May 12, 2026
By Evan Lepler
My goodness, what a weekend.
Obviously, the finish between DC and New York will be replayed forever, but that epic conclusion was far from the only dramatic rivalry showdown in Week 3, as the action ramped up significantly across the Association.
After we witnessed just one game decided by a single score in the first two weeks of the season, we experienced four one-goal games this past weekend, all of which packed suspense, drama, and emotion into the intense final minutes.
When the regular season dust ultimately settles in late July, we’ll absolutely look back on the Week 3 madness as a defining batch of results.
Without further ado, let’s dive into all of the riveting chaos.
The Full Field Layout
As the DC Breeze patiently worked the disc in the red zone in pursuit of another equalizer with less than a minute left in overtime, 22-year-old UFA rookie Wiebe van den Brink was watching from the sideline, unsure whether he’d even be on the field for the ensuing point. He suspected it would be either Christian Boxley or him, but after the game-tying score with just 14 seconds remaining, Breeze Captain AJ Merriman called his number, and he raced to the line. As Merriman prepared to pull, DC’s latest Dutchman, competing in just his third pro frisbee game, quickly locked in mentally, determined to get a defensive stop and help send this Breeze-Empire thriller into double OT.
“As I ran down the field, my focus was to make any huck attempt as difficult as possible,” said van den Brink. “And prevent them from gaining easy yards that would put them in a better position to attack the end zone.”
Over the course of the 50 previous points, DC and New York had been trading punches like the two heavyweight programs they are, with playmakers from both teams creating crazy highlights and suffering through key mistakes that they immediately wanted back. With the game on the line, however, everything from the past two-plus hours felt irrelevant, and all that mattered was this specific sequence.
“I don’t really remember the exact moment John Randolph released the disc,” said van den Brink. “What I do remember is suddenly seeing the disc come into my field of vision and immediately thinking, I need to get that disc.”
New York’s Jack Williams, who was Randolph’s target on the short throw, had hesitated ever so slightly, enabling van den Brink to swoop in. He somehow intercepted the pass and avoided contact with Williams. There were four seconds left, and DC’s Luke Rehfuss, who’d been marking Randolph, bolted for the end zone.
“My only thought was, ‘don’t overthrow this,’” said van den Brink. “The second it left my hand, I felt confident he was going to get there. Then, as soon as he came down with it, all the stress and tension that had built up over those final seconds just completely exploded out of me.”
Rehfuss, the diminutive but dynamic defender, showed off his hops, skying over Randolph’s desperation effort to dramatically snatch the disc in the front of the end zone with no time left, capping the stunning conclusion as DC’s sideline erupted in joyous disbelief.
“Wiebe maybe could have put it out in front of me a little bit more,” said Rehfuss. “But we’ve matched up with JR a lot of times; I knew I had to go up early on him. He’s a great athlete. And so, I just went and high pointed the disc. It happened.”
It happened, indeed, as Rehfuss calmly undersold the truly unbelievable ending, which lifted DC to the 26-25 overtime victory. A former All-American track star at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the sixth-year member of the Breeze has been through a bunch of these battles with New York. For someone like van den Brink, who grew up in Utrecht, the fourth-largest city in The Netherlands, being directly involved in something like this was truly unprecedented.
“All of that competitiveness, adrenaline, and stress had been building the entire game, and the moment we won, it all came pouring out,” he explained. “You can really see it in the way we celebrated that final point and the win as a team. I definitely wasn’t the only one who was completely locked in on getting that win, and in that moment, none of us expected to take it from them the way we did [...] Back in the locker room after the game, I needed a moment to myself because I was honestly overwhelmed with emotion. Between the win, everything that went into getting back on the field [after recovering from a knee injury this winter], and all the messages I was receiving from people back home, it really hit me how special the whole experience was and that I was living my ultimate dream.”
Of course, one man’s dream may be someone else’s nightmare.
Asked about the game’s mind-boggling ending, Randolph graciously shared his perspective.
“On the last possession, I made a big mistake and we lost,” said Randolph, matter-of-factly. "We're receiving with 14 seconds left. We either have to hit a buzzer-beater or we receive on universe. I think, statistically, we win 90 percent of the time, but 90 percent likely events don’t happen 10 percent of the time. I really wish I hadn’t made the mistake. It’s one of those games, where throughout the game, we went up a little bit, and you start to trick yourself that maybe one play isn’t important or a game-defining play. And then you look back and it’s a one-play game, and every single play was the defining play.”
It was the 15th time in 38 editions of the DC-New York rivalry that the final margin was a single score. Seattle and Oakland have had 12 games decided by one, while no other matchup in UFA history has had more than nine games settled by the slimmest of margins.
And for Wiebe van den Brink, it’s a moment that neither he nor Breeze fans will ever forget. It sure turned out to be a good thing that Merriman decided to put him on the field instead of Boxley for that final point.
“Listen, Christian Boxley’s the best player in the world, but he made a mistake at the end of the first half,” said Merriman, during his celebratory postgame interview surrounded by several of his teammates. “We put Wiebe out there, and Wiebe did not make a mistake. He came in clutch for the boys. Wiebe is amazing.”
*****
The final seconds in San Diego weren’t quite as dramatic, but the Growlers couldn’t make it a stress-free finish either. Up 16-13 late in the fourth, Max Gibson’s second clutch block of the night put San Diego in position to run out the clock with simple possession preservation. Of course, it wasn’t that simple.
Reggie Sung’s throwaway set up Austin Taylor’s scoober score with 1:21 left, and then Travis Dunn, perhaps just trying to keep it exciting for the fans, boldly launched a cross-field hammer that got blocked by Trip Crowley. One throw later, Brett Hulsmeyer, playing through a broken hand that he suffered early in the second quarter, caught the goal to inch the Hustle back within one with eight seconds remaining.
“I had about three heart attacks in the final two minutes of that game, and Travis [Dunn] didn’t really help with that hammer,” said long-time Growlers Coach Kevin Stuart.
But despite the late mistakes, San Diego’s performance over the game’s first 46 minutes still enabled them to prevail. On the final possession, Matt Miller stepped through a double-team to connect with Gibson, who quickly dished to Dunn, closing out a massively important 16-15 home win for the Growlers.
“What a bone-headed throw there at the end,” said Dunn. “Glad we had a little cushion. That truly was a great team win for us on Saturday [...] It was huge after going 0-3 against [the Hustle] last year. Especially knowing we only had one game each against Carolina and Atlanta.”
Following the opening weekend loss against the Flyers, San Diego’s sense of urgency only heightened. They focused on defensive adjustments in practice leading into the Hustle game, and that preparation paid off with blocks on the first four points, three of which led to Growler breaks. After jumping ahead 3-0 at the start, San Diego encountered some slip-ups the rest of the way, but while Atlanta rallied to tie the score late in the second quarter, the Hustle never could surge into the lead.
“It certainly took us a few points to get our feet underneath us offensively against a much better defense than the previous night [in Vegas],” said Atlanta’s Hayden Austin-Knab. “They were running FM [aka Force Middle] against us, which took us a second to adjust to, and [they] were pretty crisp on offense after the turn [...] In my opinion, they looked a good bit better than any of the times we saw them last year. Credit to them for integrating their pieces nicely and putting together a good game plan against us. We knew it would be a competitive game, and they certainly brought it.”
It certainly didn’t help the Hustle that star big man Brett Hulsmeyer broke his hand on a layout attempt early in the game.
“Unfortunate play, and kinda weird,” said Hulsmeyer. “Caught it then dropped it from hitting my shoulder awkwardly and definitely thought it was my shoulder hurting, but the second I got to the trainer, I realized my hand was broken. I think it just got trapped under something. Still don’t know how it was the left [hand].”
The fact that Hulsmeyer played six more points the rest of the game—all on the D-line—was pretty remarkable, particularly as he intercepted San Diego’s buzzer-beating attempt at the end of the third and snagged the last score with less than 10 seconds left. On Monday, a trip to the doctor resulted in a cast on his left hand.
But with games against Carolina on tap in each of the next three weeks, Hulsmeyer remained optimistic.
“I’m gonna test it out this Wednesday at practice and see how it feels,” he said.
While the Hustle slipped to 2-2 through their first four games—with two wins by a combined 34 goals and two losses both by one score apiece—they also know they have six of their final eight games at home.
“It’s all about flipping moments and flipping a few in our favor,” said Hulsmeyer.
In the postgame huddle, Hulsmeyer also advised his teammates that they’ve been in this position before.
“Brett reminded us after the San Diego game that the last time we went 2-2 to start the season, we won eight straight to finish the season 10-2 and secured the number one seed in our division,” said Austin-Knab. “We have a lot of confidence in ourselves and aren’t going to let two close losses define us.”
Meanwhile, the Growlers entered the season fully understanding that they needed to be sharp early, with seven of their first eight games against teams that made the postseason a year ago. By getting to 1-1 ahead of this Sunday’s interdivisional marquee matchup against the 4-0 Oakland Spiders, San Diego hopes it will do enough going forward to make this past weekend’s win matter even more.
“We now own the tiebreaker against Atlanta,” said Stuart, “but we have 10 more games this season and need to do well for that tiebreaker to matter. So yes, we celebrated a win against a division rival, but now we need to get ready for a really good Oakland team, who we will see two out of the next three weeks. Our focus is now on Oakland.”
Coming up later today in “Seven on the Line,” two other rivalry matchups decided by a single point, domination from Oakland and Carolina, and all the rest of the meaningful Week 3 magic across the UFA.
