Grid League 2026 – Lions vs Brigade: Lions Open With a 23-16 Statement

Match Report · 2026 Season

Miami · May 23, 2026

Janine Nicole walked onto the Grid in Miami engaged, holding a surprise jersey with a new name on the back. Then she and the Fort Lauderdale Lions spent the next two hours playing like the team that fully expects to finish what last season started.

The Lions beat the Tampa Bay Brigade 23-16 in the third match of opening day at the Miami International Fitness Expo on May 23, winning nine of twelve races in a rematch of two playoff teams. Last year’s championship runner-up looked like the most complete version of itself, and that was without Alexia Perez-Miviere, the French strength specialist who has yet to arrive.

Two photo finishes to start

The Lions took the opening partner four, then survived a Mirror that ended with both teams dropping their barbells at almost the same instant. Tricia Davis, playing on a strained hamstring, reacted first on the sprint in, and a Brigade challenge of the quadrant-three reps came back clean, costing Tampa Bay a flag.

The first ringer point was even closer. Janine Nicole took Brigade owner-coach Jess Krezmien, who has never lost a bar-facing burpee duel, to a finish the referees had to sort out by hundredths of a second. Krezmien kept the streak, :19.74 to :19.76. The two danced together at the start line before it.

The Echo flex

The Lions won the first Echo on the back of their gymnastics pair, Eric Cardona and Paula Leyes, two of the only players in the league who butterfly ring muscle-ups with a six-pound ball held between the legs. Then they threw their bonus flag on the rerun, the once-a-match call that turns a race win into three points instead of two. It nearly backfired when the med ball squirted loose on the rings, but Leyes recovered it, Julio Delgado reset, and Taylor Sturgis closed the barbell to cash the flag. The ladder followed, 58-54, with Sturgis’ fourth bar the difference.

Brigade counterpunches

Tampa Bay won what their specialists could win. Dalton Herrero ran down Paula Leyes in the suicide sprint ringer, and rookie Nathan Tsuji nearly one-manned the handstand-walk Jack and Jill behind Tampa Bay’s own bonus flag. A Lions challenge of the rep count came back as their own error, extra reps after the referee had signaled done, and the deficit closed to two.

The Lions answered with both triads. The women won it at the legless rope climbs, where Leyes slid over to help Janet Durant through the final climb, and the men won theirs by 21 seconds. Then Ryan DeMattie took the fan-voted ringer, eight bar-facing burpees into a 200-pound sandbag over the yoke, and the Sprint Relay finished it 23-16.

“The Lions are here, man. The Lions are ready to win a championship. I’m calling that early.”
Lions utility player Taylor Sturgis, before the Sprint Relay

The deeper story of the day belonged to Nicole. Her fiance had worked with the league to print STALLINGS on the back of a jersey and surprised her with it before the match. “I got engaged, y’all. So now it is Stallings,” she told the sideline. “Janine Stallings is what I will go by from here on out.” Then she went out and pushed the league’s best burpee racer to a photo finish, climbed in the winning female triad, and finished the relay. New name, same problem for everyone else.

Race-by-race results

Race	Lions	Brigade	Running score
Partner Four	2:59.72	3:04.31	2-1
Mirror	1:40.84	1:41.09	4-2
Ringer Point 1 (bar-facing burpees)	:19.76	:19.74	5-4
Echo 1	3:04.81	3:19.16	7-5
Echo 2 (Lions +1 bonus flag)	3:19.75	3:25.06	10-6
Ladder	58	54	12-7
Ringer Point 2 (suicide sprint)	:33.36	:32.19	13-9
Jack and Jill (Brigade +1 bonus flag)	2:18.97	2:13.16	14-12
Female Triad	2:44.10	2:49.06	16-13
Male Triad	2:48.12	3:09.40	18-14
Fan-Voted Ringer (burpees + sandbag over yoke)	:23.06	:26.04	20-15
Sprint Relay	4:18.91	4:37.65	23-16 Final

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