Warsaw, IN – In its first year as a USA Ultimate-sanctioned program, the Grace College Ultimate team advanced to Nationals after securing its bid by placing first at the Division III Great Lakes Regional tournament at The Plex in Fort Wayne on May 1. Nationals will take place May 21-23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In a hard-fought Regional tournament, GCU (who came in as the five-seed of the seven teams in the regional) defeated the one-seed, Wheaton College, 13-10 and four-seed Valparaiso University 13-8 on Saturday, April 30 to advance to the championship bracket on Sunday. There, they downed Valparaiso once more, this time 13-5, and then faced off against Butler University, the three-seed heading into the tournament, in the championship game. In the final, Grace and Butler engaged in a back-and-forth matchup. With Butler receiving the disc needing to score two points before Grace scored one at the end of the game, Lancer senior Ty Swartzentruber forced a Butler turnover to set up Grace for the winning score. After working the disc up the field, sophomore Joel Close threw a deep pass to sophomore TJ Faur to clinch the game – and a first-ever Nationals bid – for Grace.

“This year,” said head coach Drew Schramm, “we emphasized three things every tournament: value the disc, have fun and know your role. Each one of these players did those things, and that’s why they were able to go up against such high-level competition and win.”

Grace had gone up against Butler previously in their conference tournament – which Butler had won - where they lost 12-10 in another tight game. Grace placed third at Conferences to advance to Regionals. As a first-year sanctioned team, Grace was ranked low heading into each regular-season tournament this season. Grace went in ranked twelfth out of thirteen at an Illinois tournament and twentieth out of twenty in an Iowa tournament; the team finished fourth in both tournaments.

“This team has overcome injuries, lack of numbers, exhaustion and pretty much any obstacle you can name time after time this year,” said head captain Ben Close, a senior at Grace. “We’ve got a mix of experienced and new players that all bought in to what Coach Drew wanted to prioritize, and it paid off.”

Close added that Grace was the only team at Conferences or Regionals to feature female students in their lineups, as it was technically a men’s open division that allowed girls to participate but did not require it. “Our mixed roster may be unconventional, but all the guys and girls on this team are all integral parts of our success this year,” said Close. “We needed every last drop of effort we got from everyone on the roster to get us to where we are now.”

About Grace College Ultimate – Grace College’s program was founded in 2013 by a collection of Grace students with a love for the game of Ultimate. While originally only participating in unsanctioned tournaments against other Midwest colleges, the 2021-22 school year became the first year that the team qualified themselves to compete in Division III sanctioned events. Overall, the team has gone 24-11 leading up to Nationals while outscoring opponents 314 – 266 on the season.