Regionals Recap 2026

Mama?s Finish Off the 2026 Spring Season with Eyes on the Future

April 25-26, Grand Haven, MI

Hello HoosierMama? Faithful,

Regionals. Without a doubt, my favorite tournament of the year. It's the tournament that matters the most. Where everything is on the line and the best teams - not just the team's with the best players - shine. This was my 9th time coaching regionals and not once have we missed out on bracket play.

This was the first time since my first year as a coach where we were a double digit seed (10 seed in both instances). This was the first time since 2018 where I was genuinely worried about not making bracket play. That worry not only stemmed from the fact that our team is young but also because this was, without a doubt, the deepest the region has ever been. Gravy said it well, we were the best 10 seed Great Lakes regionals has ever seen (again, a nod to how strong the competition was this year). Pretty much every team in the top 9 seeds had significant senior/5th year/grad student production. Us? We had 2 seniors we truly counted on for production and most other production came from juniors or younger.

I want to expand on that a bit more here to help paint that picture. Our graduating class this year was 6 players. 2 of those players were universe point players. Those 2 were senior captains Conner Blalack and Aidan Ball. Of those two, only Conner had any real club experience that he could lean on when playing against the region's best.

Let's take a quick look at the competition:

• Chicago (4 seed): 15 graduating players this year. That's more than half a roster of seniors and older. That sort of experience is crucial to success at regionals.
• Illinois (3 seed): 12 graduating players. 2 Chicago Machine level players. Many with high level club experience. O-line entirely consisting of seniors or older.
• Michigan (1 seed): Not entirely sure how many are graduating since so many seniors of theirs usually 5th year but they had 12 seniors/grad students. Including one guy who has won club nationals 3 times already (this guy is graduating, at least).
• Purdue (6 seed): 9 graduating players.

Game 1 vs Illinois: 9 - 15

Illinois was a damn good team this year. We knew that had a ton of experience that, combined with their length and athleticism, would provide a lot of difficult match ups for our d-line. Our overall plan was to play with the intent to win and if we started to fall too far behind, we would pull the plug and save our legs in order to win a crossover game in pre-quarters.

We played a damn good first 9 or 10 points of the game. We earned the first break and held that lead until 5-4 or 6-5. This is where that "consistently inconsistent" comment came into play because our O-line started this game very hot. Illinois had no answer for junior CJ Santiago's speed and deep cutting ability. They were eventually just sitting 5-6 steps deep over him at all times. After those first 9 or 10 points, our O-line had some unforced errors (which had been our issue all year and of course continued to be the case at the end of the year) which Illinois converted. I think they took half 6-8 or 5-8.

It was at this point at half that we decided to pull the plug and play relatively even playing time so we didn't burn out our top guys. Having done that, Illinois rolled and took the game 9-15. But a takeaway here was that when we were on, we could 100% play with the top teams in the region.

Game 2 vs Purdue: 9 - 12

This was a game that we wanted to win despite knowing we would likely be playing a pre-quarter game. Thought process was we would rather see a team like Kentucky in that crossover instead of Northwestern (this assumed everything went to seed in Pool B).

We came out FLAT. I think the O-line was broken 3 of their first 4 points and we quickly found ourselves down 4-1. It wasn't because Purdue was doing anything special. We simply gave them the disc and failed to get it back on most occasions. We did manage to stop the bleeding at that point but we didn't want to crossover our top players too much knowing we had a lot of breaks to get back. Purdue's O-line featured 6 seniors/grad students and they weren't just going to give us the disc. That felt like too steep a mountain to climb just for a potentially better match up in pre-Q. As such, the game more or less played out with a bunch of holds and ended 9-12.

Game 3 vs Michigan State-B: 15 - 6

We played a B team. We played mostly our depth to get the job done. Not much else to say.

Both teams wanted this one bad. Similar to us, Kentucky is a super young team. I don't think they had a lot of seniors or grad students either. And I can't recall the last time they made Sunday bracket - they knew this was their chance to do so.

I also knew this game was our chance to see our team's true character shine through. After all, this was truly a win or go home game for us. The boys were ready to do what was needed. We communicated to the team that we would likely need to play through our top 10-12 players in order to win. Kentucky was going to do the same.

I can't recall if we started the game with a break or simply were the first team to get a break, but we found ourselves with an early lead. Shortly after, due to some more unforced throwing errors, Kentucky netted two straight breaks and found themselves up a break. I think it was 6-4 at that point. This is where our character needed to shine through. As it would have been so easy to let ourselves get deflated knowing that we were getting broken simply because we couldn't execute consistently enough (with the exception of one HUGE bid from a Kentucky player. Credit where it's due).

Well, our character did indeed shine through. The sideline (many of whom hadn't seen the field yet in this game) continued to bring the energy and pick up our top players. I recall playing the same 7 players roughly 3-4 points in a row as this line was clicking. We took half 8-7.

Coming out of half, you could feel the tension rising for both teams. Both teams had generated some runs for breaks. That fact led to both teams knowing they could win, but also created a sense of unease knowing the other team could do the same. It would come down to which team could mentally handle the situation.

After some holds, I think Kentucky took the first break of the 2nd half to make it 10-10. That sort of break can give a team some much needed confidence and momentum while causing the other team to tighten up.

After receiving the next pull and flowing through our spread offense for a bit, Kentucky earns a D on a breakside throw that a poaching handler defender gets a hand on. "Uh oh", I thought. A few throws later, Kentucky gifts us the disc back. 2 throws later, Truman (Jr handler) turns another inside throw that floats too high. My inner thoughts were more vulgar than "uh oh" at this point. This time, a Kentucky player wisely calls injury so they can get one of their better players on the field. We also sub Aidan onto the field for his defense. A minute or two later, Kentucky converts a cross-field blade for the break. 10-11 Kentucky.

This next point was huge. Kentucky gifts us the disc at their brick after a truly awful pull. We score in a few throws without needing to expend much energy. 11-11.

A few throws into the following point, Sophomore Mario Bellavia goes down with an ankle injury. One of our better players is out the rest of the game. Next man up. With future captain Henry Vahl now on the field, his aura is felt and CJ digs deep to generate a D on an under cut. CJ attacks in transition O and while he doesn't quite get in the endzone, we score on a throw from Rodman to Junior Noah "Buzz" Rowland in the back of the endzone. Break. 12-11.

With the boys feeling confident, Rookie Evan "Bananas" Bananis D's a breakside reset in the handle space! He'd been keying in on his match up better and better as the game went on and finally got the D at a crucial moment. Junior captain Steppa picks up the disc and calls time out. After moving the disc side to side in our red zone for a bit, a Kentucky player narrowly misses a bid on a breakside throw to Steppa. This left Steppa momentarily unmarked to hit a wide open CJ cutting to the breakside cone. Break. 13-11.

At this point, soft cap was on. Game to 14. We decide to run our D2 out there to give our top a much needed rest, knowing that they would have two chances to hold to win. D2's specialty is zone and that's what we run with. After mostly person D all game, this catches Kentucky a bit off guard. Kentucky launches a hammer over the top and it's too high and close to the sideline. Turnover. Mama? ball. After an uncontested dropped game-winning goal in the endzone, Kentucky has the ball back. A few throws later, a different Kentucky player decides to hammer it over the top but Rookie monster Adam Brown is there well ahead of the throw and earns the D. D2 says "screw you Pretty we're here to win the game, not just buy time." After some really solid breakside disc movement, Rahul -> Adam -> Ryan -> Bananas. Ball game! 14-11, Mama?s win with a late game run.

Not only was it a satisfying win, but to do it with D2 was the icing on the cake. It made it feel all the more like a true team win.

We had earned ourselves a Sunday bracket match up against Michigan. We knew the region would run through them and to that end it didn't really matter to us when we saw them.

Mario "TTP" Bellavia, stepping out for a force-side flick.

Game 5 vs Michigan: 4 - 15

In order to beat Michigan, it would take a truly heroic effort from the likes of Conner Blalack. He was the only one with the throws on the team that could punish Michgan's defense. We knew we couldn't win with small ball as we would inevitably mis-execute and get broken. It was a lot of weight to put on one person's shoulders but we knew Roddy had the confidence to do it. Unfortunately, it just wasn't his day and Michigan ended up blowing the doors open pretty early in the game.

One thing that I am immensely proud of: the boys never put their heads down this game. You could actually see Michigan frustrated/confused at halftime as the entire Mama?s roster spontaneously broke out into doing the Cha-Cha slide. At that point, while Michigan knew the game was theirs, they also knew that they failed to break us mentally or emotionally. There was some satisfaction to be found there, no doubt.

There was only one game left, as for some reason regionals was set up in such a way this year that Quarterfinals losers played only one more game, resulting in either tying for 5th or tying for 7th. Super weird set-up and I hope we never see that format again.

We lost our 7th place game against Michigan State, yet another team with significant production coming from 5th years/seniors. 8-15.

All in all, it wasn't the results we wanted, obviously, but seeing this version of the Mama?s true character shine through in our Pre-Q match up will always be something I remember with this team.

With love,

Connor "Pretty" Regan