{"id":465751,"date":"2026-09-16T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465751\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:28:07","slug":"wpbl-championship-2026-san-francisco-battles-la-in-series-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465751\/","title":{"rendered":"WPBL Championship 2026: San Francisco Battles LA in Series Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The WPBL will soon crown its first champion, as No. 1 San Francisco meets No. 3 LA in Game 1 of the league\u2019s inaugural <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/wpbl-postseason-playoff-tickets-sales-launch-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">best-of-five finals<\/a> tonight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Firebells pulled off a <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/san-francisco-boston-hunters-wpbl-championship-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">semifinal sweep<\/a> of No. 4 Boston behind co-home run leader Kelsie Whitmore\u2019s 2.80 playoff ERA and Skylar Kaplan\u2019s five RBIs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Queens survived a nervier path, <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/wpbl-championship-2026-la-queens-new-york-heights-denae-benites-ashton-lansdell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">edging No. 2 New York<\/a> 15-11 in Monday\u2019s Game 3 decider thanks to Ayuri Shimano\u2019s league-first postseason grand slam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">San Francisco finished the regular season first in runs, hits, home runs, and team batting average, leaning on a <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/kelsie-whitmore-3-home-runs-wpbl-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">deep lineup<\/a> fueled by Whitmore, Kaplan, and doubles co-leader Jill Albayati.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Japanese ace <a href=\"https:\/\/justwomenssports.com\/reads\/wpbl-la-queens-new-york-heights-results\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"37721\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Ayami Sato<\/a> looms as LA\u2019s X-factor after closing out the semifinal clincher, though the Firebells took the regular-season series 3-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s more than a title on the line, with the winning team also taking home custom <a href=\"https:\/\/www.womensprobaseballleague.com\/2026\/09\/09\/womens-pro-baseball-league-names-baron-championship-rings-official-championship-ring-for-historic-inaugural-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Baron Championship Rings<\/a> commemorating the WPBL\u2019s landmark debut season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The WPBL championship series kicks off tonight at 7 PM ET (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/watch\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/watch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ESPN+<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WPBL will soon crown its first champion, as No. 1 San Francisco meets No. 3 LA in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[183396,183397,144573,183398,101,183399,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-465751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-2026-wpbl-postseason","tag-2026-wpbl-season","tag-kelsie-whitmore","tag-la-queens","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-firebells","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}