You’ve cheered on the Bucks, the Brewers and the Admirals, but you might not have heard of our hometown Premier Ultimate League team, the Milwaukee Monarchs.
“Ultimate” involves a team moving a frisbee down the field player-to-player, to score points in the endzone. The PUL was founded in 2019 with a mission to “achieve equity in the sport of ultimate by increasing accessibility to the sport for, and of women, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer and genderfluid people through high quality competition, leadership experiences, and community partnerships.” PUL currently has 12 teams coast-to-coast.
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One of the Monarch’s star players, Chelsea Twohig, was introduced to ultimate while going to college in Madison. She admits that at the time, she “thought it was a strange thing,” but after she moved to Spain to teach English, she discovered a local team and started playing.
“I got really obsessed as many do, and I haven’t really stopped playing.” Twohig says. Returning home, she now works in the dental field for her day job and discovered the Monarchs, who played their first season in 2021. Including reserves, the team now has 32 players.
Ultimate gameplay will seem familiar to sports fans but focuses on moving a frisbee around the field instead of a ball.
“I usually describe it as something that looks like a combination of soccer, football, and maybe basketball at times,” Twohig explains. “It’s seven versus seven on a field, how you score points is by catching the frisbee in the end zone on the opposite side of the field that you start on.”
The disc can be thrown any direction to get it in the hands of teammates to advance it up the field. There are four quarters, and the game is largely self-officiated with players calling their own fouls, though there are “observers” who can step in to act as referees.
The season started for the Monarchs last month with three away games. They lost a close game, 17-20, with New York Gridlock on April 13 for their season opener, then faced a sounder defeat of 4-16 against the Philadelphia Surge the following day, and lost to Minnesota Strike on May 4, 9-21.
But now the Monarchs hope the tide will turn as their remaining matches move to home turf. They play Atlanta Soul on May 25 in Madison, and return to Hart Park to face Portland Rising on June 1. The outcome of those games will determine if they move on to the league’s championship weekend in late June.
“I’m excited to win some games,” Twohig says, confidently. “It’s going to happen.”
Caitlin Murphy, head coach for the Monarchs, says that while gearing up for these next games, they’ll be focusing on helpful skills like” athleticism and patience,” but notes that athleticism can be interpreted in different ways while playing ultimate.
“A lot of people when they’re first starting think that you’re good at ultimate when you can throw really well, but that’s a little bit narrow,” Murphy says. “Some of my best players are fairly new to the game but they have really great field vision, athletic sense and instincts when it comes to defense especially, so I think there are a lot of ways to be an ultimate player.”
The next Monarchs home game is Saturday, June 1 against Portland Rising at Hart Park, 3 p.m. Tickets start at $12 for students and $15 for regular admission and are available at milwaukeemonarchs.com.
