Grid League 2026 – Wolves vs Brigade: A Debut Roster, an Ejection, and a 16-21 Loss in Lakeland

The New York Wolves hosted the Tampa Bay Brigade at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland with a roster of newcomers. Only captain Mike Rosa had raced Grid before, and he spent last season in Brigade colors. Head coach Lexie Wohlfort came up as a player with the Atlanta Wild. None of it showed early.

New York won the Mirror, the barbell race where a loaded bar cannot touch the floor until the reps are done. Tampa Bay challenged the rep count, officials reviewed it, and the Wolves’ win was wiped and sent back for a partial rerun. New York won it again.

The female triad swung harder. The Brigade crossed first, but a review found a set of kettlebells released forward instead of set down under control, which forced a rerun of the final elements. On that rerun Tampa Bay sent an inactive player onto the Grid, an automatic zero, and the race the Brigade had won on the floor went to the Wolves on the rule book.

The challenges kept coming. When Sydney Pawlak won a burpee-to-ring Ringer Point for New York, Tampa Bay argued a bubble in the floor had thrown off their racer. Officials reviewed it and could not find conclusive evidence in the available clips, so the race stood.

Then the biggest call of the night. In a fan-voted Ringer Point, Wolves rookie Steven Cupec beat the Brigade on the kettlebell clusters. Tampa Bay challenged that Cupec had his gymnastics grips looped around the kettlebell handles, which is illegal. Officials agreed, but the penalty split: the race win stood and Cupec was ejected for the rest of the match, the first ejection the league had seen in five years.

New York also took the Ladder 66-57 and kept the match within reach all night. The Brigade settled it on the closing Sprint Relay and won 21-16. For a team with almost no Grid experience it was the kind of night that made the rest of the season worth watching. New York finished the regular season 3-1 with the East’s top seed.

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