December 12, 2025
By Evan Lepler and Adam Ruffner
Sometimes you just gotta go for it all immediately. Sure, we appreciate careful consideration and nuance, but every once in a while, you have to huck and hope. Welcome to “The Quick Huck", a new back-and-forth column where Evan Lepler and Adam Ruffner of the "Swing Pass" podcast will ask questions, offer perspective, and debate what the future holds in the Ultimate Frisbee Association. (CLICK FOR PREVIOUS EDITION)
Today’s prompt: There are very few moments in frisbee that are more exciting, chaotic, and so-frequently-franchise-changing than buzzer-beating scores. Sure, folks can quibble that these special team situations are foreign to traditional ultimate frisbee, but that’s just one of the reasons why they can feel so dramatic and shape-shifting. Many of these plays live forever as some of the most iconic or wild moments in UFA history.
So, what are your three most memorable buzzer-beaters you’ve seen watching the UFA?
Lepler’s response:
This is so tough because it could focus entirely on the stakes involved, meaning that playoff buzzer-beaters are the only answer. Also, at least five insane end-of-game moments immediately come to mind, so narrowing it down to three is almost impossible.
Almost.
Thankfully, I’m here to conquer the hard questions.
Going in reverse order:
3) The most absurd buzzer-beating sequence I can recall in a UFA game took place on the final weekend of the regular season in 2022. It was an otherwise forgettable game between the Minnesota Wind Chill and the Detroit Mechanix, but the disc madness at the conclusion of the opening quarter was absolutely extraordinary. I chronicled the outrageousness at the top of the Tuesday Toss on August 2, 2022.
As I wrote at the time, Bret Bergmeier’s in-field chicken-wing greatest, followed by Marty Adams’ wizardry near the goal-line, led to Dylan Declerck’s lunging layout grab to cap the stunning buzzer-beater.
“Inconceivable,” exclaimed Minnesota play-by-play announcer Alex Redding, who captured the insanity wonderfully with his flabbergasted tone.
Sure, this play made the score 4-1 and the Wind Chill crushed the Mechanix 28-9. No one is saying this was among the most meaningful buzzer-beaters in UFA history.
But the question was about memory rather than meaning, and this play was the first bonkers buzzer-beater that popped into my mind.
2) Let’s go back to the 2018 Championship between the Dallas and Madison at Breese Stevens Field. Most viewed the visitors as a slight favorite heading into that game, but the hometown Radicals were also ultra-determined to make history.
In the final seconds of the third quarter, the Radicals were receiving with a 14-12 lead, but Dallas would have the first possession to begin the fourth. Seemingly, with just three seconds to kill at the end of the third, Dallas would soon have the disc to inch back within one and really hoist the pressure squarely on Madison’s shoulders.
But then Kevin Pettit-Scantling somehow plucked a deflected disc to thrillingly give the Rads a three-goal lead as the third quarter clock expired, dramatically changing the tone of that title fight. It was unreal.
I will never forget this moment.
It felt preordained that KPS, who was arguably the local fans’ favorite player in Madison, would make this play. When he celebrated by pretending to give the disc CPR, he was truly breathing life into the Radicals championship dreams. (Yes, that’s what I said live on the broadcast, and I personally think it’s one of the best spontaneous lines I’ve ever delivered as a play-by-play announcer in any sport.)
Furthermore, this was the moment when everyone fully believed that the Radicals were going to win the title. It was a complete 180 from the devastating third-quarter buzzer-beater that helped knock Madison out of the title hunt two years earlier, when Will Chen’s full-field missile fueled Seattle’s crazy comeback.
Without a doubt, this still lives on as the most iconic moment from the Radicals’ greatest day.
1) Until I rewatched the Pettit-Scantling snag, I had forgotten that the legend of my number one most memorable buzzer-beater was actually the closest defender for Dallas as KPS made the grab in 2018. But five years after this painful moment, Joel Clutton became a hero with his own once-in-a-lifetime deflection.
The Salt Lake Shred were down one with just 15 seconds left in their semifinal showdown against Minnesota, and when Chad Yorgason launched his backhand prayer, it appeared that even a skying grab would come up shy of the goal-line.
But then Clutton elevated over the pack and perfectly macked the frisbee toward the end zone, where Elijah Jaime seemingly knew what was about to happen as he calmly made the game-tying clap-catch with no time left.
The hometown Minnesota crowd was stunned into silence, and the Shred euphorically celebrated as if they’d won!
Five minutes later, after Salt Lake eked out the victory in overtime, the Shred were indeed in the finals, largely thanks to Clutton’s unbelievable end-of-quarter brilliance.
As Shred coach Bryce Merrill said after the game, “We needed a hero moment, and we got it from Clutton.”
With all due respect to Jeff Babbitt, Will Chen, Ben Jagt, and so many others, that’s my list.
Ruffner’s response:
Just a quick thought before I get to my picks: I think my favorite thing about buzzer beaters in the professional game is what might frustrate frisbee purists the most. Despite their clocking-beating drama, last second heaves oftentimes lack the strategy—or flow—of “good ultimate”. There’s a frustrating lack of logic to their results. You accurately say “chaotic”, and I would add that they’re relative, often conversational events. The emotional pitch of the KPS buzzer beater in 2018 is only possible because of the Will Chen wonder throw from 2016, and the complete uncertainty that unites the two plays, their sheer improbability, is what makes their narrative link all the more special. It’s stuff beyond scripting, and that’s what I cherish most about sports.
But anyways, as much as I love the KPS and Clutton moments, I wanted to offer three distinctly different plays. And also, I cannot pick and choose favorites, so these are presented in chronological order.
Will Chen in the 2016 semifinals
I watched this play unfold live from the press box at Breese Stevens Field. I’ve edited and replayed it hundreds of times in social media clips, promotional ads, and more. And after nine years and countless views, I still cannot entirely process Will Chen blasting a picture perfect backhand endline-to-endline to further propel the greatest comeback in league history.
It bears repeating just how dead in the water Seattle was in that game. Down seven goals midway through the third quarter, playing against the best defense in the league in front of a record-setting home crowd for the undefeated Madison Radicals, the Cascades went on a heroic run of highlight plays in the second half, with Chen’s 80-yard rip being so authoritative that you’d think Seattle took the lead on that play, even as they still trailed by two goals heading into the fourth quarter.
The context alone makes the throw a historical landmark, but the form and flight of that frisbee is something else. Chen isn’t in any kind of advantageous position when he gets the disc with five seconds on the clock, receiving a panicked, sideways swing pass that left the thrower without any momentum. Yet somehow Chen has the presence of mind to get a pump fake in before the release, importantly shifting one defender out of position before curling and unloading. Watch the replay angle: the Radicals’ first defender makes an incredible diving recovery to try to deny the disc, and Chen still delivers a bomb through an opening little more than a mailbox in its dimensions. If the release wasn’t enough of a miracle, the laser beam velocity put the disc where only a Seattle player could get to it.
It also featured my favorite playcall from you and Chuck Kindred in the booth.
“Chen, can he throw the full 80 yards of the field? Are you kidding me? You are kidding me!”
“Holy smokes.”
The Cascades would go on to complete their improbable comeback and upset, setting up Radicals lore for two years later on virtually the same spot of turf.
Jack Williams/Ben Jagt in the 2022 East Division Championship Game
The two fiercest rivals in league colliding at their absolute zeniths, the 2022 East Division title bout between the DC Breeze and New York Empire has to be one of the five most intense and most important matchups in UFA history. Not only was the result determined by an end-of-regulation hail mary into a sea of players, the play arguably launched New York’s dynasty, and was the keystone piece of the record-setting 31-game win streak.
The Empire slugged their way to a 10-7 lead at halftime before the Breeze made a rally in the second half. DC’s defense stunted New York at the point of attack and blitzed the Empire backfield throughout the third and fourth quarters, flummoxing 2022 MVP Ryan Osgar into his worst throwing performance of the season. Both teams traded contested scores throughout the final frame, but the eventual champs would not be denied, with Jack Williams sailing a prayer into the pack at the buzzer, and birthday boy Ben Jagt ripping down the disc for an ultimate present and a berth to Championship Weekend.
It would take DC nearly two more years—and two more Empire UFA titles—to get a semblance of revenge.
Jeff Babbitt in the first round of the 2024 East Division playoffs
Like I said at the top: Buzzer beaters have a kind of conversation between one another. Chen leads to KPS, which then in turn leads to Clutton. And so following Jagt’s catch in 2022—and New York’s staggering frequency of clutch moments at the buzzer throughout their dynastic stretch—we arrive at Jeff Babbitt in 2024.
A reigning MVP left unsigned by New York following their third championship together, Babbitt was on a mission from the moment he donned a Glory jersey in April 2024. As the frisbee fates would have it, Babbitt would get his ultimate chance of revenge on his former team in an elimination game that very same season. And for two franchises predicated on possession, the first round playoff battle was a low-turnover grind, which sparked multiple instances for end-of-quarter dramatics before the final bell.
“It’s gotta be scripted, right?” said Empire cutter Charles Weinberg at the time in the Tuesday Toss. “It did feel extremely scripted. We’ve seen this so many times on our side, and of course it happens again.”
Here’s one of the things I like most about watching Jeff Babbitt play frisbee. We, the media and players alike, unilaterally describe the man as some manifestation of a human truck, with descriptions of his size and speed reaching a kind of tall tale aspect in their dimensions. And yet, in reality, Babbitt has the physical toolkit of a ballerina: unparalleled body coordination, timing, and footwork that allows him to make seemingly miraculous plays into the norm. This buzzer beater is a perfect example as Babbitt uses none of his strength or imposing frame to get to the disc, but rather shoots a gap amidst a forest of bodies without making contact, and spears the frisbee with two hands for the game winner.
Boston would go on to lose to DC in the East Division title game that year, but the impact was clear. New York was no longer their dynastic selves, and Babbitt was forming a new kingdom with Boston.
