Austin Outlaws Win Benepe Cup Again
The Major League Quidditch (MLQ) season is over, and it ended with MLQ Championship as usual, held on August 20–22. The event was divided into three tournaments.
On Sunday, August 21, the Next Gen Showcase was held, and two teams of players from the practice squad played against each other. All of them are considered the future of MLQ.
On the next day, August 22, Take Back the Pitch was held for the second time. It’s a tournament that is meant to highlight the skills of women, transgender men, and non-binary people in Muggle quidditch because only they can sign up for the tournament.
The main part of MLQ Championship was the Benepe Cup, which was held on August 20–21. Teams were divided into brackets based on their rankings in the regular season.
The tournament started with the teams with the lowest rankings. It was the New Orleans Curse against the Toronto Raiders and the Indianapolis Intensity against the Charlotte Aviators. Both the Indianapolis Intensity and the New Orleans Curse lost, but it wasn’t the end for them. Every team that lost had to play against another team that lost in the play-in bracket. In the end, the Washington Admirals won against the Charlotte Aviators and followed into the championship bracket. The Charlotte Aviators played against the Indianapolis Intensity again, won, and also moved on to the championship bracket.
The championship bracket was more intense than the play-in bracket because teams didn’t play only one game; they played in a best-of-three structure. The Boston Forge defeated the Charlotte Aviators in the first two games, just as the San Antonio Soldados did with the Minneapolis Monarchs and the New York Titans did with the Rochester Whiteout. The Washington Admirals were the only losing team capable of winning a game in the quarterfinals, but it wasn’t enough to defeat the Austin Outlaws.
With only four teams left, the Boston Forge played against the San Antonio Soldados. They continued in the best-of-three structure and beat the Soldados in the first two games. The Boston Forge moved into the final games undefeated this tournament.
The Austin Outlaws, last year’s winner, had a different story. Both the Washington Admirals and the New York Titans were capable of winning against them in one of the games they played. The Austin Outlaws won the third game against the New York Titans in the semifinals, though, which meant that they would also move on to the final three games.
The Austin Outlaws didn’t have as successful a journey as the Boston Forge this tournament, but it was possible that they were just saving their power for the final game: The Austin Outlaws won the first game and the second game, winning the team the Benepe Cup again.
This was the end of the season, and it was also the last moments of Major League Quidditch. As was promised before, after the end of the season, Major League Quidditch changed its name to Major League Quadball.
Earlier in the MLQ season, there were plenty of exciting match-ups: The inaugural East Division Next Gen SuperSeries was held on July 23; the Charlotte Aviators played against the Quidditch Canada National Team on August 3; and the League City Legends played against the San Antonio Soldados on August 6, in which the Legends lost all three games.
