JULY 28, 2026
By Will Stuntz
The DC Breeze season has come to an end following their 23-15 loss to the New York Empire in the first round of the East Division playoffs. The eight-score loss was the second-largest deficit the Breeze have suffered this season, second only to the nine-score loss the Boston Glory handed the Breeze back in early July.
It’s hard to say the Breeze looked as good as the Empire at any point in this game, as New York was taking advantage of errant DC throws all game, and the Breeze were struggling to find D-line conversions from the first pull to the final buzzer.
The Breeze only managed to find five break chances, and worst of all, they only converted one of them. New York, however, had 16 chances to punch one in with their D-line, and they capitalized on half of them.
For the Empire, Daan De Marrée was scoring at will, picking up 10 total scores – six assists and four goals – while totaling up 629 yards and going 26-for-27 on the afternoon. But he wasn’t the only man who had a day for New York, as Jack Williams showed off the reasoning behind his moniker “Playoff Jack.” Williams caught four goals and racked up 361 receiving yards with just one throwaway. And of course, it wouldn’t be a proper New York blowout victory without some electrifying performances from Alex Atkins and Ben Jagt. Atkins led the game in yards with 718 to pick up four assists and a goal, while chalking up a block. Jagt found two blocks, while hauling in a goal and dishing out an assist. A lot of the Empire’s O-line stars notched blocks in the game, further showcasing the Breeze’s struggle to convert their few break opportunities.
For DC, Christian Boxley was leading the scoring front. The veteran Breeze hybrid tallied five assists, two goals, and two blocks, while moving the disc 519 yards. Theo Shapinsky put up a hot cutting performance with four goals, while handing out two assists, and his high school teammate Jacques Nissen handled his quarterbacking duties well, racking up 429 yards on 27-of-28 throwing to pick up three assists.
However, the most telling DC player stat isn’t a positive one. AJ Merriman and Miles Grovic combined for 11 throwaways and just four scores. Two of DC’s biggest stars, in the biggest moment of the year, just couldn’t take over the game as many expected.
New York got off to a hot start, as they started with the disc and found their first break within five minutes, thanks to the Antoine Davis block, and the connection from Sam Jonas to Axel Agami to take a 4-2 lead. At the end of the period, an overthrown huck attempt from the Breeze led to another New York break, giving the Empire a 7-4 lead after the opening period.
The Breeze nearly gave up another break to start the second, but Boxley made a block to end the break chance, and Sean Mott send a crossfield pass to Jeff Wodatch for the hold. Each team found another hold before New York ripped off a 3-0 run in the middle of the period. The Empire started with a quick hold, and then two sub-40-second break scores put New York up 11-6 with five minutes to go in the half. Two holds from DC and one from New York later, the second half was over with the Empire holding a 12-8 advantage.
The third was the most productive quarter for the Breeze, finding a 5-5 finish. After not allowing a break throughout the whole third period, the Breeze found their first of the game with less than a minute to play. A quick reset pass from Alex Davis found the grass, and the Breeze needed just two throws to set up the end zone connection from Wiebe van den Brink to Frederick Farah. With that break, the Breeze were only down three with 39 seconds to play in the third period, a margin that was undoubtedly survivable for this Breeze squad that’s known for their comeback victories. The Empire notched another hold to push their lead back to four but left enough time on the clock for the Breeze to take one more shot. On the ensuing buzzer-beater throw, the referees ruled that a disc that was caught simultaneously by Atkins and Farah was a strip by Farah, leaving the game at 17-13. This was a critical blow to the momentum the Breeze had begun to build, as they would have been set to receive and potentially pull to within two goals to start the fourth.
The Breeze and Empire traded holds for the first three and a half minutes of the final period, slowly whittling away the Breeze’s chance of a comeback. Then, as the Breeze got more desperate and started trying to force a comeback, the Empire defense went on a generational run. Four Breeze O-line points and four break scores for the Empire in a row to end the quarter put the game well out of reach for the Breeze and made the final score not reflective of how the Breeze hung in for the majority of the contest.
With this loss, the 2026 DC Breeze campaign comes to and end, and the squad will reset and regroup, as they look ahead to 2027 and another opportunity to bring a Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) trophy home to the district. Thanks for following and reading along all season and be on the lookout for information about the 2027 schedule, season tickets, and more in the coming weeks.
