{"id":299481,"date":"2026-06-07T23:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299481\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T23:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:21:08","slug":"d-c-defenders-upset-orlando-storm-to-secure-berth-in-ufl-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/299481\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C. Defenders upset Orlando Storm to secure berth in UFL Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The D.C. Defenders are back in the UFL Championship. This year, they\u2019ll host it.<\/p>\n<p>The Defenders, 5-5 in the regular season, upset the 8-2 Orlando Storm to send D.C. into the title game, 28-22. The Storm entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed; the Defenders were the fourth and final playoff team.<\/p>\n<p>The Storm had beaten the Defenders in back-to-back games to end the regular season, winning 27-19 at Orlando in Week 9 and 29-23 in D.C. in Week 10.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s game was played in Daytona Beach, after being moved from Orlando (due to a scheduling conflict) to Columbus, Ohio before returning to Florida.<\/p>\n<p>The Defenders will host the winner of Sunday night\u2019s game between the 6-4 Louisville Kings and the 6-4 St. Louis Battlehawks.<\/p>\n<p>The Storm and the Kings are in their first UFL seasons. The Defenders won the title a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>For the first two years of the merged USFL and XFL, the championship game was played in St. Louis. This year, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/ufl-will-hold-2026-championship-game-in-d-c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">D.C. was selected<\/a> as the site of the championship game in April.<\/p>\n<p>For D.C., quarterback Jason Bean completed 18 of 33 passes for 233 yards and a touchdown. Four running backs combined for 172 rushing yards; Abram Smith led the way with 57 yards on 11 carries.<\/p>\n<p>The Defenders\u2019 final four points came via a 61-yard field goal from kicker Matt McCrane. As of this year, field goals of 60 yards or longer are worth four points in the UFL.<\/p>\n<p>The UFL Championship will be played on Saturday, June 13, at 3:00 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The D.C. Defenders are back in the UFL Championship. This year, they\u2019ll host it. The Defenders, 5-5 in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-299481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}