Grid League 2026 – Palms vs Bandits: Palms Edged 19-18 in a Sprint Relay Rerun

Match Report · 2026 Season

Miami · May 23, 2026

The stream dropped mid-match. Part 2 picks up at the male triad and runs through the finish.

The South Beach Palms won seven of the twelve races on opening day in Miami and led the Houston Bandits by four points with two races left. They lost the match 19-18, and they had to watch the deciding race twice for it to happen.

A wall ball review, a sprint relay rerun, and a one-point ladder swung the second match of the 2026 season at the Miami International Fitness Expo on May 23, and handed the Bandits the first win in their franchise history at the Palms‘ expense.

The deepest Palms roster yet

South Beach opened the way coach Bryleigh Hansen built them to, taking the partner four with transitions the broadcast called near textbook. The Mirror got away at the line: with the race in hand, Tyler Davis walked the barbell into the final quadrant before all of his teammates were inside it, the reps stopped counting, and Houston crossed first.

Heather Hudson answered in the first ringer point, beating Sammy Bellot in the deficit handstand push-up duel, and the Palms swept both runnings of the Echo behind rookies Clark Lawson and Steven Christofides, who did not move like rookies all day. The ladder went the other way by a single point, 67-66, on a handful of misses at the heavy end, and Mason Belk outran rookie Megan Davis by a step in the farmer carry ringer. Halfway: 11-10 Palms.

Pulling away

Then the depth showed. The Palms took Jack and Jill by fifteen seconds and swept both triads, with Jessica Plasencia and Samantha Secord handling the 100-pound D-ball squats that backed up the Bandits’ women. At 17-13, the match looked like confirmation of everything Hansen said mid-broadcast.

“We have practiced more this preseason than ever. I feel like that’s helping our communication and just the vibe of this team. We’re crushing it right now.”
Palms coach and owner Bryleigh Hansen, mid-match

Nine wall balls and a review

The fans voted for tall wall balls in the new fan-voted ringer point, and the Palms sent the tallest player in the league, Artur Cabral, against Lauren Olson, nine reps to a 12-foot target for him and 11 feet for her. Olson finished first, and Cabral came in close enough to keep a point. Then the review landed: eight completed reps of nine, one of them a no-rep. Zero. A four-point lead was suddenly two with only the Sprint Relay left.

The finish, twice

Houston threw its bonus flag before the relay started, adding an extra point to the race if they won it and taking a gridlock tiebreaker off the table. The first running went to the Palms when Oscar Martel stalled on the backward rolls to support. The celebration lasted as long as the Bandits’ challenge took: the review showed a referee had asked Martel for a fifth rep when the required four were complete, and the final four elements would be rerun, two men and two women per side.

The rerun turned on small things. An early-start flag cost the Palms seconds they never got back. Didier Lugo handled the backward rolls but came off the Grid limping. And Houston burned the season’s only super wild card on veteran Josh Rundall for exactly that element. The last bar came down to Lawson against Mason Belk on 25 thrusters, and Belk finished one rep ahead. The Palms challenged the thruster lockouts after the match; the review upheld every rep. Final: Bandits 19, Palms 18.

The margin of this loss is one no-rep on a wall ball, one walking violation in the Mirror, and one early start in a rerun. None of it changes what the roster showed: seven race wins, rookies who looked like veterans, and a team deep enough to win every kind of race on the schedule. Hansen said her team practiced more this preseason than ever. It showed everywhere except the final score, and there is a season left to fix that part.

Race-by-race results

Race	Palms	Bandits	Running score
Partner Four	2:46.12	2:54.13	2-1
Mirror	1:28.88	1:24.54	3-3
Ringer Point 1 (deficit handstand push-ups)	:20.08	:21.87	5-4
Echo 1	3:08.25	3:21.24	7-5
Echo 2	3:05.25	3:33.97	9-6
Ladder	66	67	10-8
Ringer Point 2 (farmer carry)	:9.47	:8.96	11-10
Jack and Jill	2:11.72	2:26.90	13-11
Female Triad	2:56.82	3:34.19	15-12
Male Triad	2:55.03	3:10.28	17-13
Fan-Voted Ringer (tall wall balls)	DNF	:20.41	17-15
Sprint Relay (rerun, Bandits +1 bonus flag)	2:21.13	2:17.19	18-19 Final

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