Last weekend, Carleton hosted 20 frisbee teams across three divisions, filling all of the typical frisbee fields and some extras for a frisbee-packed weekend. Ultimate frisbee is Carleton’s most competitive sport — despite being a DIII school in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports, Carleton is home to two DI frisbee teams, as well as four DIII teams. Last weekend, three teams qualified for the next round of competitions: CUT and CHOP for regionals and Eclipse for nationals.
Ultimate frisbee is regulated by USA Ultimate rather than the NCAA and has women’s and men’s divisions. Carleton has six teams. In the women’s division, Syzygy competes in DI, while Eclipse and Nova compete in DIII. Eclipse hosts tryouts annually; Nova remains open to new players throughout the year. In the Open division, CUT competes in DI, while CHOP and Karls compete in DIII. Like Eclipse, CHOP hosts tryouts while Karls does not. Five out of the six teams (with the exception of Syzygy) competed in sectionals hosted at Carleton.
Each year, DI and DIII hosts women’s and Open sectionals as the first qualifying tournament for nationals. In sectionals, teams typically compete for bids to compete at regionals; they then compete for bids to nationals. Carleton’s teams all compete in the North Central region. This year, Carleton hosted sectionals for the men’s DI and DIII divisions and the women’s DIII division. For women’s DIII sectionals, because of the number of teams in the region, sectionals were the only qualifier for nationals, rather than having the in-between tournament of regionals.
The tournament occurred over two days — Saturday and Sunday — although due to there only being three DI Open teams, they only competed on Sunday. To accommodate all of the games, the frisbee teams used seven fields behind the Rec Center, including the rugby pitch and lacrosse fields.
Sectionals being hosted at Carleton offered students a unique opportunity to see the games they hear about so often on campus. “Even as someone who doesn’t know much about frisbee, I really enjoyed watching [Eclipse’s] match,” said Lily Vargo ’25. “I especially appreciated the sense of collaboration they seemed to have with the other teams, something that you don’t see showcased very often in college sports.”
In DIII sectionals, both Eclipse and CHOP advanced to the next tournament after performing well in pool play on the first day, where teams each play a set number of games to compete for bracket spots, and winning one of the two games in the bracket. Both teams lost the first game on the second day to St. Olaf College’s A-Team, meaning they had to play a second team to compete for a bid to the next stage of competition.
In the Open Division, CHOP placed second, while Karls placed sixth out of eight teams. Gavyn Jensen-Schneider ’25, one of the CHOP co-presidents, said he thought sectionals “went pretty well!”
“CHOP crushed it in pool play, played a tough first place game against St. Olaf and wound up second in the DIII Open Division,” he said. “We’re now headed to Iowa for regionals and are vying for the division’s single bid to nationals.”
Karls, while they did not place, still had fun at sectionals. “It’s awesome to be a team who doesn’t cut anyone, and still win a game against a solid team like St. Johns,” said Griffin Momsen-Hudson ’25. “That win was definitely one of the highlights of the year for us, and is something I will remember for a long time … This weekend allowed a lot of new leaders on the team to reveal themselves, working in tandem with our established leaders.”
In DIII women’s sectionals, Eclipse placed second, while Nova placed eighth, out of a total of nine teams.
Eclipse won their games by a landslide on Saturday, winning 15-3 first against Grinnell College, then against St. Olaf’s B-team, then against Michigan Tech.
On Sunday, they had a tougher day with a 10-14 loss against St. Olaf’s Vortex their first game — which would have given them an automatic bid to nationals. Eclipse has been ranked first in their division for the entirety of their season, while Vortex is ranked fifth.
Later that day, they played Michigan Technological University for their last shot at Nationals. Eclipse first made it to DIII nationals in 2011 and has qualified ever since, winning in 2016 and 2017, making this a high-pressure game. Michigan Tech is ranked 15th in their division and had not posed a significant challenge to Eclipse on Saturday. On Sunday, however, the game was close throughout, with Eclipse finally winning 15-13.
“I think going into the weekend a lot of us went in with the assumption that qualifying for nationals would be a guaranteed outcome,” said Monarch Kelly ’25, a player on Eclipse. “As our second game on Sunday developed and that reality became far less certain I think it caused a lot of us to be lost and bewildered. However, it also caused us to plumb our depths for strength we didn’t know we had to eventually turn it into a win. I think that experience made us all realize that nothing is guaranteed and will give us a mental edge when going into nationals in May.”
“I’m really proud of how hard Eclipse worked and how much we supported each other through a physically and emotionally intense tournament,” said Zoe Marquis ’25, one of the Eclipse captains. “Conferences proved how much we all care about our team and our sport. I’m glad we had the opportunity to experience a really close, high-stakes game, and I’m excited for nationals!
CUT, which as of April 2 was ranked 5th in Ultiworld’s DI Open rankings, played only two games, one against each present team, and won both, finishing first in the rankings and thus advancing to regionals. Neither game was a nail-biter: they beat University of Minnesota-Duluth 15-6 and Minnesota (ranked 24th by Ultiworld) 15-5.
“Unfortunately, CUT started off slow vs University of Minnesota Duluth, letting them score a few more than they should have,” said Declan Miller ’26, one of CUT’s captains. “After our break though we came out hot against regional rival University of Minnesota. After trading holds to start the game, we went on a 11 to 1 run to finish the game. Wave after wave of hungry defenders applied pressure, getting blocks and forcing turns … Man of the match was definitely freshman Thomas Shope who could not be contained deep.”
Ben Scott-Lewis ’25, a CUT team member, also commented on Shope’s frisbee skills. “Sectionals went super well for CUT! Most notably, we crushed the University of Minnesota, one of our main regional rivals in a final score of 15-5. The game was electric, and rookie Thomas Shope made some particularly mind boggling plays. Thank you to Carleton Admissions for ensuring that lovely specimen is on our team instead of theirs!”
Both players noted the high level of competition they expect to face at regionals. “Looking ahead towards regionals, it is great to get a convincing win over Minnesota who we hadn’t played all season,” said Miller. “However, nothing is guaranteed in the North Central region so continuing to train hard and mentally prepare for whatever comes our way in two weekends is very important. I am confident we’ll be ready to punch our ticket to nationals.”
“Even though that game went so well, the score resets to 0-0 next weekend at regionals,” explained Scott-Lewis. “This year our region only has one bid to nationals, so we’ll need to beat out UM and UW-Madison to claim that spot. These two weeks of practice are therefore geared towards winning the region — dreams of nationals can wait until we’ve established ourselves as the Kings of the North!”
