Players Only: 2018 Club Superlatives (Women’s Division)

While Ultiworld has long featured various player awards, including All-Club selections, the voting has always been internal to our reporting team. Starting at last year’s National Championships, we started to ask players for their thoughts on the best of the best in various categories. What resulted was a fun and fascinating look at the Division from the players themselves: who do they see as the top performers from the season?

We asked a wide range of players for their thoughts on players in a variety of categories. Here’s what they had to say.

Player of the Year

“Lien Hoffmann (Brute Squad). Lien is a total weapon on all sides of the disc. She’s the player starter, the playmaker, and seems like the most modest and well-spirited person on the field at all times. I really admire her presence and hard work.” – Lauren Kimura (6ixers)

“Amber Sinicrope (Brute Squad). She is calm and collected when she needs to be and also brings the FIRE when she needs to. It’s a hard combination but she does it.” – Qxhna Titcomb (Riot)

“Lien Hoffmann has the most balanced game physically (defense, cutting, throwing, receiving) and mentally (super aggressive, but calm and focused under pressure).” – Jenny Fey (Scandal, formerly)

“Claire Chastain (Molly Brown). To me, great players are a threat everywhere on the field. Claire brings as much fire on offense as she does on defense and she’s an incredibly creative player. I also appreciate players who use their platform to push ultimate towards equity, and Claire does that consistently. Her ability to never let up, on and off the field, makes her the best player to me.” – Brittany Kaplan (BENT)

Best Defender

“Angela Zhu (Brute Squad) seems like she’s watched like 400 hours of film on me and knows exactly where I want to go all the time. It’s very challenging; it makes me think of new spaces I want to go to.” – Claire Chastain (Molly Brown)

“Angela Zhu. It is extremely challenging to get open on Zhu. I often find myself considering a strike just to make space, but more often than not she’s forcing me to layout for a dump. She also possesses freakish stamina and grit, which comes through during marathon points. At best, you somehow get the disc and now have to throw around a surprisingly stifling mark for her size; at worst, she’s producing turns and probably burning you by throwing a score.” – Lauren Kimura (6ixers)

“Cassie Wong (Brute Squad). It’s very frustrating to be an offensive handler when Cassie is on the field on D. I often survey the field, find Cassie, and then make a throwing decision not near her. She has the ability to explode into a space that seemed open, in a blink of the eye.” – Brittany Kaplan (BENT)

“Lien Hoffmann. A versatile player, she can play tight person D on handlers and cutters, and then she can play anywhere in a zone. Best in class in each and her versatility makes her truly lethal.” – Qxhna Titcomb (Riot)

“Cassie Wong takes people completely out of the game on the regular.” – Jenny Fey (Scandal, formerly)

Best Thrower

“Paige Soper (Riot) has the best hucks. Her release points and how smoothly the releases the disc, [her throws] are so pinpoint and so clutch.” – Claire Chastain (Molly Brown)

“I think we have some really great throwers with really different strengths. Amber Sinicrope (Brute Squad) can throw from any angle, any height off the ground like there is no mark anywhere on the field. Shellie Cohen (Brute Squad) has her standing 70-yard huck, which is incredible. In our Nightlock game, I think she had three throws standing on the end zone line, just standstill backhand hucks to the other end zone. No one else has that.” – Caitlyn Lee (Brute Squad)

“Alex Snyder (Fury). She makes a 40-yard chest high break into the wind look like gravy.” – Lauren Kimura (6ixers)

“Yina Cartagena (Revolution). She can ‘throw you open’ from anywhere on the field, and manages to find a receiver even at a very high stall count.” – Maddy Frey (Ozone)

“Lindsay Lang (Wildfire). Biased for sure, but I’ve never seen zones look so ineffective than when Lang is on the field.” – Kristen Pojunis (Wildfire)

“Alyssa Weatherford (Riot). She makes crazy throws looks so so easy. She can hit anything on the field and does it with high accuracy.” – Qxhna Titcomb (Riot)