Grid League 2026 – Lions vs Breakers: Breakers Win Five Races and Take the Lions to the Sprint Relay

Evan Newman put the Palm Beach Breakers one race away from an upset. Fans had voted for double kettlebell hang clusters in the fan-voted ringer point, a one-on-one duel inside the match, and Newman finished his 16 reps in 43.97 seconds, more than 20 percent ahead of the Fort Lauderdale Lions‘ Alexander Velez, so the Lions took no point from the race, and the result held up on review. The Breakers went into the Sprint Relay of the October 3 Eastern Conference semifinal trailing 16-15.

The Sprint Relay pays three points to the winner, so the race decided the match. Roran Scott closed out the snatches ahead of the Lions, and the Lions finished the relay in 3:18.94 to win 19-16 and end the Breakers’ season in Lakeland.

A rivalry from Dallas

The two teams met on August 30 in Dallas, and the Breakers won. The broadcast called it an unlikely rivalry, and the semifinal played like one. The Breakers won five of the 12 races and were never more than four points behind.

Scott’s return

Scott missed the previous match with a labrum tear and was back on the Grid in Lakeland. In the first ringer point, barbell clusters at 135 pounds, she finished a rep ahead of the Lions’ Lily Finger in 17.78 seconds to cut the Lions’ lead to 5-4.

The Echo is the same race run twice, 45 seconds apart. In the first one, Joshua Newell flipped the sled through an entire quadrant on his own, and the Breakers finished 0.31 seconds behind the Lions. They won the second Echo by 0.87 seconds. Scott opened it on the barbell, Loredana Niroda and Reece Lyons took the middle elements, and Andrew Dodd and Alyssa Martinez finished the flip sled to bring the Breakers within a point at 8-7.

The Lions won the Ladder, the strength race of alternating sandbag lifts over a rising yoke, 81-73. Newman cleared the top height for the Breakers, and a finish inside the ten-point window kept a point on the board for a 10-8 score at halfway.

Jack and Jill, and a challenge that held

Jack and Jill is the showcase for each team’s bodyweight specialists, and the Breakers won it by nine seconds. Nathan Cobb, Scott, Newman, Nicky Rodgers, Martinez on the legless climbs, Sabrina Cheney and Niroda on the L-sit climbs built what the broadcast called a very comfortable lead.

The Lions crossed first in the Female Triad, a five-element race that ends with a 60-foot handstand walk. General manager Matt Hornaday threw the Breakers’ challenge flag, which works like a challenge flag in football: it forces a video review, and a rerun happens only when an officiating error decided the result. The referees upheld it. They found a transition fault on the Lions’ side in the last two quadrants and ordered both teams to rerun the shoulder-to-overheads and the handstand walk, and Hornaday kept his flag. Shay Newell, Scott and Martinez started the rerun for the Breakers, who pulled ahead before the Lions won it after a fault on the handstand walk. Hornaday challenged that call too, and it stood, which cost the Breakers their flag.

Haley Booker was on the Grid for both versions of the race, and she spoke to the broadcast afterward about the season the Breakers had been through.

“I think I was talking to somebody earlier and hinted at there’s been a lot of adversity externally and internally this year, and I think a lot of that is coming to a head in this match, and that can be a really good thing or that can be a really bad thing, and so I think we’re all just trying to stay level-headed, regulate our emotions, do our job, and take care of what we have left.”

Haley Booker, Palm Beach Breakers

Back within one

The Breakers took the Male Triad by 1.78 seconds. Dodd, Yonatan Restrepo, Newman and Rodgers caught the Lions on the handstand walk and finished ahead, and the score went to 16-13. Newman’s ringer win followed, and the Breakers had the Lions within a point with one race left.

Newman was named the league’s Utility Specialist of the Year during the broadcast, and he raced in at least seven of the 12 races, including the ringer that made it a one-point game. The Breakers took five races off a team that has won three championships, and the Lions needed the Sprint Relay to get past them.

Race-by-race results