Written by Noam Gumerman
WUL Lead Writer
There are just two weeks left of the 2025 WUL Regular Season, and Week 8’s action starts tomorrow! This weekend, the two undefeated league leaders take on the two still-winless teams as Oregon travels to San Diego, and Colorado travels to Arizona. While these matchups may look lopsided on paper, both Oregon and Arizona are desperately running out of time to find their first wins of the season and that may fuel tight games. Here’s what you need to know ahead of Week 8.
Game 1: Oregon Soar @ San Diego Super Bloom
Saturday, May 10 | 4pm PT
San Diego, CA
In past years, despite consistently impressive regular season performances, San Diego had always fallen short of the crown. This year they are sitting 4-0 with three dominant victories – this may be the best a Super Bloom team has ever looked in the regular season. And that is really saying something. Yes, we will find out more about this team as they finish out the season and head to Championship Weekend, but they’ve risen to every challenge so far this year. The core of Kaela Helton and Dena Elimelech remains as dominant as ever, but the pieces they’ve added around them in Kaitlyn Weaver, Avery Jones, Alex Diaz, and many more, have all taken some of the load off in a way that was sorely needed last year. Additionally, the real game changer has been their vastly increased usage of zone defense, the most they’ve run since 2022, that has stifled every opponent they’ve faced so far. Their offense hasn’t needed to be as explosive and their stars haven’t had to carry as heavy a load when their defense has set them up for so much success. Oregon will first and foremost need to crack the zone consistently and efficiently to find success in this matchup.
For Oregon Soar, their challenge remains the same, it’s been this whole inaugural season: can they play four complete quarters of professional ultimate? Can they put themselves in a position to battle for a win on equal footing rather than frantically coming back from a large deficit? Slow starts and inconsistent play through the middle halves of games have doomed their last three contests. They’ve consistently shown flashes of brilliance against the top four teams, better than any team outside that group has, but they have yet to put it all together. Part of that is what comes naturally with being a new team and lacking the pro experience other teams have. They haven’t fully fleshed out their identity yet, they don’t have their go-to options in big moments yet either. But this is all valuable experience for the large portion of this team that will likely be back in 2026. They’re very capable of pulling off an upset this season. San Diego cannot afford to overlook them this week.
Staff Pick: San Diego 23- 16 Oregon
Game 2: Colorado Alpenglow @ Arizona Sidewinders
Saturday, May 10 | 7pm PT
Tempe, AZ
Colorado Alpenglow have won a league-best six games in a row dating back to the start of 2024 Championship Weekend, and look poised to extend that streak to seven this week. Their formula has largely remained the same across all games: electrifying, impossible-to-stop offense. Despite the majority of the league having already played five games to Colorado’s four, Alpenglow have still scored the most goals in the league across the 2025 regular season. At the hub of their success remains Ari Nelson. Colorado’s center handler has followed up their 2024 OPOTY win with one potentially worthy of MVP. Their 18 assisst and nearly 1,900 throwing yards in just four games leads the team and league, and Nelson has been spoiled for choice with the best array for downfield targets in the WUL. No team Alpenglow has faced has had an answer for Rory Veldman, Sarah Itoh, Bristol Lovoy, Abby Thorpe, Sarah Levinn, Allysha Dixon, or any other Colorado receiver. This group blew Arizona away 26-12 last time they played in a game that got out of hand really quickly. All signs point to the same outcome being most likely this weekend.
Arizona has a monumental mountain to climb to get a win this weekend. Their last game against the Alpenglow was a historic blowout where they did not register a single break. Last week they traveled to Utah looking to get their first win of the year against their easiest (on paper) opponent. They started strong but faded late, surrendering an 8-3 fourth quarter in favor of the Wild to put the game well out of reach. Additionally, they are the only team finishing out their schedule this week, so it’s now or never if they are going to avoid going winless in 2025. It’s not like they are coming in with no momentum though. Melissa Dunn won WUL Week 7 Player of the Week with her 4G/4A 455Y performance, and Brittany Stettmeier had five goals of her own last week. For receiving yards, Arizona had the top 4 leaders last week including Stettmeier and Dunn. It’s going to take more than great individual performances for the Sidewinders this week though. Colorado looks to be an unbreakable team, so if the Sidewinders want to end 2025 on a high note, they're going to need to turn in their first great team performance of the year, up and down their entire roster.
Staff Pick: Colorado 20 - 14 Arizona