Meg Manning, Abby Thorpe, Abbi Shilts and Bridget Wipfler are all poised to make a big impact for their respective teams at Championship Weekend in Portland this weekend.
Championship Weekend brings together a field with very little separating it. Every team in attendance spent the regular season proving they belong, and now each has a legitimate path to the title. A combined record of 25-7 shows both their dominance and is proof that anyone can win. Each team at this event has only lost to other teams in attendance. Will San Diego have the firepower down the roster to take home a repeat title? Can Seattle prove they’re back to being the best with some new additions? Will Colorado buck the regular season narrative and punch above their weight? Or will this year finally be the year Bay Area breaks through to bring home their first WUL Championship?
Catch the action on the WUL YouTube page or even travel to Portland, OR to cheer your team on in person!
Semifinal 1 - June 13 @ 2:00pm PT
Seattle Tempest vs Bay Area Falcons
These two teams haven’t played since the regular season in 2025, when Seattle eeked out a 12-10 win on the road. Now, both teams have added key components to their roster and had a full season to build chemistry. Three of the five OPOTY finalists (Cheryl Hsu for Seattle with Robyn Fennig and Alex Barnett for Bay Area) will be playing in this game, so fans can expect dynamic offensive lines that can work through different defensive looks.
This year, Tempest has scored more goals (177 to 149), earned more blocks (130 to 116), and earned almost 30% more breaks than the Falcons (85 to 64). However, most of that difference can be accounted for from a single blowout Seattle had against the Wild. One differentiator we can trust is Seattle’s tendency to huck. On offense, you never know if Hsu (17/20 on hucks this season) is about to unleash a full field throw with plenty of star receivers downfield including BPOTY finalist Gemma Munck (21G, 7A), returning star Kaitlynne Roling (threw a record nine assists in a single game), and athletic mainstay Drea Baroma (10G, 9A). Additionally, while MVP finalist Jamie Kauffman (24G, 29A - led the league in both categories) and DPOTY finalist Meg Manning (19G, 9A) have primarily played defensive points this season, they both have crossed over to the O-line plenty of times and had success. Seattle has plenty of firepower they can throw out on offense if the game gets tight.
Bay Area, on the other hand, plays more of a small-ball type of offense, often relying on their star handler duo of Barnett (13G, 12A) and Fennig (3G, 18A) to work the disc up the field. During the regular season, they averaged 7.8 completions per scoring possession - the highest number in the league - while Seattle averaged the lowest at 6.0. The contrast between Seattle’s high-paced offense and the Falcon’s more deliberate attack will be fascinating to watch. First year Falcons like Dawn Culton (4G, 6A, 11B) and Bridget Wipfler (12G, 9A, 14B) bring energy to an already veteran defensive line including Eliza Pugh (3G, 12A, 4B), Eliza Chang (4G, 1A, 4B), and Lily Steponaitis (1G, 5A, 6B) who have the chemistry with years of consistency for the Falcons.
Why Seattle will win:
Seattle has played this entire season with no fear and a deep, experienced roster. They boast a finalist in every end-of-season award category, and they have even more players who have shown up in big ways. Lauren Page and Anna Pettee are two of the best lock-down defenders in the league. Ciona Antolin (a former gymnast) has exploded onto the scene with high pressure defense capped with athletic bids and a big vertical. Brogan Jones is the maestro of Seattle’s D-line offense off the turn - she’s completed all 10 of her huck attempts this season.
Why Bay Area will win:
Bay Area also is the only team this season to have bested San Diego, showing they have the depth to match a team like Seattle (who suffered an at home loss to San Diego). If the Falcons can keep up their patience to chip away at yards with smart decisions, they boast the second best Red Zone Efficiency in the league and could demonstrate the discipline to convert possessions into points and points into a semi-finals win.
Semifinal 2 - June 13 @ 5:15pm PT
San Diego Super Bloom vs Colorado Alpenglow
Every MVP crowned in WUL history comes from either Super Bloom or Alpenglow and they’ve taken home the most recent WUL Titles - San Diego in 2025 and Colorado in 2024 (just their second year as a team). Each of these teams has strong foundations and top talent, as well as a knack for utilizing a horizontal stack to stretch the depth of the field (San Diego threw the most hucks of any team in the regular season).
San Diego started this season without missing a beat from their title win in 2025, this time stunning the Bay Area with an eight point victory. Throughout the season, San Diego has remained almost perfect, their only loss to Bay Area when they rematched later in the season. Helton has been relatively quiet, playing with an injury throughout only six games, but still has played the third most points on the team at 114, behind only Katilyn Weaver and Kristen Pojunis (133 and 126, respectively, with MVP finalist Abbi Shilts only playing 106 points over the season). These three represent some of the highest two-way talent on Super Bloom, which seems to be their preferred method of play, shirking traditional offensive and defensive lines when they have the personnel. Super Bloom have shown the ability to rely on over a dozen players, allowing whomever happens to be open on any given point to take over. Eight different players have scored three or more goals in a game, and seven different players have thrown three or more assists. Helton (7G, 16A, 8B), Pojunis (4G, 22A, 10B), Weaver (9G, 16A, 7B) and Shilts (16G, 7A, 9B) are only the loudest parts of San Diego’s success. Kelli Iwamoto (2G, 6A, 4B) and Rebeca Ellis (6G, 9A, 5B) rank for the top two most throws on the team, showing their ability to possess the disc through any difficulty. Super Bloom again and again relied on these veterans to find a way to keep possessions alive (including no look backhands and lefty scoobers from former OPOTY Iwamoto).
On the other side of the field, Colorado seems primed to match San Diego’s penchant for the deep game. The rest of the league has caught onto Ari Nelson’s absolute cannon of an arm, and through deliberate handler and cutter defense, limited their ability to punish other teams this season. They still easily lead the team with 28 assists (plus 4G and 2B). Nelson’s partner in crime, Abby Thorpe, sits second in assists with 20 (plus 22G and 9B). Even if San Diego manages to limit these two, Colorado adds new threat and BPOTY finalist Kennedy McCarthy (20G, 13A, 10B) to their offense along with veterans Allysa Dixon (4G, 16A, 2B) and Sarah Levinn (7G, 3A, 2B). Colorado’s chemistry includes their ability to seemingly throw to no one and come up with a positive result. Their offensive firepower is only half the story, as their defense has leveled up this year with the addition of DPOTY finalist Sarah Itoh (15G, 3A, 19B) moved over from the offensive line, plus newcomers Alexandra Guy (8G, 2A, 7B) and Maggie O’Connor (5G, 7A, 3B). Colorado can match the top end of San Diego, but can they meet their energy and depth for a full four quarters?
Why San Diego will win:
Recent history. These two teams have played each other already this season in an 18-16 Super Bloom win back on May 16 in San Diego. Colorado was able to compete for 44 of the 48 minutes played, but Super Bloom took advantage of a few miscues late in in the first quarter, and once they took the lead, they stayed there comfortably. San Diego’s depth of roster should scare every team heading into this weekend, but it is a particularly tough matchup for Colorado who relies more on their top talent. If San Diego comes into Championship Weekend with a healthy roster and a focus on possession, they’re easy favorites to move forward into the final.
Why Colorado will win:
Colorado has not looked as consistently dominant as San Diego has, and will have to overcome the odds to pull off the win this weekend and return to the Championship Game. Colorado has lost to every other team at Championship Weekend - does that give them an advantage? In Alpenglow’s regular season loss to San Diego, they went just 2/17 on break opportunities, despite posting a respectable 35% conversion rate on the year. It seems deeply unlikely that Colorado will perform as poorly as the first time around against Super Bloom. And while they may be entering the game as underdogs, Colorado has the weapons to compete with any team out there. They are led by the most dynamic offensive duo in the league at the helm of Nelson and Thorpe. Nelson and Thorpe took their game to the next level this year, finishing first (Thorpe) and third (Nelson) in total yards, with Thorpe having over 40 combined goals and assists, while Nelson finished with nearly 30 assists. Additions of McCarthy and O’Connor, backed by veterans Itoh and Dixon, have had huge impacts on Alpenglow this season. It’s brutally difficult to beat a team twice in a short period of time, and an offense that is just a fraction more efficient on O and D points could very well mean Colorado is headed to the final instead.