August 11, 2026
By Evan Lepler
“Seven On The Line” is part two of The Tuesday Toss, highlighting seven more important storylines around the UFA. Read part one here.
1. New York Meets the Moment, Earns Fifth East Division Title
Eight quarters into their 2026 postseason journey, the New York Empire still haven’t trailed for a single second.
On Saturday in Boston, New York jumped to a 5-2 lead less than seven minutes into the game, pushed the advantage to five late in the second period, and then withstood the Glory’s desperate late push to prevail 24-21, becoming East Division champs for the first time since 2023.
While standouts like Alex Atkins, Daan De Marree, and Ben Jagt all had their moments of brilliance, the biggest plays for the Empire came courtesy of the team’s less heralded playmakers. Bobby Elston, for instance, produced two blocks on Boston’s Tobe Decraene in the opening quarter. Luke Barry, who had completed two hucks all season, went 2-for-2 on deep shots, both producing clutch breaks. And Axel Agami Contreras, long one of New York’s feistiest, underrated defenders, delivered several clutch moments, including a key block to earn possession back when the Glory had the chance to tie the game midway through the fourth.
“No matter what happened, we were gonna play all 20 players on the roster,” said Empire Coach Matt Stevens. “Our O-line got broken and there were some pretty long O-points, and we just put out our second O-line, and those guys were 3-for-3. Two of the three were on upwinds. We had contributions up and down the roster. Luke Barry had two huge throws early in the game. Bobby Elston gets two blocks on Tobe in the first quarter. That’s the kind of stuff that energizes the entire team.”
The Empire’s offense was almost perfect for the entire first half, but the Glory created their first break chance in the final minute of the second quarter, and Decraene’s bobbling, buzzer-beating catch near the sideline as the buzzer blared brought Boston back within three at halftime.
“This game, we had it under control, and then the momentum kinda changed, and then we were like oh shit,” said De Marree, who led the Empire with six assists, two goals, and 670 total yards. “The momentum just totally changed, and we were struggling. Our offense didn’t have the confidence anymore like the first two quarters, and our defense was also not pushing the limits anymore.”
New York seemingly rediscovered its offensive rhythm early in the third, converting three straight holds to start the half, before the Glory defense finally started to disrupt the Empire attack. Boston proceeded to create three critical breaks, but the Glory missed many other chances to earn more.
“Our D’s O let us down,” said Boston Coach Sam Rosenthal. “D’s got the disc 10 times; I believe that’s more than either game at Championship Weekend last year. The D played very well in the second half, but the D’s O was pitiful, going 4-for-10, but two of those were the O-line holding after a timeout. So 2-for-8 total, 2-for-9 if you count the point the D-line played O. That’s not gonna cut it.”
New York also benefited from Ben Jagt’s buzzer-beating grab to cap the third, which came after Alex Atkins’ initial toss at the end of the quarter soared out of bounds and was saved by a whistle, signaling a foul on the mark.
“He made significant contact with my arm when I was releasing and on my backswing,” said Atkins, confirming his belief that he was fouled.
Boston clearly did not agree with the call, but the Glory still rallied for back-to-back scores to open the fourth, inching back within one with plenty of time left. But a couple more close calls went the Empire’s way, and Marques Brownlee’s bookends stretched the New York lead back to three with 4:40 remaining. When the Glory clawed within one again with 2:42 left, the Empire responded with Nick Whitlock’s daring deep shot, which Agami Contreras reeled in with 2:09 remaining, putting the Empire up 23-21.
“I was like, chill, this is not the matchup that we want,” said De Marree, asked what his first thought was when Whitlock launched the late huck. “But that was a money ball, right in the belly. There’s a lot going on in that moment when the disc is in the air, but when you see just the clap catch, you’re like, oh yea, let’s fucking go.”
Decraene’s second turnover—certainly overshadowed by an extraordinary nine-assist, four-goal performance—came on a desperation shot with 90 seconds left. After that, the Empire delivered the game-sealing exclamation point, as Atkins tossed just his second assist of the night for a sprinting De Marree.
Atkins finished with 644 throwing yards, but also endured three throwaways and a drop, finishing minus-two. But Boston’s Thomas Edmonds suffered through four throwaways and blamed a couple of his early errors for the Glory’s disappointing result.
“I shoulder most of the blame for the slow start offensively,” said Edmonds. “Two early turnovers, one with a very short field, is not the level of execution needed for a game with such high stakes. It’s also not the standard I hold myself to. Overall, it’s a large blemish on what was a good season for me. New York is very talented and disciplined. We gave them a lead that a team like that will hold onto.”
2. Championship Reign Ends for the Glory
While there’s still two and a half weeks before Boston is officially supplanted as the UFA’s reigning champ, the Glory’s quest to go back-to-back officially came to an end on Saturday night.
“It was a challenging year,” said Boston Captain Brendan McCann. “The team had such an inconsistent roster. Missing players for worlds trips, weddings, injuries. We pulled off some crazy wins: at New York, at DC, at Minnesota missing five-plus starters. More than anything, I feel this feeling of ‘what if?’ Last year, at full mast, we felt entirely untouchable. We never hit full mast this year.”
Adding to the adversity, there were several members of the Glory that articulated frustration with the officials during and after the game. Everyone who griped also acknowledged that New York had outplayed them for much of the night, yet still couldn’t help but wonder what might have been had a couple of key calls been adjudicated differently.
“There are bad calls in every game,” said McCann. “Inconsistent calls, no calls, and weird tick-tack things like random travels and picks where nobody on the field knows what happened. I think the frustration is that every random little call seemed to go New York’s way. That isn’t what cost us the game, but it didn’t help anything.”
Realistically, every championship journey requires some luck and good fortune on the journey, and truly great teams find ways to overcome uncontrollable adversity, something that the Glory could not fully do on Saturday. Perhaps someone like Jeff Babbitt, a four-time UFA champion who was inactive for the game, might have helped Boston stay on top of the East. But truthfully, we’ll never know.
All we do know is that Boston won’t be champions again in 2026, and they’ll have a long offseason to regroup and contemplate the road ahead.
“I am proud of the team and the effort we put in,” said McCann. “And I hope we can bring most of the crew back for next year.”
3. Chilling: Minnesota Makes Champ Weekend for Fourth Straight Season
If you just saw the final score—Minnesota 22, Indy 20—you’d probably think that Saturday’s Central final was a super close game.
Well, it wasn’t. But it also was.
The Wind Chill led 5-0. Then suddenly it was 6-6, as the AlleyCats reeled off an impressive 6-1 response.
Minnesota closed the first half on another 7-2 spurt and held a six-goal lead with seven minutes left in the game, only for the AlleyCats to score four straight late, creating the closer-than-it-looked final margin.
Even in victory, though, the Wind Chill weren’t thrilled with their performance. By contrast, the AlleyCats, even though they trailed by sizable margins for most of the night, felt like they hung tough and were kinda close to pulling off the stunning upset.
“They played their best game of the year, no question,” said Minnesota Coach Ben Feldman. “They tried snake in the grass; we were ready for it. They tried to drop a pull. We practice that as well. The AlleyCats team we went up against obviously was their strongest roster of the season; it was stressful preparing for them, knowing we hadn’t seen their best.”
But despite the stress—much of which was heightened due to Wind Chill mistakes—Minnesota still never trailed and brought plenty of thrills to the more than 2,000 fans that enjoyed the team’s fourth consecutive division championship.
“When Indy tied it at 6-6, I was never worried,” said Paul Krenik, who registered two blocks in the two-goal win. “The faith that I have in our team this year is something really special. I trust that when we go down, we’ll fight back every time.”
The final stats had Minnesota finishing with eight breaks, while Indy had six. But half of the AlleyCats’ break count came in the game’s final four minutes, when three consecutive breaks meant little beyond narrowing the final margin.
“I have to acknowledge the talent level, fan support, and overall organization Minnesota has built,” said Indy Coach Nathan Bussberg. “It’s always pretty cool to see what our sport can look like at that level, and it felt like they’re leading the league in almost every attribute of running a professional organization. So, genuinely, kudos to them.”
Presumably, many of the Wind Chill fans will again head to Madison in a couple weeks, hopeful of transforming Breese Stevens Field into another rowdy pro-Minnesota atmosphere.
“I run a lot of our camps throughout the summer, and my favorite part about our postgame celebration is being able to say hi to the kids who were able to make it out to their first Wind Chill game and are just starting to get excited about the sport,” said Wind Chill veteran Noah Hanson. “With this being our last true home game of the season, it was really special to be able to see kids from all the different camps throughout the summer. Regardless of the intensity of the game or how I’m feeling, I really love being able to turn off the competitive mindset and immediately connect with the kids after the game.”
4. Despite Sparkling Highlights, Inconsistency Dooms Indy
If the result was determined by which team produced the most SportsCenter Top 10 highlights, Indy would be moving on to Championship Weekend. But despite feeling really good about their game plan and getting national television-worthy athleticism from Connor Concannon and Jake Felton, the AlleyCats were still wondering what could have been when they reflected upon Saturday’s battle in St. Paul.
“We had a really specific game plan going into Minnesota,” said Bussberg. “Truthfully, despite the scoreline’s chaos at times, much of the plan was working well. What hurt us was having to shift our aggressive style of play from vertical aggression to quick movement and horizontal aggression. We were really comfortable with that game plan, but we didn’t execute it super well. We saw four or five huck turnovers almost immediately, and all were outside of what we were trying to do.”
Minnesota’s defense was certainly prepared for Indy’s pair of handling sensations, Elliot Hawkins and Jake Felton, who combined to throw 104 assists during the regular season. On Saturday night, however, Hawkins and Felton combined for just four assists and 10 throwaways.
“With Jake and Elliot, specifically, we talked pretty explicitly about what Minnesota was going to do to them, and Minnesota did almost exactly that,” said Bussberg. “They did a really good job blurring the line between what looked ‘open’ and what was actually covered. Early in the game, we threw a couple of hucks into double coverage while looking off options that may have actually been wide open. In a do-or-die game, those are really tough possessions to lose.”
Cameron Brock led the AlleyCats with four assists, two goals, one block, and 550 yards, but he thought the rest of the team’s offense wasn’t good enough to lay any of the blame on Hawkins, who only produced 125 throwing yards—a season low—on 32 completions.
“Honestly, I think Elliot played a better game than maybe the stats would indicate,” said Brock. “I don’t know if there was anything that they did specifically against Elliot that was making the game go the way it was. I think it was just that we weren’t doing a good enough job consistently enough of moving the ball laterally so that we could attack vertically.”
Considering the AlleyCats finished 4-8 in 2025, Bussberg was overall pretty pleased with what his team was able to achieve in his first season as Head Coach.
“We finished 7-7, but in a lot of ways it felt more like a 9-5ish season,” said Bussberg. “The wins and losses matter. They’re part of sports, and pretending otherwise would be disingenuous. But they’re a really small part of what you take with you when it’s over. I said it at the very beginning of the year: all we wanted was the chance to compete. We earned that chance. And we competed to the very end.”
5. Young Stars Shine as Spiders Win First West Crown Since 2015
When Liam Kreiss plotted his team’s trajectory in the preseason, he expected that much of the Spiders’ foundation would be built around players like Dan Ritthaler, Walker Frankenberg, Seamus Robinson, Itay Chang, Robin Vickers-Batsdorf, and Kyle Lew, a group that he called ‘certified stars.’
But even without any of those half-dozen playmakers, the Spiders still had plenty of firepower in their 20-16 victory over the Shred on Saturday night, which clinched the team’s first West Division title since relocating from San Jose to Oakland.
“Depth is one of our biggest strengths as an organization, and sometimes it feels like the 20-person UFA roster cap inhibits the full display of our talent, but the unfortunate injuries gave us the perfect opportunity to put our depth on display. Players like Dylan Villeneuve, Max Williams, and Mohammad Awais all got promoted onto the final roster and delivered time and again for us Saturday.”
Offensively, the team bestowed the game disc to Stefan McCall, who erupted for five assists, three goals, and two blocks, basically matching the numbers he produced across his four regular-season appearances. The soon-to-be-sophomore at Georgia Tech easily had his best game as a pro, though no Spider was too surprised by his productive performance.
“I think we know that Stefan is a really special player and a really excellent athlete,” said Leo Gordon, who went 33-for-33 with one goal, one assist, and one block in Saturday’s victory. “Having had the chance to coach him both through high school and for YCCs as well, I knew to some extent that he had some ability to really show up in the clutch. I don’t think we were necessarily expecting that out of him. I think our offense is quite egalitarian overall. None of our players are on that many of the leaderboards; I think we’re a very balanced offense, and really what that means is whoever has the best matchup can really take control. And Stefan is kind of a secret weapon in that way. He’s incredibly athletic, excellent throws, and clearly with takeover ability.”
The Spiders and Shred played even through the first 10 points, with each team creating one break in the opening quarter, but Oakland surged on a 4-0 run to start the second quarter, and the Shred never got within closer than two goals the rest of the game. The Spiders finished the day with just 12 turnovers, while the Oakland D-line created seven breaks to Salt Lake’s three.
“James Whealan earned the D game disc, playing exceptional defense on an MVP-caliber Chad Yorgason and earning two blocks in the process,” said Kreiss. “James has somehow flown under the radar this season but he is second on the team in blocks, hasn’t thrown a turnover, has a Callahan, and does it all while covering some of the best players on the other team. He’s also one year out of college; expect big things from James in the future.”
The Spiders were also thrilled to have their largest crowd of the season on Saturday night, a satisfying sight for everyone on the team who’s worked to grow the team’s footprint in the East Bay.
“I think Oakland, as a city, is a city that is kind of hungry for pro sports and hungry for a team to root for,” said Gordon. “We’ve lost the Raiders, the Warriors moved to San Francisco, the A’s moved to Sacramento, and so I think there is an exciting feeling from folks in Oakland for who’s gonna be our next big team. The Spiders are really invested in the community. We’re running summer camps and making a bunch of connections, and I think that really showed.”
While celebrating with their fans was quite enjoyable after the game, team leaders quickly reminded everyone that the goal of the season extended far beyond just winning the West.
“We re-centered ourselves on our season goals in the locker room,” said Kreiss. “While this weekend was a crucial step in our journey, we have more goals to accomplish, and beating New York will require a cleaner game than we played Saturday. Luckily, this team has shown the desire and ability to learn and grow all season, and I’m confident that we’ll be ready by the time we reach Madison.”
6. Salt Lake’s Circus Season Can’t Survive Another Battle with Oakland
All things considered, a four-goal loss for the Shred on Saturday wasn’t anything to be super ashamed of, considering a victory would’ve made Salt Lake the first team to ever make Championship Weekend with just a .500 record.
Instead, the result dropped the Shred to 6-8, including the playoffs. From 2022 to 2025, the Shred went 46-10 overall.
“Our players and coaches have been putting in over six months of practices and off-field work, and it’s always sad to see that come to an end,” said Jordan Kerr, who led the Shred with four assists, two goals, and 585 total yards in Saturday’s setback. “We weren’t favored going into the game, but I do believe we had a shot if we could’ve executed a little bit better.”
The Shred dropped to 2-3 in West Division title games, having been among the league’s final eight teams in each of the franchise’s five seasons. Only Minnesota and Salt Lake have been in their division’s championship contest in each of the last five seasons.
“That fourth quarter we had the energy and intensity we were hoping for,” said Kerr. “That’s on us for not playing like that for the first three quarters. [Head Coach] Bryce [Merrill’s] message at the end of the night was a message of gratitude. Gratitude toward the guys in the locker room, but also our other teammates watching from home, the coaches, the fans, and so many other people who we play for and who make this all possible.”
7. Divisional Championship Weekend Always Delivers
Once again, the league’s quarterfinal round delivered a ton of drama, with each of the four contests being decided by one, two, three, or four goals, respectively. Dating back to 2021, the UFA has now seen 22 of the last 24 games in this round of the playoffs decided by five scores or fewer.
Furthermore, thanks to Austin’s narrow one-goal win over Carolina, we’ve seen at least one quarterfinal contest decided by the slimmest of margins every year this decade.
Hopefully, we get three more classics in a couple weeks at Championship Weekend!
The Hammer
When the four division champs are finally determined, most fans are always immediately curious what the semifinal matchups will be. The most dedicated Tuesday Toss readers already understand that Champ Weekend seeding is decided based upon the four qualifiers’ regular season records and point-differentials.
Consequently, here’s how the seeding shook out this year:
- Oakland 11-1, +99
- Minnesota 11-1, +79
- Austin 11-1, +71
- New York 10-2, +105
A few thoughts on the final four:
- New York is technically the four-seed, despite being the only team in the league that hasn’t lost a game in regulation all season. Both of the Empire’s losses came in overtime, and the Empire also have the largest margin of victory.
- Head-to-head results during the season do not impact seeding. If they did, the Wind Chill, who beat the Spiders by one in Oakland back in June, would merit the top spot.
- But one would think that Minnesota is far happier to get Austin in the semifinals instead of New York. So in some ways, it feels appropriate that the Wind Chill, who did earn that road win over the Spiders, get to face the team that most would regard as the weakest of the four Champ Weekend qualifiers.
- Of course, I can fully imagine several members of the Sol reading that previous sentence with devilish grins, taking a mixture of delight and disrespect from being overlooked in the perception hierarchy.
Obviously, when Championship Weekend arrives, perceptions mean absolutely nothing, and it’s all about who can perform best over two nights in Madison.
But as someone who truly doesn’t care who wins and finds this whole journey incredibly gripping, the pair of Thursday semifinals—just 16 days away—cannot arrive quickly enough.
