The Grace College Ultimate Frisbee team has advanced to nationals in its first year as an USA Ultimate-sanctioned program. From left: Front — Brandon Wray, Maeghan McGlothin, Olivia Bottorff, Christian Harris, Ben Close, Joel Close, TJ Faur, and Caleb Cochran; middle — Jodi Glickert and Reegan Roth; back — Assistant Coach Alaister McFarren, Carlos Avila, Luke Osburn, Jaima DeWitt, Kaitlyn Wilczynski, Ty Swartzentruber, Kody Beachey, Gabe Lyons, Jacob Koons, Head Coach Drew Schramm and Assistant Coach Jordan Shuler. Photo provided.

News Release

WINONA LAKE — In its first year as an USA Ultimate-sanctioned program, the Grace College Ultimate Frisbee team advanced to nationals.

It secured its bid by placing first at the Division III Great Lakes Regional tournament at The Plex in Fort Wayne on Sunday, May 1. Nationals will take place May 21-23 in Milwaukee, Wis.

In the 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 May 1.

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 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,” said Head Coach Drew Schramm.

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 12th out of 13 at an Illinois tournament and 20th out of 20 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.”