September 1, 2026
By Evan Lepler
Every championship is special, but not every title—even if it’s a new team rising to the top—feels like a true era-shifting achievement.
In the afterglow of a historically great weekend, there can be a tendency to immediately veer towards hyperbole, particularly when noting how young, deep, and immensely talented our new champion appears to be.
Time will tell whether we’re truly at the dawn of a new disc dynasty, but the Oakland Spiders certainly looked like a potential multi-year juggernaut this past weekend in Madison. They walloped the Empire, handled the Wind Chill, set new standards for Championship Weekend offensive efficiency, and just carried themselves like they fully expected to dominate.
It was a breathtaking display of ultimate frisbee brilliance, combining consistency, relentlessness, and spectacular in a way that we had not necessarily seen before against this caliber of competition. Across 96 minutes of action, the Spiders led almost the entire way, never trailing over the final three quarters in either game. They also answered every question about whether they were appropriately prepared for and ready to excel in special teams situations, calmly escaping double teams with ease and scoring the final goal of the period seven times in eight opportunities across their otherworldly weekend.
None of this was a given, and very few—if anyone—can say that they completely saw this coming. Sure, we knew it was possible that this high ceiling existed, but there’s a massive canyon between asserting the possibility and fulfilling every ounce of that potential.
“It’s surreal to be here with all my best buds, winning the chip,” said Walker Frankenberg, moments after being announced as the Championship Weekend MVP. “Setting our mind to it at the beginning of the season, we sat down and said we only want to do one thing, and that’s winning a championship. We need to do all the steps to get there. And watching it come true and being able to do it with all my teammates and coaches and all the fans back home and all the fans out here is pretty surreal.”
The Full Field Layout
When the Spiders were broken on the opening point of Friday’s championship game, it felt like the Wind Chill were ready and capable of challenging Oakland all night long. But after Cameron Lacy hit Thomas Shope on a thrilling huck just 45 seconds into the final, Minnesota quickly discovered what New York learned the night before: it’s extraordinarily hard to take the disc away from this Oakland offense.
The Spiders’ dazzling display of possession preservation might best be viewed through the lens of other recent UFA champs. Over the past three years, the ’23 Empire, ’24 Wind Chill, and ’25 Glory—all of whom ultimately took the title—were broken a combined 31 times at Championship Weekend. This past weekend, however, Oakland’s offense was only broken three times across two games.
Breaks Surrendered at Championship Weekend (from the eventual champion)
- 2019: 4, New York
- 2021: 4, Carolina
- 2022: 3, New York
- 2024: 12, Minnesota
- 2025: 10, Boston
- 2026: 3, Oakland
There’s no doubt that conditions played a part in Oakland’s excellent execution, as the atmosphere at Breese Stevens Field remained quite calm across the semis and finals. But the Spiders capitalized on these circumstances better than any other team in recent memory. With just seven turns on Thursday and 10 on Friday, they compiled the cleanest offensive performance in Championship Weekend history.
Turnovers at Championship Weekend (from the eventual champion)
- 2014: 42, Oakland
- 2015: 42, Oakland
- 2016: 40, Dallas
- 2017: 35, San Francisco
- 2018: 31, Madison
- 2019: 29, New York
- 2021: 24, Carolina
- 2022: 19, New York
- 2023: 31, New York
- 2024: 60, Minnesota
- 2025: 23, Boston
- 2026: 17, Oakland
Correspondingly, the Spiders completion percentage for the weekend, 97.3 percent, also set a new benchmark for disc-moving mastery on the league’s biggest stage. Daniel Ritthaler went 89-for-90 to lead the O-line, while nine Spiders finished the weekend with 100 percent completion rates. Among other high-usage throwers, Leo Gordon went 59-for-60 (98.3 percent), Chander Boyd-Fliegel went 44-for-45 (97.8 percent), Dexter Clyburn went 76-for-78 (97.4 percent), and Raekwon Adkins went 62-for-64 (96.9 percent).
Team Completion Percentage at Championship Weekend (from the eventual champion)
- 2019: 93.5%, New York
- 2021: 96.3%, Carolina
- 2022: 96.4%, New York
- 2023: 94.6%, New York
- 2024: 86.6%, Minnesota
- 2025: 96.6%, Boston
- 2026: 97.3%, Oakland
During the championship broadcast, Bryan Jones, who coached the 2019 New York Empire to the title, asserted that Oakland’s offense wasn’t just having a great weekend, but it was a historically special unit.
“It’s the best structurally I’ve ever seen in ultimate,” said Jones. “They have such great spacing and timing, you see multiple cutters moving at once, and they’re so unselfish [...] They just hit open hands, and they never really get above stall two.”
The team’s primary O-line for the weekend—consisting of Frankenberg, Ritthaler, Gordon, Boyd-Fliegel, Clyburn, Adkins, Dillon Whited, and 19-year-old Stefan McCall—all had slightly different explanations for how the team had become so proficient, consistent, and dynamic.
“For the younger players, we grew up in a system with OAK ultimate where we’re playing super quick offense, trying to create counter-flow,” said Adkins, who had two assists, one goal, and 31 completions in each game this past weekend.
“Open hands is the right look. So I think the young guys coming up into the program always played with that play style, and I think the older guys were able to lean into that a little bit and watched that success. But I also think all of us value disc possession a lot, and playing a quick-paced offense where you’re hitting open hands consistently and you’re not always looking for the good shot allows you to retain the disc for longer. I think the older guys were able to buy into that and grew up in systems like that as well, and the younger guys like me and Stefan, since a super young age, have always been playing like that. So I think it was able to come together super nicely and now we have an offense that’s high-flying, high-paced, up-lines, a lot of chisels, and just hitting the open look. I’m happy we were able to pioneer that, in a sense.”
Obviously, Adkins’ astute description is way more easily explained than achieved.
And the ‘older guys’ he’s referring to are Whited, who’s 31, and then Frankenberg and Gordon, who are just 26 and 24 years old, respectively. The other five guys on the line are all 23 or younger, which makes the group’s collective poise and ability to withstand the Championship Weekend pressure all the more impressive.
For a guy like McCall, who likely would not have been on the team’s active roster for the West finals if Ritthaler and Frankenberg had been healthy, to lead the team in scores in the postseason is utterly amazing. The rising sophomore at Georgia Tech finished the playoffs with 10 goals and seven assists across three games, exceeding the numbers he compiled—three goals and six assists—across his four regular season contests.
Team leaders also acknowledged that their offense has been building towards this level; it’s not something that has been present all season long.
“We’ve been practicing together since February,” said Clyburn. “Back in March, I don’t think the chemistry felt that easy. But now it feels a lot easier. Another thing is, I think a lot of our play styles mesh in good ways. I think about Walker, Raekwon, Dan just being so efficient in that dominator set, moving around the disc well. I kinda think of it as red zone offense in a lot of ways, but just throughout the whole field. Stefan as well, and Leo obviously too. All these guys can play that style of ball so well. And on top of that, we have really strong finishers in Chander and Dillon Whited.”
For folks who followed Oakland all season long, they’re probably wondering why Adam Rees hasn’t yet been mentioned. After all, heading into Championship Weekend, the second-year Spider had played 159 O-points and just nine D-points. But on the opening D-point of the semifinal against the Empire, Rees was on the field, chasing around Daan De Marrée. For the weekend, he played 34 of his 38 points on D, transforming into a key part of the team’s defensive army, which also was a formidable force.
In fact, when asked what had made the Spiders’ offense so successful, Frankenberg immediately pointed to the team’s deep squad of defenders.
“We’re blessed to have the best defense in the league and to be able to test ourselves against them every day at practice,” said Frankenberg. “Iron sharpens iron. That’s the reason we’re as good as we are, because they’re as good as they are.”
While slightly cliché, it also may be true.
Rookie defender Max Zwerin led the Spiders with four blocks on the weekend, including a game-sealing Callahan on Thursday against the Empire, while 22-year-old rising star Carter Lankford tallied three blocks in Friday’s final. Jason Vallee and Robin Vickers Batzdorf were also particularly clutch when it came time to punching in breaks, combining for nine scores across the two games.
“Every single person stepped up big,” said Kreiss, who became the first rookie UFA Head Coach to win the championship since Ryo Kawaoka led the FlameThrowers to the title in 2017. “I think having a team that can play 20 people [on Thursday], and then play even more people [on Friday] is a testament to our depth. I’m so proud of these guys. They wanted it so badly. They put in all the work. They had an amazing season.”
Perhaps no one summed up the Spiders’ story better than long-time captain Evan Magsig, whose emotional words wisely captured the euphoric and cathartic weekend.
“This is everything I ever dreamed,” declared Magsig. “This is for the city of Oakland. So much heartbreak, so many losses over the years, and it feels so amazing to be a champion. It feels so amazing to be a champion.”
For now, it’s far too early to declare the beginning of an Oakland dynasty. But if this really was the first chapter of a new era, the Spiders could hardly have delivered a more emphatic opening salvo. With the vast majority of their roster still several years shy of their primes, there’s definitely a belief amongst Oakland’s young stars that they are capable of establishing a new ultimate frisbee empire.
“We know that we’re gonna stay at the top for years to come,” said Lankford.
Coming up later today in “Seven On The Line”, more on the Spiders’ first title in 11 years, and reflections on the other three teams that came up short this past weekend in Madison.
