A heroic layout saved Revolver from a Sockeye upset.
August 7, 2026 by Josh Katz in Recap
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AURORA – For the second straight season, #1 San Francisco Revolver are the US Open champions, breaking on double game point against #3 Seattle Sockeye to win a thrilling, back-and-forth contest. With the win, Revolver extended their lead as the most successful men’s program in the history of the US Open: this title marks their fifth, two more than second-place Sockeye.
Revolver’s defense seemed hell-bent on taking away Seattle’s deep game early on, switching often downfield and keeping everything in front of them. On Sockeye’s third offensive point, the strategy paid off for the first time. Ryan Shigley’s upline pass for Max Ramstad was left too close to Ramstad’s inside shoulder, and James Whealan reached in to deflect the disc and swat it to the ground. Dexter Clyburn picked up around midfield and immediately fired a flick huck for Michael Ing, who boxed out Shigley and made the catch in the end zone. Advantage, San Francisco.
“They’ve got some really good ball movers, and they really like to throw it deep… we knew we had to respect their deep game,” Ing noted postgame. “[The Seattle offense] was a full-on show here, some amazing plays.” One of those deep shots came out on the very next point. Eli Diamond crossed over for the Sockeye offense (a common theme throughout the weekend) and took advantage of a gap in the Revolver defense to take off deep. A Cedar Hines deep throw found Diamond in the back of the end zone, and the Western Washington Dirt duo combined for the goal to level the score at 3-3.
College players standing out was a theme all weekend for Seattle. Diamond was joined by fellow Western Washington star Zoli Ishikawa-szabo on the Sockeye D-line, and the duo frequently combined to convert breaks. Max Gade (Cal Poly SLO) and Mason Stone (UMass) were huge energy boosters for the defense as well. Hines was joined by Carter Bayer (Washington), Xavier Fuzat (Texas), and Ryan Shigley (Colorado) to construct a potent and deadly offensive quartet. Bayer, Fuzat, and Hines were creating explosive plays all weekend. Shigley was distributing like a seasoned veteran from the backfield.
Getting everyone on the same page took some time and meant that Sockeye went through some growing pains in the first month of the season, but it paid off in a big way in Aurora. “College ultimate and club ultimate are two different kinds of games, pace of play, different things work in each division. It’s taken a second for some of our college guys to relearn the club habits,” Sockeye’s Trent Dillon shared.
Before the Sockeye show could truly begin in the final, they had to take another step backwards. Two clean Revolver holds – Adam Rees on a deep backhand to Alex Nelson and Leo Gordon on a deep flick to Raekwon Adkins – bookended a second possession hold for Sockeye that ended with Ramstad finding Bayer in the end zone. Revolver then broke again to take a 6-4 lead, the only time they’d lead by multiple goals all game. After swapping overthrown hucks, Nathan Kwon had his signature moment of the weekend. The former Sockeye player poached into the lane to deflect a Derek Mourad throw, forcing a turnover, and then slithered into the open space just in front of Ing over the goal line.
Sockeye immediately responded to level the score. On offense, it was Fuzat who fired a backhand for Bayer down the field. Simon Dastrup misread the disc, giving Bayer the easy catch for the score. On defense, Sockeye took advantage of a poor throw from Eli Kerns to get the disc back and a Nate Prior injury to sub Hines on for the break chance. Hines and Diamond again combined for a score, this time Diamond finding Hines with a short backhand along the goal line, to tie the game at 6-6.
Three clean holds took the game to halftime with Revolver up a break, the last of which was one of the best plays of the day. Alex Nelson took off deep just as Kerns received the disc in power position. Kerns’ flick huck floated in the air, which left Daniel Chen with enough time to get into position for Nelson to leap over him, earning Nelson a place on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays. It was Nelson’s third goal of the half, part of a five-goal performance in a breakout day for the Revolver rookie.
Sockeye’s offense was brilliant for much of the weekend. In the first half of the final, they turned the disc just three times across eight offensive points. But when asked about the success of the offense, Dillon was quick to instead credit the defense: “We’ve been having some pretty intense practices where our defense and our offense are really going at it, lots of guys pushing one another. The O-line, yeah, they’re tremendous, but you don’t get that without the other side of the coin pushing them in practice.” In the second half, it was that defense that stepped up and shifted control of the contest.
Just out of halftime, Sockeye broke twice to retake the lead. The first break came after Leo Gordon threw a flick into the ground (that likely would have been blocked even if accurate) setting up a Noah Coolman-to-Asher Lantz connection for the first break. A Dillon Whited endzone drop under pressure from Mason Stone generated a swift Seattle counter attack that finished with a Diamond blading flick to Stone to give Seattle a second break. They even had multiple chances at a third break out of half, but were unable to conver, and eventually San Francisco leveled the score.
Seattle quickly retook and extended the lead with a rapid fire hold-and-break combination. The hold came on the catch of the tournament, a Carter Bayer layout grab in the end zone off of a Mourad flick huck. The break came after another Whited drop and another immediate counter. Garrett Martin picked up after the drop and fired deep for Max Gade, who made his own layout catch. Suddenly, Sockeye led 11-9, poised to win their fourth US Open and send shockwaves around the division.
But on a weekend as chaotic as this one in the Men’s Division, you knew Revolver would fight back. “We’re a very resilient team, a very mentally strong team. We’re ready for anything,” said Ing. Just as quick as Sockeye had a two-goal lead, Revolver were level again. A Brett Hulsmeyer-centric point – featuring a Hulsmeyer drop, block, and assist – brought San Francisco within one. A rare poor offensive point from Seattle gave Revolver the chance to tie it up. Hines and Ramstad cut to the same space with the stall rising, and Mourad’s throw to the both of them was unable to be caught. After lots of work from Clyburn, Vallee, and Anton Orme, a great cut from Sean Liston freed up Carter Lankford near the back line. Clyburn found him with a backhand, and the game was tied again, 11-11.
Bayer and Adkins each scored another goal, Bayer’s fourth and Adkins’ third, on clean holds to set up a thrilling game to three for the US Open title. After a mostly clean game for the first 24 points, the finish was full of chaos. Just one of the last five points was a clean hold.
The first was especially chaotic, featuring six turns of different varieties. There was tight defense leading to high stall bailouts that were blocked. There were overthrown hucks. There was a Ryan Shigley layout block which became the front page of a bookends. The back page was a nifty backhand from Hines after Shigley wove his way through the coverage.
The second put Sockeye on the brink of a stunning upset. Diamond atoned for a drop earlier in the point by flying across the field to block a high-arcing flick. He then helped run a Western Washington dominator, as he, Hines, and Ishikawa-szabo worked to just outside the end zone. Martin cycled in as Hines and Diamond struggled to work themselves open, and then hit Diamond just over the goal line to complete Diamond’s bookends and give Sockeye their last two-goal lead.
Revolver are the reigning Triple Crown winners for a reason: the resilience that Ing spoke about never goes away. With the game on the line, the whole roster stepped up and willed San Francisco back. It started with a clean hold through a stout Sockeye defense that ended with a Hulsmeyer flick to Kerns with the stall rising. It continued with a locked-in defense that forced poor throws from Hines and Diamond. On the second break chance, Vallee strolled deep and Dillon was late to react. Hulsmeyer’s flick landed right in Vallee’s chest for the break, setting up universe point.
Sockeye took a timeout ahead of the game’s final point, hoping to catch a breather and reset themselves. Instead, it gave Michael Ing the rest he needed to leap in for arguably the best block of his career, taking off from behind Diamond’s outside shoulder and reaching around his inside shoulder for a layout block. Sockeye tried their hardest to get the disc back, but Revolver refused to give it back. A series of short throws and a constant shuffling of players into and out of the backfield eventually ended with Anton Orme holding the disc on the near sideline, five yards from the win. On stall five, he noticed Mourad had creeped too close to the front cone and too far from Vallee in the back corner. Orme’s scoober was perfectly placed over Mourad’s head and into Vallee’s waiting arms for the break and comeback victory. As Ian Toner called it on the broadcast: “This San Francisco side are inevitable.”
Even with the defeat in the final, there were plenty of positives for Sockeye this weekend. “These are the types of experiences that are really valuable. We’ve been going to ESC for a while, haven’t been in the Pro Flight for years. This was what we needed, and we’re going to take this and learn from it,” Dillon remarked. After four years without a semis appearance, the Fish are firmly back in that conversation.
But this final and this weekend belongs to Revolver. Though they won’t be able to defend all three legs of their Triple Crown,1 San Francisco have their sights on something bigger: the World Ultimate Club Championships in Limerick, Ireland later this summer. “We’re excited to go out there and compete, excited for the competition out there,” commented Ing.
Revolver have just over a week left to prepare for WUCC, and their final preparations will be bolstered by the energy from a thrilling US Open championship. “It was a really fun game to be a part of, very back and forth, the best thing you want to see in ultimate,” said Ing. “They’re a great team that we played, and we’re very grateful to come out on top in these moments.”
All US Open First Team:
Alex Hall-Witt (Rhino Slam!)
Carter Bayer (Sockeye)
Eli Diamond (Sockeye)
Jason Vallee (Revolver)
John Randolph (PoNY)
Nathan De Morgan (Sub Zero)
Raekwon Adkins (Revolver)
All US Open Second Team:
Brett Hulsmeyer (Revolver)
Callahan Bosworth (Rhino Slam!)
Calvin Stoughton (DiG)
Cedar Hines (Sockeye)
Jordan Kerr (Johnny Bravo)
Miles Grovic (Truck Stop)
Noah Hanson (Sub Zero)
Revolver won’t be attending the Pro Championships over Labor Day weekend. ↩
US Open 2026: Late Game Push Earns Revolver’s Fifth US Open Title (Men’s Final Recap) is only available to Ultiworld Subscribers
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