Seattle Tempest Clinch Championship Weekend Berth with 11-10 Win Over Bay Area Falcons
By Becca Weinberg, edited by Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - After missing the playoffs last season, our Seattle Tempest are headed back to Western Ultimate League (WUL) Championship Weekend. Their 11-10 comeback win against the Bay Area Falcons on Saturday secured their spot, which is reserved for the top four teams in the league. Seattle joins Colorado Alpenglow and San Diego Super Bloom, with one spot left to fill.
The Tempest faced a tough challenge against the Falcons, but slowly inched their way back to winning score through a successful offensive flow and high-impact defensive stops. Impact players in this game included handler Cheryl Hsu with two assists and three blocks, handler Sadie Jezierski with one goal, one assist, and two blocks, and handler Ikran Elmi with four blocks.
Seattle Tempest’s #18 Nada Tramonte during the teams tight win over the Bay Area Falcons at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan Red provided by the Seattle Tempest)
First period: 2-4
To open the game, the Tempest were significantly shut down on offense, and forced to look for their second or third options after being denied open windows by the Falcons. They were continuously pushed into the backfield through multiple possessions, and Bay Area took an early 2-0 lead.
Once Seattle was able to settle into running their own systems, they quickly tied the game up with a flowing offense and important block on defense. In their first point of the game, handler Sadie Jezierski found cutter Lauren Page, who brought down the disc over multiple defenders to get Tempest on the board. The following point, a heads-up block by handler Ikran Elmi found a wide open Jezierski with a floating backhand to space.
The Falcons responded with another two goals, including one long point that included a layout block by cutter Drea Baroma, two blocks by Jezierski, and multiple turnovers from both teams to conclude the first period.
Second period: 4-6
To open the second period, cutter Jamie Eriksson secured an important block near the Falcons end zone to regain Tempest possession. Erikkson found handler Charlie Eide, who connected with cutter Linnea Soo for a massive layout catch to score. Coming out of the second period with more momentum, the Tempest recorded another set of blocks from Elmi and Hsu as they fought their way back into the game.
Throughout the period, the Falcons continued utilizing their quick offensive movements to find pockets in the Tempest defense to score, and Seattle continued to respond. With effortless movement in the handler space by cutter Ciona Antolin and another important block by handler Julia Hasbrook, Seattle forced turnovers and utilized their deep option on quick transition turnovers.
Towards the middle of the period, a deep throw from Hsu to Baroma found wide open hybrid player Anna Cauchy for the goal. Baroma used her quick closing speed to catch up with the floating throw and bring the disc down.
The half ended with another long, multi-turnover point, with Seattle still working to close the point deficit.
Third period: 7-8
Both teams entered the second half with renewed energy, which resulted in a six-minute long point that eventually led to a Falcons goal, as blocks on the end zone line from both Hsu and handler Hana Kawai were not enough to secure a Tempest goal.
A quick response, however, was led by cutter Brogan Jones stepping around her defender in front of the end zone line to find hybrid player Emily Decker in the front corner of the endzone for the goal during the following point.
After the Falcons got one back, the Tempest utilized their cleanest offensive set of the game to score in only four passes. Baroma floated a pass to cutter Yeh-Sun Lee for the goal. The following point, a block by handler Cat Chung in the endzone led to a big, cross-field throw from Eide to Eriksson, who found Eide again for the goal into the corner. The period ended with a strong momentum shift in favor of the Tempest.
Fourth period: 11-10
To begin the fourth period, handler Jessica Crowley secured a big block on a Falcons deep throw. Once Seattle regained possession, Hsu connected with Chung on a deep look and caught it back from Chung into the endzone to tie the game at 8-8.
The following point included another series of turnovers that resulted in a Falcons goal, but the Tempest responded quickly with a connection from handler Hana Kawai to Cauchy who came down over multiple defenders in the endzone to tie the game back up. The Tempest continued their big playmaking with a wide throw along the sideline by Eriksson to Antolin in the deep space. Antolin passed back to Chung, who found a diving Soo, and found Antolin again to take the first Tempest lead of the game. For their third point in a row, another huge endzone block from Elmi set Decker up for a long throw to cutter Anna Pettee, who’s layout catch put the Tempest up 11-9. The Falcons responded with the last point of the game, but were unable to catch up to the fourth period offensive surge by the Tempest.
Stat of the game:
In their fifth game of the season, The Tempest recorded a season-high 17 blocks. With many of them coming on the endzone line to stop the Falcons’ quick offense, the Tempest found the right defensive spaces at the right times to regain possession and create scoring chances of their own.
What’s next?
Following this weekends victory over the Bay Area Falcons, our Seattle Tempest will enter another bye week before their final game of the regular season against Oregon Soar on May 17th at 2:30PM PDT. The Tempest will look to build on their successful first meeting with Oregon at the beginning of the season to secure a top spot in WUL Championship Weekend. You can watch this game and all Western Ultimate League games on their YouTube channel by clicking the link here.
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Instagram: @CirclingSeattleSports Twitter: @CirclingSports Threads: @CirclingSeattleSports Tiktok: @CirclingSeattleSports Facebook: Circling Seattle Sports BlueSky: @circlingseasports.bsky.social 〰️
Check out our previous Seattle Tempest articles here.
Check out our previous articles with writing for CSS by Becca Weinberg here, and her work with Lookout Landing here.
Cover photo and photos in this article by Jonathan Red
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