The final day of pool play of the club regular season.
September 6, 2026 by Alex Rubin, 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.
The Pro Championships features drama for strength bids and jockeying for top seeds at Nationals, despite not having the full title-contender class that it usually does. That didn’t stop some underdogs from barking. Have some teams already seen their bid hopes dry up?
Women’s Recap | Mixed Recap | Men’s Recap
Women’s Division
Chalk It Up
Both pools went to chalk in the women’s division, though Pool B was a bit closer than Pool A, where there seems to be a clear separation between each of the four teams. Notably, #13 Pittsburgh Parcha stepped up with a lot on the line, taking #8 New York BENT to a 14-13 finish and caming within three of #3 Denver Molly Brown for a final score of 15-12. BENT and Molly Brown also went the distance, with Molly finding the win on universe on a back-shoulder forehand huck from Valeria to Manuela Cardenas.
Molly Brown and BENT Battle for Pool B
The game was a slug fest, with both teams playing incredible ultimate. The usual suspects for Molly Brown were out in force – just scrub through the stream and odds are wherever you decided to press play you’ll see Vale, Manu, or Chastain making an elite play of some sort. Beyond that, Fiona Cashin was superb on defense and a key cog in the offensive machine, Alex Guy was playing well in person to person looks, and Liana Bradley was a smooth operator with the disc in her hands.
When Molly Brown gets their flow going they’re unstoppable. It feels like watching water flow down a river: calm and powerful. The defense won’t even set a mark and it’s hard not to feel like that’s the way the game was meant to be played. The chemistry of the team is definitely something that they leverage, beyond just the Cárdenas connection. Veronica Eder, Emma Capra, Megan Henderson, Alika Johnston, Nhi Nyugen, Sara Taggary, and Lisa Pitcaithley have all been playing together for 7+ years. It also speaks to their team dynamic that a high-powered player like Cashin can slot right in and immediately make an impact.
BENT also looked great, but the real two standouts for the New Yorkers were Jessica McDonnell, and Caitlyn Tien. McDonnell was running the show from the handler slot in both their streamed games, highlighted by this throw in their game against Grit.
Deep shots aside, McDonnell was dealing, and rarely missed, even against the pressure Molly Brown was heaping on. Caityn Tien set the high water mark for BENT with an excellent series of plays to take half. Ignited by a block on an underthrown look, she completed the bookends with this stunner of a layout grab for the break and the half.
Pool A
Over in Pool A, the second round game between #21 Raleigh Phoenix and #6 Seattle Riot had an upset brewing until Riot turned off the stove. Phoenix was up early 5-4, but Riot got the break train rolling and closed things out 15-6. Phoenix has talent with players like Naomi Anderson, Megan Buchsbaum, and of course, Bridget Mizener. But with only five players with more than a full year of experience on the team, there’s a clear gap in institutional knowledge. Mizener is doing everything she can to lead from the front on offense, but the Phoenix are definitely feeling the growing pains of this rebirth.
As for Riot, once Samiya Ismail, Lauren Goddu, and Chloe Hakimi find a rhythm, there’s really not much you can do to stop them. Carly Campana also had an incredible start to the weekend. Riot’s performance in their streamed games are reminders that they are national semifinal contenders, and if you can make the semifinal, you can win the tournament. Goddu in particular looks Nationals ready, earning a spectacular bookends against Scandal.
Despite these highlight reel plays from Riot, #1 Washington DC Scandal opened up a lead early and never let Riot catch up. Their offense was clinical and their defense suffocating. The reason there were so many amazing plays from Riot was because that was what they needed to do to keep up. Scandal took the win 15-11 to complete their 3-0 pool run. They beat Phoenix 15-4, and Agency 15-3 to stay undefeated on the season.
What’s more is the DC team was without Claire Trop. Hard to say that Scandal wasn’t missing their star player, but they didn’t look like they missed her too much. Filling Trop’s shoes is maybe an impossible ask for any one player, but they managed to fill them in the aggregate. Most notable in that endeavor were Anna Cauchy and Kira Flores. Flores has been on the cusp of elite play since her Scandal debut, but has really come into her own this season, cementing her status with each point. Cauchy may not be flashy, but often doesn’t need to be. She’s just consistently making the right decision and executing. To round things out for Scandal were Sami Smalling, Tyler Smith, Erica Birdsong, Kat McGuire, and of course the ever-present Kami Groom.
Bid Picture
Parcha started the weekend less than a full point away from earning a bid, and despite going 1-2 in the win/loss column, their close games against BENT and Molly Brown could prove to be the difference-maker. Barring disaster in quarters and then in consolation, Parcha have already done enough to secure things. Just because it’s theirs to lose though doesn’t mean it’s over.
Mixed Division
Upsets for Naught
The 9:00 AM round featured the only two upsets of pool play, with #12 Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust taking down #4 Fort Collins shame. 15-12 and #11 Boston Sprocket beating #3 Boston Slow 15-14. At the end of the day, neither upset winner ended up on top of the standings after tie-breakers settled everyone into their standings places between undefeated #1 Ann Arbor Hybrid and winless Arizona Lawless.
Drag’n Thrust attacked the shame. defense with well timed counter-flow hucks. They frequently would catch an under on the flick side of the field, and look to launch a backhand. Against a force-middle defense, the throws were often enough unguarded and allowed quick scoring opportunities from midfield. And, while they could not take advantage of every opportunity offered, the shame. offense gave Drag’n’s defense the disc more times than they probably would have liked. As a team, shame. likes to throw and cut to smaller-window spaces like narrow inside lanes. When those options are hitting, defenses have no easy way to stop them. When the team suffers from execution errors, they need to work hard to get the disc back. shame. proved capable of doing that – even coming down with a Callahan at the end of this game – but will regret putting so many defensive miles on their brightest offensive stars.
Across the complex, Sprocket broke to take half against Slow, but found themselves in a second half hole and eventually staring down a 14-11 deficit. With confidence that never wavered, Sprocket trotted out Caitlin Johnson-Go with a group of D-line players to clinch the needed hold before a group including Zach Singer, Tannor Johnson-Go, and Wilhemina Graff played the rest of the way to end the game with three straight breaks. Consistent defensive pressure forced miscues from Slow throughout the end game, and Sprocket was both patient and effective themselves on offense. Comfortable losing yards on resets in order to open throwing lanes that can switch the field and with a dose of pizzazz from Tannor Johnson-Go, the Sprocket offense found a balance between possession-saving maneuvers and defense-breaking ambition. While they still finished second behind Slow in the standings at the end of the day, Sprocket earned a confidence-building win that could also be crucial to their efforts to keep their bid in-region.
Top Two Preview
Hybrid remains the favorite to win the tournament following their 15-14 victory over shame. The top seed looks incredibly potent on offense with the cutting group of Rachel Mast, Maketa Mattimore, and Jack Shanahan able to power past their matchups to gain chunks of yards at a time once Dalton Smith, Laura Gerencser, and Abe Coffin decide to move the disc past the handler layer. While their defense had a difficult time taking the disc away from an equally talented shame. offense, the Hybrid counterattack likewise looked potent. Sub in Chase Cunningham, Jean Huang, and Jeff Weis into the backfield roles while Lili Hobday, Annie Meilink, and Ian McNamara impressed downfield. With a backfield intent on attacking upfield, the Hybrid offense is proving difficult to stop no matter which line has the disc. They will occasionally make mistakes (a few towards the end of the game took what could have been a three-point win with the disc up 14-12 and turned it into a universe point thriller), but they won’t be fooled by anything a defense can offer.
On the other sideline, shame. proved that they belong among the top tier of contenders. Like Hybrid, their offense centers around a backfield that can eat yards on their own (Simon Montague, Sarah Pesch, and Sam Goldstein taking the lead there) and a cutting group intent on making life easy for their throwers (with Jade McLaughlin, Matty Russell, and Sarah Itoh the primary initiators). While the shame. defense is not too imposing on its own, the threat of a counterattack score always looms with Rory Veldman, Blaise Sevier, and Carter Hawkins leading the charge.
These two teams are favored to find each other again in Sunday’s semifinal round, and it will be exciting to see what, if any, adjustments each team makes as they look to find any kind of edge over the other.
Bid Picture
Sprocket was the team most in danger of losing a strength bid for their region. Their pool play win over Slow became their highest rated result of the season and offers a bigger buffer over the bid cut-off than they had entering the weekend. However, with just an approximated 17 points separating Sprocket from the bid bubble, any multi-goal loss could spell a much tougher Regionals. Even a close win could put the team in jeopardy. Our Projected Rankings estimates that Sprocket’s 15-10 win over Lawless actually cost the team about six rankings points.
Around the Complex
- After losses to Hybrid and shame. to open their tournament, #19 Durham Toro rebounded to take down Drag’n Thrust and move up to the second seed in Pool A. In their game against Drag’n Thrust, Toro rode their offensive consistency to build an 8-3 halftime lead. Claire Bidigaire-Curtis and Grayson Sanner continually got open and each crossed over to play some defensive points as well to bolster the counterattack. With strong handler play from Player Pierce and Elijah Long, Toro is building the resume of a team who can punch above their previous set of expectations.
- #10 Austin Disco Club started their tournament strong, with a cruise-control victory over Lawless and a solid 15-13 win over a Sprocket team riding the high of their first round upset. While ADC couldn’t finish the day undefeated (they lost to Slow in the last round), they set themselves up with a winnable bracket game and a path to build momentum heading into the series.
Men’s Division
Top Seeds Separate, But Drama at the Bid Margin
With a clear top four teams in the men’s field, the Saturday tournament was more about results for the bid-earning picture. In reality, the drama of this tournament will unfold in the semifinals and on, as well as in the fifth-place bracket where the final bids will be decided. Of course, it’s sports, and anything can happen, and anyone can win. But on Saturday, not anyone could win – just the favorites.
The first two rounds were somewhat perfunctory for the higher seeds, as they had few issues in dispatching of the lower half of the field. However, with the bid-earning picture set to crystalize this weekend, score differential for the lower seeds, particularly #17 Montreal Mephisto and #16 Austin Doublewide, the current last two bid earners entering the weekend, was paramount. Both squads avoided a true blowout loss, as Mephisto dropped decisions of 15-11 to #9 Raleigh Ring of Fire and 15-10 to #11 Atlanta Chain Lightning. Doublewide notched just nine points in their opening loss to #10 Philadelpha Pacmen, but they pushed #8 Washington D.C. Truck Stop to 15-12 in the second round.
The bottom two seeds, #23 Virginia Vault and Florida Untied, were both present to play spoiler and tune up for the postseason. They both went 0-2 in the opening two games, although Untied’s 15-13 loss to Pacmen represented a strong performance from the Southeastern bid-stealing hopeful.
The third round was the meat of the first day in the men’s division. Regional clashes between Truck Stop and Pacmen, as well as Chain Lightning and Ring of Fire, did not really have bid-picture consequences, but they served almost certainly as regional title game previews. Championship matches in two-bid regions are always big, as not only does winning lead to better seeding at Nationals, but you avoid any kind of dicey game-to-go situations against a hot team from the backdoor bracket. Within these games, it was the higher-ranked teams – per our power rankings – that took care of business. Ring of Fire affirmed their spot ahead of Chain Lightning in the rankings with a 15-13 win, and Truck Stop pulled away from Pacmen, 15-12.
Although the games between 0-2 teams had no elimination consequences, due to all teams making quarterfinals, Mephisto and Doublewide faced enormous pressure to handle business against the lower seeds to keep themselves on the inside of the bid-earning picture. For Mephisto, earning a bid gives them a shot in what would be a cutthroat competition for the third Northeast bid to Nationals. For Doublewide, it would make Nationals a near-certainty, with the alternative being a high-stakes game-to-go against Denver Johnny Bravo, a situation that manifested itself in 2025 and did not end in Doublewide’s favor.
Unfortunately, for both of Pro Champs’ bid-earning hopefuls, Saturday ended with winless record. In gritty, tight affairs, Untied handed Doublewide a 15-13 defeat, and Vault matched the feat, producing the best win of their season on double game point, 15-14 over Mephisto. As a result, both Mephisto and Doublewide dropped out of bid earning position in the projected rankings, ceding their spots to #24 Portland Red Tide and #20 Raleigh Durham United. They were also leapt in the rankings by #19 Chicago Haymaker.
That’ll make consolation bracket games (most likely) absolutely pivotal tomorrow if Mephisto or Doublewide (or both) hope to scratch and claw their way back into the last bids.
Bracket Preview
Quarterfinals will not feature rematches, but it feels likely it’ll look much like the first two rounds of Saturday, with the top four seeds matching up with the lower seeds.
Regional action will take center stage as Vault and Untied get cracks at what could be regional game-to-go previews; Vault takes on Pacmen and Untied gets Chain Lightning. Upsets would certainly be unexpected, but Vault and Untied will look to build confidence for a potential higher-stakes rematch in a few weeks.
Doublewide and Mephisto desperately could use an upset win after their Saturday efforts, and they’ll have their shot in quarters. Doublewide gets Ring of Fire, and Mephisto draws Truck Stop. Should they fail to swing the upset, they’ll be relegated to consolation where winning the fifth place bracket is virtually mandatory and maybe not enough for a bid.
The games will be fewer, but the drama should increase quite a bit on Sunday in Boyds, Maryland, as teams scrap and claw for every point that may swing key algorithmic rating points in their favor.
