2024 USAU Club Nationals Preview Part Three
October Madness? October Outlandishness? Work with me here
Announcements:
Three previews for three divisions in three days—all done! If you missed the men’s preview, click here. If you missed the women’s preview, click here. Stay tuned for more updates and coverage leading up to and all through nationals in the coming week. We’re seven days away from things kicking off in San Diego!
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Mixed Division Preview
Mixed club ultimate. The sport’s answer to March Madness. Every year, the mixed division at nationals delivers some of the wildest drama and biggest upsets of the entire season. For four straight editions of nationals, a different team won the championship. Amongst the teams looking to claim the title of 2024 Mixed National Champions, we have long-standing powers, the defending champions, a brand-new first-year club, and 16 teams who all believe they have some chance at winning the tournament thanks to just how chaotic it can get in this division. Just last year, the #15-seeded team went on a run to the finals.
It’s a wide-open field, as it always is. While teams like #1 Seattle BFG and #2 Austin Disco Club certainly have resumes that look better than other teams and will be the favorites coming in, I refuse to trust any mixed team at nationals until I see them play up to their capabilities when it matters most. This is a theme you’ll hear a lot of in this preview, just so you know. Probably 80% of my favorite memories of watching club nationals involve two mixed teams to whom I have no personal or geographic connection playing one of the wildest, back-and-forth classics I’ve ever seen. Mixed was the division I was most excited about at Southeast Regionals. I can’t wait to watch the division in person at club nationals for the first time.
As a reminder, pools were not determined exclusively based on seeding this year. Instead, like in large soccer tournaments, they were based on a draw. You can watch the whole thing here, but all it means is that some pools may be a bit easier and some a little harder based on seeding and that a small element of randomness was added.
Pool A
#1 Seattle BFG (Northwest)
It is a rough pool for lovers of the regional matchup variety we’d expect to get at nationals, given that the pool consists of two teams from the Northwest Region and two from the Southwest (the only two). But Seattle BFG won’t care. They’re taking all challengers this year, gunning for the program’s second national title in four years and redemption after a heartbreaking loss on universe point 15-14 to shame. in the semifinals last year. After clawing their way back from a 14-10 deficit, too. They look every bit the part of the #1 overall seed. They’ve lost one game all year, in the finals of the U.S. Open to #7 Michigan Hybrid (who they beat earlier in the tournament). They’re peaking at the right time, too, handling comfortably regional challengers #13 Seattle Mixtape and #6 Vancouver Red Flag 15-6 and 15-9 last month to win the deepest region in the country. BFG is ready for their revenge tour. But sparkling resumes and regular season dominance won’t make another heartbreaking bracket exit feel any better. They’re going to have to work for their storybook ending.
#6 Vancouver Red Flag (Northwest)
In 2022 and 2023, Red Flag entered nationals seeded #15 and #11 and made prequarters and the quarterfinals, respectively. They are a program on the rise powered by some of the best talent Canada has to offer. One tiny problem: that team to the south they haven’t beaten in a while ended up in their pool. Red Flag has had no luck against BFG. They are 0-4 all-time against their Northwest rivals, including their only two losses of the 2024 season, two regional championship games (2022 and 2024), the quarterfinals of nationals last year, and the finals of Pro-Elite Challenge West this year. It's kind of a sick joke to place Red Flag in BFG’s pool. Besides BFG, Red Flag has been perfect this year. The pool play setup does mean they have some margin for error in that game though. They’ve already beaten #11 Sacramento Tower this year and will be favored against Lawless as well. They don’t need to throw off two years of recent history on day one to have a successful tournament and shoot for the first semifinal appearance in program history. The geography of this pool matches closely with the West Coast-oriented schedule Red Flag has played this year so far. The real test will be how Red Flag fares against teams they haven’t seen yet in an elimination scenario.
#11 Sacramento Tower (Southwest)
Welcome to the national stage, Sacramento Tower! The first-time nationals-attendees1 were only founded in 2022, were two points away from the game to go last year, and put together a fantastic season to cash in their bid this year. “How did Tower get so good?” reads a Reddit post from just under a month ago. While there are some insightful answers about certain players being added (having Robyn Fennig on your team is generally quite helpful), it’s an impressive testament to organizing and community building to put together a team that can make nationals so quickly. Even in the mixed division, where teams can rise and fall faster than they generally do in the men’s or women’s divisions, consolidating an ultimate community’s talent into a team that can shoot for nationals is no small feat. They have their work cut out for them in this pool, though. They’ve lost to every team in this pool this year, Lawless twice. However, they’ve hung pretty tight with all of them and have an early-season upset over Drag’n Thrust to hang their hats on. Maybe this is the tournament where they exact some revenge over their West Coast poolmates.
#14 Arizona Lawless (Southwest)
Lawless won the Southwest despite being seeded lower than their Sacramento counterparts. However, despite their pedigree as a reasonably consistent nationals-attending program, they did steal San Francisco Micschief’s bid after not earning one themselves this season. They were never very far outside the bid picture, and showed up to regionals ready to play their best ultimate, and that’s precisely what they did. Like Tower, they played a tough regular season schedule and got close to some big upsets but only really pulled off one, beating #5 New York XIST at the U.S. Open. Fortunately, despite being the lowest seed in Pool A, they have a favorable matchup with Tower, and the historical success of bottom seeds in this division in pool play actually includes an equal number of appearances in the bracket as last-place finishes in the pool across the last three editions of Club Nationals.
Pool B
#2 Austin Disco Club (South Central)
Austin Disco Club is the perfect example of how volatile the mixed landscape can be, even at the top end. The team came about thanks to a strange and mysterious set of circumstances2, and in year one, Disco Club lost just twice all year (even then, all the way back in June and July). They won Pro-Elite Challenge East and the South Central over defending national champions shame. via a 15-14 universe point win. The last time we had a first-year mixed team with anywhere near as much hype as Disco Club, Washington DC Space Heater went on a run to the semifinals in the first edition of San Diego nationals back in 2018, only to be derailed by Philadelphia AMP in “The Bobble” game. Disco Club seized the moment this year and consolidated a lot of the top MMP and FMP talent from in and around Austin into an extremely good team. They got an easier pool draw (on paper), too. A run to semis and beyond is well within reach. However, I am very interested in the long-term future of Disco Club. Mixed ultimate is littered with decades-long models of consistency and programs that burn brightly for a few years and then fade away. I want to see if they'll stick around regardless of how far Disco Club goes this year.
#7 Michigan Hybrid (Great Lakes)
Last year, the story of nationals was the #15 seed making a run to the finals after all four top seeds ended up in the same half of the bracket. That #15 seed was Michigan Hybrid. Hybrid has made two surprising runs to the final, first back in 2021 as the #9 seed, falling to BFG in the championship, and then the previously mentioned 2023 run, where shame. beat them in the final. They’ve had a solid regular season this year, too, handing BFG their sole loss on the year on their way to winning the U.S. Open, losing just one game at PEC East, and steamrolling the rest of the Great Lakes at regionals. As it is for every team in the division, consistency will determine how far they go at nationals. Hybrid had a bit of a rough go at their last regular season tournament, a World Ultimate Championships-impacted Pro Championships. Still, with the #12 and #16 seeded teams in their pool, they have a great opportunity to put themselves in a great position to make another deep bracket run.
#12 Washington DC Rally (Mid-Atlantic)
Washington DC Rally snapped regional rival AMP’s nearly two decades of consecutive nationals appearances, winning the only bid to nationals from the Mid-Atlantic. They didn’t miss earning a second bid for the region by much, though, and that win over AMP at regionals gave them the 2-1 season series win. They deserve to be here. It’s their second year in a row at nationals, and the Mid-Atlantic Champions could very easily pull off another surprise at nationals, too. At Pro Champs, they played shame. and XIST very tight, and beat #10 Boston Slow. Given the volatility of mixed, why couldn’t Rally make a deep run in the bracket if they get a favorable bracket placement after a pool play upset or two? You know, precisely what their pool opponents, Hybrid, did last year? Mixed ultimate delivers surprises every year, and Rally has already pulled off one back at regionals. They must be coming into nationals on one of the two or three biggest emotional highs of any team across all three divisions. Watch out.
#16 Montana MOONDOG (Northwest)
It was harder than it needed to be (losing sectionals and getting a worse regionals seed) but MOONDOG is back at nationals for the first time since 2019. After three straight losses in the game to go, MOONDOG earned a fourth bid for the Northwest, and made sure it stayed theirs when it mattered most. Realistically, it’s already been a successful season. They’ve bucked their recent results at regionals and returned to the promised land. They’re up against it as far as competing at nationals goes this year. They haven’t beaten a fellow nationals team this year yet and have lost to all three of BFG, Mixtape, and Red Flag. But perhaps the familiarity makes it harder, and they’ll benefit from getting a look at some new teams. MOONDOG played a West Coast-heavy schedule, so most of their opponents will be coming into their matchup pretty blind. It wouldn’t be an abnormal blip on the radar of mixed ultimate craziness if MOONDOG stole a game and made the bracket.
Pool C
#3 Minneapolis Drag'n Thrust (North Central)
Based on the average seed, Pool C in Mixed is the hardest pool in the entire tournament! So congrats on your excellent regular season Drag’n Thrust—enjoy your pool where the top three seeds are all regional champions. Oh, and the last team in the pool is one of the most accomplished programs of the last decade, with more recent high-pressure nationals experience than anyone else in Pool C. While they did not have a regular season resume to match the top two seeds in the tournament, Drag’n Thrust was consistent, which is what wins you games and tournaments in this division. There were no bad tournaments. All of their losses were to teams who at least earned a bid to nationals this year (sorry, Mischief), and they took care of business against all of their North Central rivals. But would you expect anything less from the program that remains the only team in division history to threepeat as national champions?3 Slow starts in pool play during the last three years at nationals have proven too hard to overcome in their quest to return to the top. They know how important starting well is. This pool won’t give them a second chance if they aren’t ready on day one.
#5 New York XIST (Northeast)
If XIST is going to finally break through to the finals after back-to-back losses in the semis, it won’t be easy. As a program, they’ve already broken some barriers, becoming just the second mixed team from New York to make it to the semifinals at USAU Club Nationals and the first since Free Spirits of the Game back in 2000. They have a talented young core, and there’s every reason to believe this could be their year. It’s such a treacherous road in mixed, though, because while they’ve been solid, there were some games the #5 team in the nation would like to have back. Had they gone a little differently, it could’ve ended with XIST at the top of a pool rather than second. They beat #9 Hunstville Space Force and Mixtape early in the season, which bodes well for their hopes of snatching the pool and a bye straight into quarters. And given Drag’n Thrust’s slow starts in pool play the last few years, XIST may be the outright favorite to come out of this tough pool.
#9 Huntsville Space Force (Southeast)
Space Force lost four games all year, all on universe point, and ended up seeded ninth. Two were to local rivals Huntsville Pyro, and they’re not at nationals. So the coast looks pretty clear for a great tournament for the Southeast champs. They looked extremely good when I got a chance to watch at Southeast Regionals. Their only close game was against Durham Toro, the region’s other bid-earning team, and they tore through everyone else (including #15 Nashville ‘Shine) on their way to securing their spot here. The concern and factor holding Space Force back from being a higher-tier contender is that they haven’t played many of the higher-seeded teams this year. They lost to XIST on universe at Pro-Elite Challenge East, beat Slow by four, and #8 Lexington Sprocket on universe at the same tournament. That was the only time they played multiple teams that qualified for nationals at the same tournament this year. How will they do when the level of competition is raised all around them? I think they can elevate their game, but they’ll deal with more adversity than they have all year at nationals.
#13 Seattle Mixtape (Northwest)
Look, I’d probably have seeded them 13th, too, based on their regular season, but it feels crazy that Mixtape is seeded so low and that they got drawn as the fourth seed in this already challenging group. Mixtape has been one of the most (if not the most) successful teams in the division over the better part of the last decade. While they may have fallen behind in the Seattle mixed ultimate arms race this year, you can’t count out a core with two more national titles than anyone else in the pool in the last seven years. Yes, Drag’n Thrust has beaten them twice this year, XIST smoked them when they played, and they haven’t beaten rivals Red Flag or BFG in about 13 months now, but Pool C seems like a setup for one of the highly-seeded teams to end up 0-3 and out on day one. This Mixtape squad has no eye-catching signature win this year, which is a large part of why they’ve ended up seeded #13. But there’s no time like nationals to turn it on when you need it most, and no one will be surprised if this pool starts going sideways early on.
Pool D
#4 Fort Collins shame. (South Central)
The defending champions shame., Sprocket, Slow, and ‘Shine are Pool D, which possibly features the most intense tongue twister of team names in a pool in nationals history. Ironically, thanks to the ascendency of Disco Club, shame. have taken a larger relative step back in their region than they did nationally. It’s hard to follow up the sort of 2023 shame. had. They won all but one game all year on their way to their first national championship as a program. They’ve done a pretty good job on the sequel so far. They’ve only lost four games all year, the only confusing one being a 15-9 game to Mischief back at the U.S. Open, and as mentioned earlier, they were one point away from retaining their regional title against their new South Central rivals. Yes, there is a level of pressure being the defending champions. Still, in a division as chaotic as this one is, the target you get on your back is offset by the confidence knowing for a fact you possess the capability to win it all gives you. No team has more of that confidence than the defending champs.
#8 Lexington Sprocket (Northeast)
Sprocket has struggled to overcome the intense churn of playing in one of the most crowded regions (Northeast) and the most crowded division (mixed) in their first few years as a team. In 2021 they made quarters, in 2022 they lost two games to go in a row in a two bid region to XIST and Slow, and in 2023 they lost in prequarters to the #16 seed. As someone who lived in the area for four years, starting a new mixed team in/around Boston and making it nationally competitive immediately is no joke. Sprocket made it past the first hurdles of their existence and are waiting to take the next step as a program. In fact, for all the talent playing in and around the Boston area in mixed ultimate, XIST is the program out of the Northeast Region that has most recently made the semifinals, and now-defunct Snake Country last made semis from Boston in 2018. The problem isn’t talent. Every Sprocket roster, even the team that missed nationals, has been talented. Sprocket is just looking for the holy grail of the division: consistency in the biggest moments. They have an excellent chance to start strong in a pool against a familiar foe in Slow (who they admittedly did lose to at regionals) and a ‘Shine team they’ve beaten earlier in the year. Real progress as a program will need to take place later in the tournament.
#10 Boston Slow (Northeast)
Congratulations to Boston Slow on their 20th consecutive appearance at club nationals, most in the division! At the national level, however, they’ve fallen off a bit from the highs of their 2015-2017 run of three straight semifinal appearances and a title win in 2016. As mentioned above with Sprocket, some of that is due to there not being a consolidated pool of talent for one mixed team in Boston to pull from exclusively. However, because of the depth of the area, it can support two nationals-caliber mixed teams. They’re about to play each other at nationals, which, while a little silly to happen during pool play, is proof that there are many excellent mixed players in and around Boston. A win over Drag’n Thrust at Pro Champs, a win there over ‘Shine, and a win over Sprocket at regionals, are certainly causes for optimism. An 0-3 stretch to XIST over the last two tournaments they played at is a little less inspiring. There’s a wide range of outcomes possible for Slow, and we won’t know what we’ll get until they start playing the games.
#15 Nashville ‘Shine (Southeast)
Your final bid stealers in the mixed division are Nashville ‘Shine. ‘Shine is typically one of the perennial powers in the Southeast, but as you’ll recall if you followed along with my coverage of the Southeast Regional Championships, it was pretty crowded at the top in the mixed division, and there were no guarantees about who’d end up with the bids. Durham Toro slipped up, and ‘Shine didn’t. ‘Shine had lost more games than they’d won this year heading into regionals, but despite losing to both Sprocket (only on universe point) and Slow earlier this year, they did notch a win over XIST at Pro Champs, which no Northeast team has managed in a full calendar year. It’s the mixed division, so anything can happen, as you’ve gathered by now. I don’t have much confidence in ‘Shine to make any bracket noise, probably because I did watch them get dismantled in the finals against Space Force with my own eyes, but I’m rooting for my fellow Southeast-erners to do well.
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About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter (@noamgum/@breaksideulti now too!) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).
And the first team ever from the Sacramento area to make nationals, according to their website
“we were created as an experiment by a drunk and mad scientist - borne out of a sinful mixture of several substances on the dance floor of Outer Heaven Disco Club in Austin TX at 2am one fateful morning and nothing has ever been the same since“ — in their own words
2013-2015