August 11, 2026
By Evan Lepler

After another exhilarating postseason weekend, our 2026 Championship Weekend quartet is set. 

In 16 days, on Thursday, August 27, the UFA’s semifinal doubleheader will begin with the Oakland Spiders and New York Empire, a battle between the league’s only two franchises that have already won multiple championships. And in the nightcap, we’ll see the Minnesota Wind Chill and Austin Sol, two teams cut from the same defensive-minded, gritty, oft-overlooked cloth. 

Across all four teams that’ll be making the trip to Madison, there’s a myriad of fascinating individuals and storylines, from young rising stars looking to make their mark on the league’s shiniest stage, to veterans striving for one more magical moment, and so much in between. 

But before diving deep into what’s coming up later this month in the “Capital City of Ultimate”, we’ve got to catch our breath after the compelling four-game slate we just witnessed. Over the course of about 26 hours, we saw four games all decided by four goals or fewer, featuring so many suspenseful twists and turns. We experienced individual greatness and stunning goofs, with several bonafide superstars enduring both extremes in the span of just a few minutes.

In a nutshell, that’s playoff ultimate, where the pressure heightens and a single moment can seemingly cost a team its season. For the victors, there’s a complicated mix of joy and relief. And for the others, it’s an unexpected and undesired finality, a reality that’s especially tough to process and digest when you feel, like the Flyers certainly did heading into the fourth quarter, like you had the game completely in your control and then let it slip away.

The Full Field Layout

Like so many of the league’s all-time postseason thrillers, Friday’s South Division showdown in Austin was an emotional roller coaster for both sides, full of highs and lows, gripping ebbs and flows, and a conclusion that left virtually everyone in a state of paralyzed disbelief. 

Thanks to timely adjustments and relentless defensive intensity, the Sol had transformed an early four-goal deficit into a late three-goal lead, sending their raucous hometown crowd into a genuine frenzy. And then, in a span of minutes that felt like seconds, they very nearly saw their all-but-cemented semifinal spot go up in smoke. 

With just 2:09 left, the Sol led 23-20, and all Austin fans were on the edge of delirium. But Austin then surrendered a score in just 19 seconds, and then another in just 32 seconds. All seemed stable again when Jackson Potts hit Mark Henke with a cross-field shot, giving the Sol a 24-22 advantage with only 30 seconds left. 

This broadcaster even capped that sensational sequence with the bold declaration, “Austin, book your flights to Madison!” 

Turns out those words, despite ultimately being accurate, were perhaps a tad bit premature. 

Carolina converted one more score to make it 24-23, but just five seconds remained, and there was little doubt that Austin would trust Kyle Henke, their tall, talented leader, to make the right decision and close out the game. Any completion, or even just a towering throw downfield that would float in the air for more than five seconds, was all that Henke and the Sol needed to finish the job. 

But rather than launching the disc deep, Henke—due to a Texas-sized brain-fart or enticed by the Flyers’ desperate, confounding defensive alignment—lofted a parabolic forehand swing that ultimately landed incomplete. 

Quickly, controversy ensued. 

Immediately, Carolina sought to call a timeout, though UFA rules state that a timeout cannot be granted when an unpossessed disc, even after it has landed incomplete, is still moving. 

The officials, seemingly because the disc was still spinning on the ground, refused to whistle a timeout, and the Flyers’ final throw, a completion into the end zone that could’ve been the equalizer, was ruled to have taken place after the clock had expired. 

After a brief few seconds of confusion, the head referee emphatically signaled that the game was over, and the Sol stormed the field triumphantly, leaving the irate Flyers fuming for an explanation. 

“It’s tough,” said Carolina Head Coach Michael Avila. “We saw the disc go up from Kyle. As soon as I saw the disc hit the ground, I called the timeout while looking at the scoreboard and seeing one second left on the clock. It wasn’t granted, unfortunately. They said it was ball game. It kinda just is what it is.” 

Austin Co-Coach Joe Iannacone was in disbelief too, but primarily because he “had to have told Kyle 10 times, no matter what, throw it that way,” motioning toward the downfield space.

“Everyone’s cheering, and I’m walking to Kyle saying, ‘what about this way?’” said Iannacone, gesturing again to the other end zone. 

And Henke, who was interviewed on the field shortly after the game, acknowledged that the victory felt bittersweet because he could not believe the choice he had made. But even through the muted happiness, the emotions broke through.

“This just felt like the biggest game that I’ve had in my career,” explained Henke, “and for the team, such a young crew, it tears me up just thinking like all these young guys like George Gust, Owen Johnson, all these guys that didn’t come [to Championship Weekend] in 2023, those guys earned it today [...] It’s so exciting to be the underdog, even in our home stadium. We’ve been playing from behind all year, and there’s nothing we can’t do when playing from behind.” 

Reviewing the footage of the climactic final seconds, it’s obviously insanely close. By my timing, Henke’s throw hung in the air for about 4.35 seconds, but then it bounced around for about 0.7-0.8 seconds before it was picked up by Carolina’s Dillon Bruer. 

Ultimately, I think the officials got the call correct, though I don’t expect all the Flyers to agree. Everyone with Carolina was also pleading for an offensive receiving foul against Austin’s Reese Bowman, who maneuvered his body to impede Cooper Williams from making a play on the disc in the air. I see and understand the Flyers’ claim, but also think that this type of play, more often than not, goes uncalled. There was nothing close to egregious physical contact, and in the heat of the moment, it would have been very surprising to see the refs give Carolina a chance for the tie on an offensive receiving foul without a clearer collision. 

The Flyers, despite the devastation, also recognized that Austin, for the most part, had played brilliantly down the stretch to eke out the heart-stopping 24-23 victory.

“I think they really did a good job of pressuring our backfield and anticipating the type of looks that we like to go for, and we did a pretty poor job of executing the adjustments we discussed at halftime,” said Avila. “They’re a really, really gritty team. As much as I can say and complain about these things, we had opportunities to build the lead and pull away, and we didn’t do that.” 

Even after Jacob Fairfax delivered one of his patented buzzer-beating skies, out-leaping a pair of Sol defenders to give the Flyers a two-goal lead at the end of the third, Austin somehow found the will to stay together and keep scrapping. It was Assistant Coach Jason Holleran who spoke up in the huddle, inspiring the team’s dramatic and thrilling 8-3 run to start the fourth quarter.

“[Holleran] snapped everyone back in line and said this is not over,” recalled Iannacone. 

And after trading quick holds to start the fourth, the Sol defense broke through, with so many different players contributing to the season-shifting spurt.

“Two plays that come to mind were Aaron [Barcio’s] chase down block on Fairfax’s scoober and Joey [Wylie’s] sixth sense block on the [Dylan] Hawkins swing,” said Sol veteran Matt Armour. “Special shout-out to Aaron’s run-down block though. A good metaphor for that kind of effort is scratching off lottery tickets; 98 percent of the time, when you spring down to get back into the play after a completed huck on the goal line, you just end up wasting your energy, and a lot of guys will decide it’s not even worth it. But occasionally, you get that lucky chance from a careless pass, and it makes all the difference in the game.” 

Last week, I wrote that no team in the UFA had more to gain or lose by the result of their divisional title contest than the Sol, a fact that certainly still seems true after Austin punched its second-ever ticket to Championship Weekend. And there’s definitely something different about this year’s Sol team compared to the squad that stunned Atlanta in double-overtime to earn a semifinal berth in 2023.

“Austin has an undying belief that they are still in the game no matter what the score is,” said Carolina’s Allan Laviolette. “It’s why they’ve squeaked out so many of those overtime games or games within one coming down to the fourth quarter. They really showed a lot of grit and determination throughout the game and earned their spot at Championship Weekend.” 

Ultimately, over the course of 48 minutes, the Sol made fewer mistakes than the Flyers. Barely. 

“I have nothing but positive things to say about the Flyers,” said Armour. “Those guys are really talented and always are class acts. Fairfax is such a dominant deep cutter. [Zeke] Thoreson and [Tobias] Brooks are going to be stars for years to come. It’s funny, when I was younger playing ultimate, I used to get excited if I got a big block on one of the older stars, like [Dylan] Freechild, Goose Helton, Jonathan Nethercutt, etc. But now I’m starting to really relish getting blocks on the younger guys coming up. In five or six years, when [Brooks] is in his prime and winning MVPs, I’ll be able to say I got a hand block on him back in the day.” 

And as one team moves on to even bigger battles ahead, the other is forced to reflect upon the disappointing present and ponder the uncertain future. 

“It’s been a tough few days since the game,” said Laviolette. “Have gone through the full cycle of emotions being angry about the performance and letting down teammates, being grateful for the privilege to play in games that hold this type of weight, and being sad at thinking about the inevitability that the team will look different next year, and my own decision to continue playing is unknown at this point.” 

Laviolette, who turned 37 in May, was the oldest player to compete in Friday’s game, four years older than the next-oldest on the field that night. 

Meanwhile, Avila’s message to his team after the disappointing conclusion was also a poignant reminder of how much it can mean to everyone to be a part of these teams and pursue these competitive prizes.

“No one else, nowhere else,” Avila told his team. “No one else I’d rather be with, nowhere else I’d rather be. This group, we were trying to stay pretty present-minded, and our big focus was we wanted to fight for more opportunities to play together just because of how special this group was. It’s tough to end it that way.” 

Coming up later today in “Seven On The Line”, the stories behind New York, Minnesota, and Oakland’s Saturday success, and an early look-ahead toward some of the most important Championship Weekend details.