July 28, 2025
By Evan Lepler
Christian Boxley, DC Breeze
In the week leading up to Saturday’s elimination game against the Empire, Christian Boxley—who played only two D-points during the 2025 regular season—went to a Breeze captain and said that he wanted the John Randolph matchup. Although he still started the game on offense, he crossed over to help create the first break of the night, launching a 51-yard forehand missile to AJ Merriman to put the Breeze up 2-1. That was the first of eight D-points for Boxley, the most D he’s played in the UFA since June 9, 2018, when he was a 22-year-old rookie in his second career game. He also played 11 O-points for DC’s exceptional offense, which went unbroken until the final three minutes of the night, when the Breeze were up by double digits and clearly on their way to an opening round rout. Boxley finished the night 23-for-23 with three goals and three assists, tied for the game-high in both categories, along with a team-high 266 receiving yards, as the Breeze obliterated the Empire 23-12. By the way, Randolph—who averaged nearly eight scores and 556 yards per game during New York’s four-game winning streak to close the regular season—finished the night with just three total scores and 255 total yards.
Travis Dunn, San Diego Growlers
Despite missing the last two games of the regular season with a back injury, Travis Dunn still looked like one of the best players on the field Saturday night in Texas. In his first appearance for the Growlers since June 28, Dunn delivered five goals, five assists, and over 550 total yards for the San Diego offense, which was broken just twice in four quarters against the Sol. Dunn also went 3-for-4 on his hucks, part of the Growlers’ aerial attack that went 13-for-16 on deep balls for the night. Five of those completed hucks, by the way, were hauled in by Khalif El-Salaam, who also shined on Saturday, accumulating five goals, three assists, and a game-high 449 receiving yards. Together, Dunn and El-Salaam will now prepare to lead the Growlers into Atlanta on Friday, August 8, where a coveted berth to Championship Weekend will be at stake.
Paul Krenik, Minnesota Wind Chill (Pictured)
While many members of the Wind Chill created stat lines that were far more eye-popping than Paul Krenik’s, the 23-year-old’s success on Saturday can best be summed up by surveying the numbers for Madison’s Anthony Gutowsky. For the first time in Gutowsky’s UFA career, he played a game and did not catch a single goal. Indeed, one of the league’s premier finishers—Gutowsky paced the Association with 56 goals during the 2025 regular season—was almost completely shut down by the defense of Krenik, among others. Gutowsky managed just one assist and one block, with three turns that left him with a negative plus/minus. Meanwhile, Krenik, in addition to his stellar defense, had three scores and 20 completions, tied for the most on the Wind Chill D-line along with Tristan Van de Moortele.
Carter Lankford, Oakland Spiders
Talk about setting a tone. Carter Lankford registered his first layout block before either team had a single completion on Saturday night in Oakland. The young defender—Lankford will be a senior at Cal-Berkeley this fall—picked up Colorado’s Quinn Finer on the opening point of the game and immediately denied Tobias Brooks’ up-line throw, swatting the first pass and beginning the barrage of breaks for the Spiders. Later in the opening quarter, Lankford skied for his second block, denying a Summit deep shot intended for Brooks. By the end of the night, Lankford had produced three blocks and three goals, leading the Spiders’ D-line in both departments. For the season, Lankford leads the Spiders with 17 blocks, and among all UFA rookies, only Chicago’s Daan De Marree has more blocks this season than Lankford.
Evan Magsig, Oakland Spiders
As brilliant as Oakland’s defense played against the Summit, the Spiders’ offense might have been even better. Broken just once—an early fourth-quarter blemish that cut the Oakland lead to eight—Oakland continuously left Colorado feeling frustrated, and Evan Magsig, the quarterback of the Spiders’ attack, enjoyed a virtually perfect night. Magsig went 47-for-47, with five goals, five assists, and 416 total yards, leaving the Summit D-line unable to create much resistance. While the rest of the Spiders went just 1-for-3 on their hucks, Magsig went 4-for-4, picking his spots and connecting on each of his shots. Astonishingly, the incredible core four of Oakland’s offense—Magsig, along with Walker Frankenberg, Leo Gordon, and Adam Rees—combined to go 141-for-141, protecting possession and preventing the Summit from mounting any real threat of a comeback.
AJ Merriman, DC Breeze
Do you realize that DC’s D-line converted each of its first 12 break chances on Saturday night? Seriously, TWELVE-FOR-TWELVE! In a playoff game against their number one rival! The Breeze D-line went 3-for-3 in the first quarter, 5-for-5 in the second, and added four more in the third en route to a 21-9 lead over the crumbling Empire. It certainly helped that AJ Merriman had a pristine offensive evening, going 21-for-21 with three assists, two goals, and one block to lead the Breeze’s brilliant break train. He also accumulated 254 total yards, fourth-most on his team. And while it’d be an exaggeration to claim that Merriman completely shut down New York’s Ben Jagt, the Empire’s all-time leading scorer was totally silenced statistically. For the first time in his extraordinary, Hall-of-Fame caliber 107-game UFA career, Jagt had zero goals, zero assists, AND zero blocks on Saturday against the Breeze.
Matt Miller, San Diego Growlers
It’s certainly much easier to win a playoff game when your team’s O-line center handler plays 100 percent mistake-free frisbee. Curiously enough, that was the case in each of the four first round games this past weekend. We already mentioned Magsig’s 47-for-47 for the Spiders. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s Will Brandt went 38-for-38 against Madison, and DC’s Jacques Nissen went 40-for-40 to finish unblemished against the Empire. San Diego’s Matt Miller belongs in that conversation too, thanks to his 45-completion, zero throwaway, 692-total-yard masterpiece on Saturday against the Sol. Miller’s 516 throwing yards were the most of any player across the league this past weekend, and he added four assists, five hockey assists, one goal, and one block to cap his dynamite night.
Previous weeks
