While the men's division went largely to seed, day one brought some surprises in the mixed and women's divisions and set up an exciting Sunday bracket
July 12, 2026 by Graham Gerhart, Aidan Thomas and Zack Davis in Recap
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2026 club ultimate season 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.
Though pool play in the men’s division at Pro-Elite Challenge West went largely to seed as all competitors made the bracket, match play in women’s produced some surprises — like San Diego Flipside scoring an opening round universe win over Seattle Riot — while the mixed division was as topsy-turvey as ever, with three of the top pool seeds taking a loss and the overall no.1 seed going winless on day one. Read on for all the top stories from the west’s version of the first Triple Crown Tour event of the season!
Men’s Recap | Women’s Recap | Mixed Recap
Men’s Division
Top Seeds Star
Pool play didn’t create a lot of surprises. National title favorites #1 San Francisco Revolver and #4 Portland Rhino Slam! comfortably dispatched lower-seeded opponents, with Revolver toppling St. Louis Lounar and Florida Untied by scorelines of 15-4 and 15-5, and Rhino dismantling Denver Fungi and #17 SoCal Condors, 15-4 and 15-8.
The other top seeds, #10 Seattle Sockeye and #13 Denver Johnny Bravo, also did their job, albeit with some tighter calls. Both teams brought in a lot of new parts to compensate for some major offseason departures, and both looked to be shaking off the rust at times. Sockeye didn’t need to overexert themselves much to beat Oak Grove Boys 15-7 in their opener, but they were pushed harder by #20 Montreal Mephisto before winning 15-13. Bravo, for their part, edged past #24 Eugene Dark Star and #16 Vancouver Furious George 15-12 and 14-12, respectively, to claim their pool.
While the lower seeds headed to bracket play, the pool winners did battle in games for bracket positioning, but there was little to find in the way of surprises, as Revolver knocked off Sockeye 15-8, and Rhino handed Bravo their first loss of the young season by way of a 15-10 scoreline.
Revolver weren’t streamed on Saturday, but their scorelines hardly indicated much stress. How they incorporate additions like Anton Orme and Brett Hulsmeyer will be interesting to watch, but odds are the defending national champions won’t get truly challenged until a seemingly inevitable championship clash with Rhino.
Speaking of Rhino, Portland returned a large part of their corps and added some college talent from their de facto developmental team in Dark Star. Some of that talent shone, none bigger than Callahan Bosworth who slotted into the O-line and was a devastating deep threat, reeling in goal after goal in their streamed game against the Condors. Elsewhere on the O-line, stars Mica Glass, Trevor Smith, Raphy Hayes and Michael Ing looked to hardly miss a beat, and D-I BPOTY winner Alex Hall-Witt, a D-Line stalwart for Oregon Ego in the spring, was seemingly always open and got a ton of touches on the Rhino O-line on Saturday.
Sockeye looked to be a team with young talent that may take some time to gel. Their college stars were getting a lot of key touches, and how those younger stars develop and grow into this season may be a determining factor in whether the 2025 quarterfinalists progress or regress with their 2026 finish. Four Western Washington stars took on major roles on Saturday, as Cedar Hines took on a high-touch role in the offense, while on the other side of the ball, Zoli Ishikawa-Szabo quarterbacked the D-Line offense on a turn, Eli Diamond did a little bit of everything with a few blocks and assists, and Thomas Simms reeled in a couple of breaks as well.
The final top seed, Bravo, have some more questions to answer after playing two tight games against lower seeds and getting blown out by Rhino. They’ll have a big chance to do so against a strong Mephisto side in the quarterfinals. After losing collegiate stars Zeke Thoreson and Elliot Hawkins, Bravo had some holes to fill. Newcomer Jordan Kerr did his part, seamlessly fitting in as a hybrid on the O-line, frequently linking up with Quinn Finer to keep things moving. Other young talent like Tucker Kalmus, Nanda Min-Fink, and Axel Hartzog had their moments on the D-line, and some veterans like Kai Marshall and Jackson Cochran chipped in as well. But Bravo seemed to lack the consistency to pull away from lower-seeded opponents, and they certainly didn’t have the wherewithal to stay particularly close with Rhino, although that could say more about the latter’s quality rather than anything Bravo lacks. The Mephisto quarterfinal will be telling, as Bravo still have plenty of questions to answer about whether they’re closer to a quarterfinal level team or a team that will be fighting to earn their bid this season.
Elsewhere in the Men’s Division
The games not involving the pool top seeds meant little other than bracket positioning, with all 12 teams qualifying for prequarters. Dark Star pulled a regional surprise by knocking off Furious George – a result that could be sneakily important in the bid-earning discussion when we get to the season’s end. Untied beat Lounar, Condors edged past Fungi, and Mephisto handled Oak Grove Boys without too much difficulty.
In the prequarterfinal round, we again did not see any upsets by seed, but by virtue of Dark Star’s earlier upset, we did get a pair of top eight seeds facing off in the prequarters. There, Furious George snuck past Condors on double game point to avoid a second consecutive upset. That earned them a quarterfinal date with Revolver on Sunday morning. Meanwhile, Dark Star benefitted from their earlier upset by drawing the twelfth-seeded Fungi in prequarters and took full advantage, winning 15-10 to push into quarters. They’ll certainly have eyes on an upset against Sockeye, but regardless, they’ve broken seed and all but assured a rise in the upcoming power rankings.
To complete the lower half of the bracket, Untied knocked off Oak Grove Boys to guarantee they’ll at least hold seed. Although they face a tough quarterfinal against Rhino, Untied need just one victory on Sunday to finish above their initial no.8 seed.
Mephisto capped a solid day in which they pushed Sockeye in pool play by earning a comfortable victory in the streamed prequarterfinal. Their offense was largely clinical and smooth against Lounar, who were generally outmatched. Montreal broke once early and then twice before half to stake themselves out to an 8-4 lead. Their own offense wasn’t broken until the game was already out of hand at 12-7, and Mephisto cruised to a 15-11 win. Geoff Bevan, Vincent Lemieux and goal-machine William St. Pierre were among the offensive standouts for Mephisto, who now eye up a winnable quarterfinal clash with Johnny Bravo.
Women’s Division
Kelp Wanted
In their steamed matchup against #5 Denver Molly Brown, there were a plethora of little things that #16 Colorado Kelp needed to work on, such as swings that came after a moment of hesitation, uplines that were just behind, brackets that were a bit out of sync, hucks that hung just a teeny bit too long. It’s hard to fault Kelp for any of this, that’s just the difference between a team on the come up hoping to earn another bid for the region and an elite one trying to win another title. But if Kelp hope to contend with the Molly Browns of the division, the one thing they absolutely need to do to close the gap is to eliminate drops. As the disc slipped from the hands of Kelp players, so too did the game.
It wasn’t all miscues for Kelp though. Maggie O’Connor looked good in Kelp green and was very much on the same wavelength as Kennedy McCarthy. The two were constantly connecting, often with O’Connor finding a wide open McCarthy deep. Rena Kawabata still boasts sharp cuts and silky smooth backhands, and Mei Hecht didn’t see a mark she couldn’t break. Despite this, the South Central bid hopefuls finished the day 0-3.
For their part, Molly Brown played the role of the elite team very well. Claire Chastain is still one of them ones, as demonstrated by this moment among others.
[[MB V Kelp CLIP: 15:45ish mark (69:50 on the scorebug) elite grab from Claire Chastain]]
The Cárdenas sisters look as good as ever, with Manu in particular directing traffic very nicely for the Unsinkable. Fiona Cashin also looked like she was gelling with the team as they went 3-0 on the day with wins against Nemesis and Schwa. The real acid test for Molly Brown will be their second matchup tomorrow against #1 San Francisco Fury, their first top five matchup of the season.
Speaking of Fury
I’m not going to waste too much time here, but it’s difficult to overstate the quality of this iteration of Fury. It need to be pointed out that their closest game of the day was a 15-9 win over #18 San Francisco Nightlock. That was the game before their 15-8 win over #6 Seattle Riot. In early goings, the game1 looked even, with Fury making some unforced errors and Riot capitalizing or trying to force something and Fury denying it. Fury took half 8-7, and it seemed like it could really go either way.
Then it was just the machine. Irene Scazzieri has the ability to shrink the field on defense and expand it on offense. Defensively, she poaches off on nearly everything in her quadrant of the field on defense, and then offensively just abuses the sideline. Anna Nazarov, Dena Elimelech and Anna Thompson are still more than capable of leading this team, while roster addition Dawn Culton didn’t look like she had any trouble developing chemistry with her new teammates.
The most tangible difference in the second half though was Fury’s defense. It smothered and choked out Riot’s movement. It felt heavy and oppressive like southern humidity. There was no escaping it and it was ever present.
Chloe Hakimi, though holy moly. Poetry. It’s clear that Riot felt comfortable running their offense through Hakimi, and for good reason. Hakimi was going every-other on many of their points, either slicing up the Fury zone with give and goes or punishing their person-to-person with deep looks. Hakimi played with complete commitment and rarely made a mistake with the disc.
It’s hard to tell if Riot were near their ceiling and just on the wrong end of the Fury Effect™, or if they were limit testing and the game got away from them in the second half. First-half Riot could make semifinals, second-half might flame out in prequarters.
Schwaiting in Traffic
#9 Portland Schwa played some good ultimate today, and looked good in their streamed game against #12 Vancouver Traffic. Jesse Shofner led the charge for Schwa, doing it all for the Portland club, but was most instrumental in the red zone, abusing her matchups and creating space for Schwa to punch it in. Mara Hindery-Glasinovic was just dominant in the cutting position, reeling in a handful of goals and often assisted by Rachel Hess from power position.
The Play of the Game goes to Traffic’s Rvee Brillantes, who managed to get up and over two Portland defenders to keep possession for the Vancouver club. Brillantes was also uncorking some full-field flat-footed flicks that kept Traffic in it down the stretch.
[[Rvee Brillantes textbook roof job at 17:50 mark in Schwa v Traffic]]
Around the Complex
- Seattle Riot took the field today wearing temporary jerseys reading “ICE OUT,” “BLM,” and “Free Gaza.” Four days ago, in Houston, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Arajudo during what ICE called a “targeted enforcement operation,” according to Houston Public Media.
- #7 San Diego Flipside won 15-14 over Riot in a bit of an upset. Flipside finished 3-0 today with wins over Nightlock and Nemesis as well.
- #18 San Francisco Nightlock buried Kelp 14-7, though Kelp were just coming off a one point loss against Schwa.
Mixed Division
California Came to Play
Before the tournament started, the top four seeds heading into the event were from Arizona (Lawless), Seattle (BFG), Seattle (Mixtape), and Sacramento (Tower). After pool play ended, we instead saw Salt Lake City (Sego), Los Angeles (Lotus), the Bay Area (Polar Bears), and Sacramento (Tower). Not a bad showing for California. It didn’t stop with that, though. No California team went winless, and every one of them has made it to the quarterfinals. Not bad at all.
It’s not like there’s one winning formula they’ve adopted, either. The teams couldn’t look less alike, and yet it’s all led to success. Perhaps the most commanding performance of the group was from #12 Sacramento Tower, who rode the momentum of a Colorado Solstice final appearance into a dominant Day One. After neatly dispatching #15 San Diego California Burrito and Oregon Scorch, they marched into their crossover game and trounced #22 LA Lotus, who had been playing a near-perfect tournament before that game.
It helps that the likes of Ryan Takayama and Jacob Miller have debuted for the team this tournament, with Miller being particularly effective. Miller, Jules Madigan, and Kat Harper were the most threatening downfield offense at the tournament. In truth, Tower had an abundance of riches. Having Takayama, John Butler, and Cori Bigham as defensive stoppers already says more than enough about the depth of this team. More than anything, Tower’s strength seems to be their composure on the field. They didn’t seem to get frazzled, and didn’t seem to struggle to get resets off when the defense tightened. With their offense humming, it gave their defensive unit all the breathing room they needed to play aggressively and earn the turns that won them their games all day long.
Despite losing to Tower, the gap between Lotus and Sacramento isn’t as wide as the 15-7 score would make it seem. Lotus have a very capable offense that is maybe a little too reliant on the deep ball, but when it works, it seems impossible to contain. Against BFG,2 the Lotus game plan was unimpeachable. They denied undercuts with extreme impunity, and locked in on handler defense as the stall count rose. This forced BFG to take a ton of deep shots, which worked more often than not. But when BFG’s shots didn’t work, Lotus capitalized with visionary throws of their own. Targets like Sean McDougall and Casstique Williams gave the team an easy release valve when they needed it. The chemistry between Ethan Falat and Jesse Cohen has also been apparent. However, the Lotus game plan still has some refinement, as Tower had their number the entire game in their matchup, and managed to limit Lotus’ downfield options enough that the team forced some unnecessary mistakes early, putting them on the back foot.
The #10 San Francisco Polar Bears were the final team that emerged from pool play unscathed, and while they ran into some steep competition in the crossover game (more on that later), they looked as good as advertised. Adding Chagall Gelfand to the roster will always raise eyebrows, but the SLOCORE pipeline is a gift that keeps on giving. PBR have a roster with options, and they use it to their advantage. They can swing the disc comfortably down the field but never seem afraid to take a deep shot if the opportunity presents itself. The team didn’t get a ton of attention with streamed games on Day One, but that could all change if they maintain the high level they’ve been playing at. Their quarterfinal against California Burrito is likely going to be every bit as competitive as the others.
Speaking of California Burrito, they join #17 San Francisco Mischief as the California teams that didn’t have a perfect record heading into the bracket, but won when it mattered most. By their own admission, Burrito’s struggles in pool play were those of a team just starting their season. They were still testing lines and getting their matchups right, which coalesced just in time for them to win a tight game over Oregon Scorch, and then look a little more dynamic in their 13-7 win over Spoke.
Mischief, for their part, narrowly missed out on a perfect Day One, with a universe point loss to Sego (more on them later) that cost them the pool. In the games that they won, though, Mischief were poised and confident with their offense. Their D-line was one of the few at the tournament that utilized a vertical stack, and they ruthlessly swung the disc between handlers until given an opportunity to pounce downfield. The simplification of their offense gave them plenty of extra touches, and absolutely burnt out the offensive lines that they were playing against. They took half 8-3 over Mile High Trash largely by just grinding them into the ground.
It was a good day for California, and it’ll need to be a good day two because the losses from Lawless mean that there’s still a good chance that the Southwest won’t see the third bid that all these teams are desperately fighting for.
Don’t Sleep on Sego
Now that all the dust has settled, the only team aside from Tower who has a chance at a perfect tournament is…#23 Salt Lake Sego? The team placed fourth at Regionals last year and lost in the quarterfinals at Colorado Solstice, so their ascendance wasn’t on anyone’s radar that’s not from Utah, but maybe it should have been. Sego’s roster is filled with the top talent that’s come out of Utah’s college scene for the past few years like Eva Hayes, Oscar Brown, Alex Forsberg, and Kyra Khoroujnikova. They’re young, athletic, and have a defensive scheme that’s flustered teams all tournament. Sego were able to break through Mischief, Lawless, and Polar Bears with the strength of their defense, something that should carry them well headed into the bracket.
Seattle’s Looking Shaky
Despite sending three teams to the tournament, including the no.2 and no.3 seeds, Seattle had a rough go of it on Day One. Spoke weren’t able to break through a tough pool with both Lotus and BFG, but the buzzsaw that was California Burrito in their prequarter matchup really put the nail in the coffin. #4 Seattle BFG and #14 Seattle Mixtape fared a little better, but both had surprising losses in pool play.
Lotus caught BFG off guard with a carefully executed defensive gameplan that used BFG’s favorite strategy against them. The deep ball that this team has cut their teeth on for years was presented as their only opportunity from the get-go, as Lotus aggressively fronted them and dared the handlers to risk hucks even in suboptimal positions. While BFG were comfortable taking these shots, they missed often enough that Lotus built up a lead. It was the first time this year that BFG’s hyper-aggressive offense was used against them so thoroughly, and it’s unlikely to work again considering the talent on Seattle’s roster. The loss can’t be counted against BFG too much — they did lose in pool play at Solstice — but it’s still going to penalize them in the rankings when all’s said and done. It also set them on the same side of the bracket as the red-hot Sego, for better or worse. After today, Sego seem like the team to beat. The good news for BFG is that they’ve done it before, and convincingly.
Mixtape’s loss to Polar Bears didn’t send quite as many ripples through the tournament. Polar Bears are a franchise with a fearsome reputation and this most recent iteration of the team is living up to it. Mixtape have the pedigree to match, and a 14-12 loss shouldn’t set off any alarm bells. One point of note for Mixtape: how impressive Zeppelin Raunig has been. The young phenom was everywhere on the field for Mixtape in their games, especially against Mile High Trash. If there’s one criticism to make, it’s that the team rides the line of being a little too reliant on his explosiveness at times. If opponents can limit him, Mixtape’s downfield options will suddenly have to shoulder a much larger burden. The good news is that their veteran handlers have proven to be more than capable of carrying the team at times, so there’s still plenty to like about this team, even with their pool play loss.
Keep an Eye on the Quarterfinals
While Day One brought plenty of great games to wet the appetite, the quarterfinals are by far the real meat on the bone here. Thanks to the way the bracket shook out, we’re getting the fight for the Northwest between BFG and Sego, the battle of Coastal Elites in Mixtape vs. Lotus, and two California classics in Polar Bears vs. Burrito and Mischief vs. Tower. Calling the favorites in any of these games is all but impossible with no clear standouts and plenty of reasons why the fates may fall as they will. With no soccer/football on the schedule for Sunday, there’s no reason not to tune in.
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