Photo by Alan Bloodgood
MAY 14, 2026
By Will Stuntz
The DC Breeze (2-1) will face their first opponent outside of the East Division this week, as the Colorado Apex (1-2) visit the nation's capital. The Friday night matchup will be the first clash in history between the two franchises.
The Breeze are coming off two thrilling games, starting with a closely contested match with the Montreal Royal that they took over at the end, and an overtime thriller with the New York Empire that saw Luke Rehfuss make a spectacular grab with no time left to beat DC’s biggest rival in dramatic fashion.
The Apex’s 2026 campaign hasn’t been as glorious, as they’ve been trounced 27-14 by the Seattle Cascades, narrowly escaped with a victory against the Oregon Steel, and were blown out again in week three by the Salt Lake Shred by a score of 26-16. Colorado gave up more than 30 turnovers against Seattle and Salt Lake.
The Apex are without two of their best players from 2025 in Alex Atkins and Noah Coolman, who both joined new teams this past offseason. Atkins missed the majority of the 2025 season but led Colorado in assists, goals, and throwing yards in 2024. Coolman co-led the Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) in blocks with Boston Glory’s Jeff Babbitt and has led Colorado in blocks since 2023.
In addition to the departures, Quinn Finer is listed as Out, due to a lingering injury. Finer led Colorado in assists in 25, and is a proven threat from deep, completing over 65% of his huck attempts in 2025 and over 90% in 2024. Finer, Atkins and Coolman were all critical to Colorado’s deep throwing and deep defense, and their absences will be a major hurdle against a Breeze team that has aimed to improve in both categories. Nanda Min-Fink and Conor Tabor are also listed as Out.
Despite Colorado's departures, they will come into DC hungry to avoid dropping their third game of the season before traveling to New York for a matchup with the Empire on the following night. It is incredibly challenging to sweep a travel doubleheader in the UFA, so fans can expect to see the Apex come out strong on Friday. Look for big performances from the 19-year-old Benen Shea, who has put up three assists, 10 goals, and two blocks in three games, as well as Apex veteran Seth Faris, who notched 16 assists and 34 goals in 2025.
The Breeze will look to continue doing what has worked and fix some of the issues that have plagued them in the first few games of the 2026 season. They will once again rely on AJ Merriman and Miles Grovic as dynamic dual threats that have contributed on both sides of the disc. If the Breeze offense can continue to expand their game by scoring on fewer completions but also leverage their ability to be patient and walk the disc in, it will be hard for the Apex defense to limit DC's trips into the endzone. With an infusion of young athletic defenders, including sophomore Micah Wagner and rookies Wiebe van den Brink and Lev Blumenfeld, the Breeze will also be on the prowl hunting blocks to increase the number of break chances they've forced to this point and tilt the game in their favor.
Jeremy Knopf will be active on Friday for Colorado. Knopf had four productive seasons with the Breeze from 2019 to 2023 before heading out west and joining up with the Apex in 2024. Ben Harris and Min-Fink also have ties to the DC area. Harris had had a great start to his career with the Apex, collecting seven goals, two assists and two blocks in his first three games. Min-Fink is unavailable for Friday's game.
For DC, the injury report is identical to week three: Cole Jurek, Aidan Downey, Gus Norrbom, Jasper Tom, and Fredrick Farah will miss this matchup. Coby Loveranes is also unavailable in week 3.
Catch Colorado and DC’s debut fixture this Friday night at Carlini Field. First pull flies at 7 p.m. ET. Tickets available at thedcbreeze.com and streaming live for free on YouTube, as this week's Friday Night Frisbee feature.
