Brute Squad's back-to-back titles only reaffirmed their reputation as a staunch and well-coached defensive team.
October 30, 2026 by Graham Gerhart 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.
Perfect seasons are hard to finish. Just ask Scandal this year. Just ask Fury last year. While you’re at it, ask them both why they struggled to cap it off in the end. They’ll tell you the same thing: It’s hard to beat Brute Squad.
For the second consecutive season, Boston Brute Squad have claimed the national crown. Another defensive master class secured them a dominant 15-11 win that rarely was even close. The club is already etched into the ultimate history books, and its success in San Diego earned them a sixth U.S. title, tying them with Revolver, DoG, and NYNY as the third-winningest club on the leaderboard.
When you’re facing off against Boston, you’re facing off against the collective institutional knowledge of this team and the assurance that they hold just from being Brute Squad. The reigning champs came into this game with the confidence that they could take down DC in a final because they’d done it before, in 2023. They came into this game knowing they could beat an unbeaten team because they’d done it in 2025. They came into this game expecting to win.
Scandal, for their part, had plenty of confidence of their own. DC’s unbeaten streak included a comeback win over Brute Squad at Worlds en route to a WUCC title, as well as a 15-11 win back at the US Open in July. They had every reason to believe they were as good as their final opponent, and that they’d be able to do what they’d done all year.
The problem with beating Brute Squad in the regular season is that they learn from their losses. Perhaps more than any other team, Brute Squad are able to carefully examine what went wrong in previous games and finely tune the team to prevent it from happening again. It’s what makes them so threatening at Nationals. They’re not the same team that opponents faced during the regular season; they only hit their final form in October and good luck to any team that’s not prepared for that.
Scandal seemed as prepared as any team could be. On the first point of the game, DC executed their defensive game plan to perfection. They forced Boston’s handlers downfield and isolated the thrower, forcing a tight-margin inside flick that was too low. Just like that, Scandal had a break chance. With seven of their best players on the field, including the perennial POTY candidate Claire Trop, this was about as good a chance as Boston gives teams for a break. But as they did again and again this game, Scandal tried to end the point too quickly.
A rushed breakside backhand was too far for the intended receiver, giving Boston the disc on their own goal line. Then Boston struck the way they would all too often this game, with a perfect huck that caught Scandal unprepared. A few throws later, and Brute Squad got a pivotal hold.
This would prove to be important, as the wind started picking up quickly in the early minutes of this game, and it was clear that whichever team won was going to do it on the back of their defense.
New rule for the women’s division: if a game clearly has the edge going to the defense, pick Boston to win it.
After proving their offense could hold the disc, Boston’s defense threw out their first wrinkle, a zone designed to clog the throwing lanes and force an unhealthy number of swing passes from Scandal’s handlers. What was effectively a five-person cup had the desired effect upon Scandal. Fearing to throw over the top to cutters, Scandal’s handlers opted to test themselves with small gains on upline crashes and small losses on swing passes. With the wind acting as the eighth defender, Scandal quickly lost steam. “The zone had us stuck for a while,” said Scandal captain Allie Wallace, “so give them their kudos. That was extremely hard to work through.”
Early zone defense is a mean tactic to employ. Without wind, it can easily be a non-factor, but with the wind, it forces teams out of their initial offensive sets and prevents any rhythm from being established on offense. So often, an offense needs the first few points to build its confidence and get its players invested in the action. With a zone, teams deny that opportunity, forcing unconventional throws and turning the game into one of concentration over athleticism.
That’s where Scandal faltered. They so badly wanted to use aggressive throws and cuts through the cup to set up their athletic downfield cutters that it allowed Boston to bait them into bad throws. In a battle centered on discipline and concentration, Boston is the favorite.
Brute Squad’s zone earned the team an early break to go up 2-0, and a junk set they employed on the next point forced a high flick huck from Scandal’s offense that sailed over the intended receiver. This set up another break as Boston attacked the low side of the field and allowed Becky Malinowski to pull down a huck from Elise Freedman for the goal. One point later, a risky throw through the cup was swatted down by Lia Schwartz, who then set up Levke Walczak for a high-skill blady backhand huck to Liv Player for the goal.
With a snap of the fingers, Boston had just stacked up a 4-0 lead. Their dominance in the final suddenly felt inevitable.
Scandal were able to wash the first few points from their thoughts, but they weren’t able to chip away at that lead in the first half. In the back of their minds, they had already completed a comeback against this team; they could do it again.
“We knew if we could just get our defense out there, we could come back. We know we have the legs, we know we have the depth,” Wallace said.
That was the regular season Brute Squad, though. This game was being dominated by postseason Brute Squad, and with every goal they scored, it was as if they tilted the field a little more in their favor. It wasn’t a mountain that Scandal had to climb just yet, but it wasn’t a level playing field.
Once Scandal found their footing, the game did get closer. Boston’s inevitability wasn’t invulnerability, and their offense coughed up the disc plenty of times on their own. Scandal had their break chances in the first half. The difference between the two teams is that, when Scandal’s O-line turned it over, they couldn’t get the disc back; Brute Squad’s O-line seemed to earn it back every time. It wasn’t the end of the world when a huck ended in a turn or a swing pass was dropped; Boston had seven capable defenders on the field and was confident in their ability to earn the disc back.
It also helped that Scandal seemingly had limited defensive tools to take advantage of the crosswind. The team forced Boston to the low side, but against a team like Boston, that isn’t going to be enough. The corps of incredible throwers that Brute Squad have amassed is more than capable of putting out a throw into space upwind without it sitting too high or careening to the ground. Expecting Lia Schwartz, Angela Zhu, Levke Walczak, or Liv Player to have trouble breaking the mark on the low side wasn’t enough of a strategy to make Boston overthink their offense.
Emphasizing the strategic element of this game is so important because the players most often receive the praise for the game when it’s happening live. They deserve their flowers, too. Lia Schwartz (3A/1D), Elise Freedman (1G/2A), Liv Player (3G/1A), and Angela Zhu (1G/2A/1D) had incredible performances, and all have a case to be the Player of the Game. The real winners from this game, though, are Rob Brazile, Danny Clark, Nastasia Tangherlini, and the rest of the leadership team on Brute Squad. They understood the win conditions in the final and executed their offense and defense to meet them.
Nothing is more emblematic of Boston’s heightened understanding of the game than the final point of the first half. Both teams had just fought through a long, drawn-out point that ended in a Scandal hold. Knowing the stakes, Scandal sent out a kill line to try to earn a necessary break before half. Boston didn’t switch up the formula; they sent their offense out with no extra frills. Once again, Scandal opted for a backhand force that pushed Boston to the low side, and sat their defenders in the under space to clog the throwing lanes. Boston would not be denied. They broke to the high side and set up Lia Schwartz with enough room to avoid the lurking Scandal defenders. Emily Kemp, recognizing her defender was too far underneath her, struck deep at full speed, and Schwartz was more than happy to reward her with the goal. Kemp’s defender was 20 feet short of her when she caught the disc, having moved to poach on the high side of the field.
The 8-4 lead that Boston took into half was almost entirely on the back of the 4-0 lead they started with. While Scandal had settled into their offense, Boston’s offense had yet to be challenged. Especially for Scandal, the game was going to be entirely about getting their offense off the field and letting the defense get to work.
Boston knew that, too, which is why they wanted Scandal’s offense to spend as much time on the field as they could force them into. Halftime allowed Boston to implement a second iteration of their zone, something they already knew had caused problems for DC. This version did not congeal around the handlers as much, and allowed Zhu to rove more in the middle of the field while the wing defenders pinched in. It demanded that Scandal’s handlers rethink their swing passes, which once again broke the flow of an offense that had been the best in the nation all year. That zone earned a block that immediately translated into a break thanks to Zhu and Ximena Montaña (2G/1A) playing tennis with the disc, rallying back and forth with passes to each other before connecting in the goal.
In a game where Scandal needed every hold and break they could get, they had just given another free point to Brute Squad. For yet another year, Brute Squad’s defense was running away with a game that every commentator thought would be close.
“We were locked in on D,” said Boston veteran Elana Schwam. “We knew what we wanted and watched a lot of film. Plus it’s Scandal; we’ve played them before. We’ve studied.”
It didn’t end there. A few points later, with Brute Squad leading 10-5, their zone found another block as Scandal’s handlers tried to force a throw through the middle of the cup that was swatted down by Laura Ospina (2G/1D). This was just after Scandal had strung together close to 50 consecutive passes, and the frustration after the turn was evident. Boston’s offense didn’t try anything fancy to win the point; they just let their speedy cutters win their matchups, and eventually Elise Freedman got open at the front of the goal for the break.
Scandal weren’t done by a long shot. The team was clearly dejected, but they aren’t a young program, and they know how to fight through adversity. One tough game for their handlers doesn’t mean a death sentence for the team. The likes of Kami Groom (3G/1A/2D), Allie Wallace (1G/2A/1D), and Claire Trop (1G/4A) still had a lot of fight in them. Scandal had already completed a comeback win against Brute Squad; they knew it was possible and were ready to compete.
At 11-6 in Boston’s favor, the Scandal defense came alive after a rare mistake from Freedman gave them their first break of the game. Working the disc patiently to the front of the end zone, Marge Walker spotted Allie Wallace beyond the reach of her defender and threw out a backhand that only Wallace could track down. With that break, the potential for a comeback suddenly became tangible.
This has happened a lot in DC’s season. The team is built for the late game. They’re fast, disciplined, and most importantly, they’re fit. They don’t wear down as quickly as their opponents, allowing them to use the second half as a secret weapon. No matter how many goals they’re down, the longer the game goes, the better it is for them.
It seemed like momentum was on their side, too. The very next point, Lily Johnson read a play faster than Boston could react and got a rare poach block on Zhu. Scandal then put all their faith in Trop to deliver the break, and she did, finding Groom at the front cone.
An 11-8 lead is a very different feeling than an 11-6 lead, and the crowd was starting to feel the buzz, too, with Scandal’s supporters making themselves heard at all corners of the field.
All this came crashing down with one wayward pull. Scandal had been gearing up to add another layer to their defensive scheme, only for Boston to get the disc on the reverse brick mark, ruining any attempt at a permutation on the set that Scandal had been running. Instead, it was tight person defense, something that Boston was altogether too well equipped to handle. Ospina got open in the end zone, and that was it: 12-8.
With their defense back on the field, Boston opted for a classic arrowhead zone, daring Scandal’s handlers to make a risky throw once more. They found their chance after a swing pass to the high side popped into the wind. A few quick throws later, Zhu found Montaña for the goal.
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Before the 13-8 lead, there was a chance that Scandal would have enough runway to mount a comeback still, but with only two necessary holds for Boston, it was too much to ask for DC to find five breaks in the final moments of the game. They did see some success, even earning a final break to make the game 13-10, but then Boston’s offense locked in and secured a hold to take the 14-10 lead.
“We know when we’re up by a lot, not to take the game for granted,” said Boston’s Mina Brown, adding, “The next point always matters the most.”
On the final point of the game, up 14-11, Groom did manage to get a run-through block on a poorly timed throw, which did get the crowd stirred up once more, only for Scandal to force a throw to the high side of the goal that Anouchka Beaudry read perfectly and swatted down. Beaudry used that momentum to shoot to the far end zone, and was rewarded by Kelly Hyland for the goal, capping off Boston’s tremendous game with a 15-11 win and cementing them as the best team in North America.
As Liv Player said in the postgame interview, “To be the best, you have to beat the best.” She was talking about her opponents, but after this tournament it applies to Boston even more.
This is becoming routine for Boston. Throw out whatever you saw in the regular season; if you want a title, it goes through Brute Squad. Scandal know that now, and Fury learned it a year ago: both of their perfect seasons ended one game short.
Beat Brute Squad in July if you want. October belongs to Boston.
