until PEC West to see the rest. But make no mistake, these kids will be crucial aspects to their club’s performance this year.
Tiered Preseason Power Rankings
Tier 1 – Title Favorites
- Ann Arbor Hybrid
- New York XIST
- Fort Collins shame.
Hybrid, the back-to-back champs. XIST, last year’s runner-up. shame., who gave Hybrid the toughest test of anyone at Nationals last year. All three have added some firepower this year (some more so than others – looking at you, XIST roster with Emma Piorier, Theresa Yu, Ben Katz, and Theo Shapinsky). Even in a division defined by chaos, it would be a shock to see a team not in this trio winning a title.
Tier 2 – Contending Class
- Boston Slow
- Seattle BFG
- Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust
- Boston Sprocket
Assuming the three teams in the top tier are locks for semis (a risky assumption, but one we’ll make for now), that saves one spot for the rest of the division. This quartet seems like a safe cutoff for the likeliest teams to fill that spot. Four teams who have been established at the top of the division for years and with star-studded rosters. Take your pick between Slow’s Yuge Xiao, BFG’s Conor Belfield, Drag’n’s Caleb Denecour, or Sprocket’s Tannor Johnson-Go as the most likely to push their team to Semifinal Saturday.
Tier 3 – Questions to Answer
- San Francisco Polar Bears
- Durham Toro
- Austin Disco Club
- Sacramento Tower
- Seattle Mixtape
- Philadelphia AMP
Everyone in this tier shows promise, but questions linger. Some are more existential, like Toro’s suspicious lack of a roster to date. Some are curious, like if all of Polar Bears’ collegiate stars coalesce together and if they can survive the gauntlet of Southwest Regionals. Some are full of skepticism. Can Disco Club finally put together a full season, instead of peaking in August? Which Mixtape shows up in 2026: the one that upset BFG at Regionals, or the one that stuttered through an inconsequential, anonymous regular season? And some don’t have an underlying tone: Tower and AMP have been consistently good-but-not-great for two years, and we’d love to see proof that that might change.
Tier 4 – Gaps to Fill
- Huntsville Space Force
- Washington DC Rally
- California Burrito
- San Francisco Mischief
- Nashville ‘Shine
- Denver Mile High Trash
- Arizona Lawless
Some of the teams in this tier are losing a star player this year and must adapt, improvise, and overcome. Rally lose the always-underrated Sami Smalling, who joins Scandal. Mile High Trash apparently lose last year’s MMBPOTY runner up, Riley Kirkman-Davis, who was listed as a practice player on their roster graphic. And Lawless, who have become synonymous with Travis Dunn, now have to play without him and many of their other top MMPs. Others in this tier exist in a complicated region that’s always hard to parse, especially early in the season.
Tier 5 – Best of the Rest
- Los Angeles Lotus
- Salt Lake Sego
- Roma Ultima
- Savannah Conspiracy
- Toronto UNION
With all due respect to these five teams, it’s far more likely that none of them finish the year inside the power rankings than any one of them qualifies for Nationals. Then again, after Conspiracy’s run last year, anything is possible,
Post-PEC East Rankings
Bid Range Per Region
Great Lakes – Minimum: 1 / Maximum: 2
He won a title in 2023 with DC Truck Stop before joining Hybrid. ↩
In the last three WUCC cycles, just two teams have won both WUCC and USAU Club Nationals, though both of those teams were in the Mixed division. ↩
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