Revolver went undefeated at Pro Champs to take the second leg of the Triple Crown Tour over a host of worthy challengers.
September 5, 2025 by Edward Stephens in Recap
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VIRGINIA BEACH — #1 San Francisco Revolver reinforced their status as 2025 championship favorites with a 15-11 win over #14 Chicago Machine on Labor Day. Revolver opened the game with a break and, while Machine came close to gaining an advantage early in the second half, never gave up that lead. Their Pro Champs victory, combined with last month’s at US Open, gives them a chance to win the first Triple Crown1 since New York PoNY in 2018.
Machine giftwrapped the opening break when veteran Kyle Rutledge dropped the pull. Dan Ritthaler wasted no time in finding Michael Ing in the end zone with a short pass. While this particular instance was not terribly difficult, the pair of them worked well together as a scoring connection all weekend on counters.
The teams both settled in after that, trading holds for the next eight points. Settling in looked different for each club. For Revolver, it meant building possessions around the throwing prowess of handler Mac Hecht, who has been one of the most effective offensive players in the division in 2025. His preternatural ability to delivery a disc consistently with precision to any place on the field against any mark — and his much-improved skill at getting himself open — means that Revolver can usually work the disc to the soft spaces in the field early in the play. From there, a cascade of movement typically follows, leaving a lot of scoring drives to look more like fast breaks than the planned defensive points they actually are. Observe:
“Their small ball is one of the best,” said Machine’s Jeff Gao. “When they get going it’s hard to set the mark and orbit to the right side [downfield]. It’s hard when they get in the flow to slow it down.”
Machine’s holds weren’t nearly as smooth. But the fact that they made sure to generate shots on goal kept the disc on Revolver’s half of the field — and the O-line defense was stout enough to get the disc back en route to holds, creating second chance drives against a defense that was suddenly much less composed.
The trouble with Machine’s turns came when, as on the game’s first point, they gave Revolver short field situations. Sam McGuckin dropped a wide open pass to set up a 6-4 Revolver lead. The next turnover, though, was taken by Revolver rather than given to them. Recognizing that reset from the low sideline toward the center of the field was imminent, Byron Liu peeled away from his assignment on the far handler harmlessly pushing downfield and ran up behind Keegan North just in time to slap the disc away. Moments like that seem uncannily intuitive until you realize how many of them Revolver manage to get throughout the course of a game.
“We have a lot of really good highlight players on our team, but to get a D generally means that everyone else is doing things right,” said Revolver D-liner Jason Vallee. “[The block-getters] are harvesting the chances that the other six on the line give.”
Translation: Liu had the green light to go and make a play because the other six players on the field ensured Machine only had one throwing option in that moment.
The ensuing counter gave Revolver a three-break lead at 7-4. Machine gave up possession on the next point, as well, but it was on a huck to the goal box, and they kept to their pattern of getting the disc back to set up a simpler second-chance score. Then Revolver’s O-line finally blinked, giving up possession on consecutive points, although only the first led to a break.
Trailing 8-6, Machine looked to their D-line to get them back into the game. The impact was immediate. Right out of halftime, eight counts of blackout coverage ended with a turfed backhand just in front of the Revolver goal line. (Pawel Janas found Gao for a quick goal.) One point later, Machine erased all of Revolver’s preferred options, and Victor Luo took away a Hecht reset that floated a touch too far downfield. (Luo found Andrew Sjogren for a quick goal.) Both breaks had been the product of starting the possession in a position that prevented Revolver from setting up a defensive stand.
“I think we were pretty successful at the start of the second half just keeping the ball out of Mac’s hands, pushing to the sideline, and not really letting them get anything going up the middle,” said Gao.
The tables appeared to be turning. But one area that has stood out for Revolver all season is the way they put the brakes on bad skids, whether it be a matter of resolve or, when necessary, of luck. They held to keep their lead after one of Machine’s high points — Nate Goff elevating a full story over Ing for a deep block — led to one of Machine’s low points — an unforced drop from star second-year Will Wettengel. Hecht snuck to the front cone from the backfield before the defense realized where he had gone to keep Revolver’s narrow lead intact.
Thus steadied by good fortune and with their defense back on the field, Revolver were free to get back to making Machine’s lives miserable. Ing exacted a small measure of payback on Goff, stretching out his arms to full wingspan on the mark and refusing to bite on any fakes to force a misfire. He also led the counter and threw the assist for the break, a frequent sight in 2025. Jacob Smith laid out for a block on the next point to set up a second consecutive break and stake his team once more to a three-goal lead. (An aside: Revolver’s goals on both breaks came on throws to the exact center of the goal line, and both times the receivers were unguarded. They may have found a useful wrinkle in the current red zone meta.)
From there, Revolver sprinted to the win. Some highlights: a Hecht hammer to the far sideline of the end zone, smothering reset coverage from Toby Warren and Colby Chuck (and Chuck’s shot after the turn to tack on another break), Adam Rees owning the Wettengel matchup for a point in isolation, a Dexter Clyburn deep block. They pieced together a final clean hold on the strength of the full line throwing skill. Much of the power of the Revolver offense comes from the idea that all of Hecht, Rees, Walker Frankenberg, Nate Prior, Raekwon Adkins, Simon Higgins, and Eli Kerns are dangerous around the disc.
“The special thing about [the O-line] is even if you know what they’re gonna do, they can still do it effectively,” said Vallee. “They’re a very talented group and have a lot of people who can make tough throws.”
The D-line looks are scarcely any less effective. Versatility is what sticks out the most. Ing, Clyburn, Vallee, Chuck, Ritthaler, Kyle Lew, and Nathan Kwon cycle in an out of the backfield regularly, and the motion is exhausting for the opposing O-line to keep up with.
“I think we try to play very flowy so people can end up in different spots and generally whoever’s feeling it or whoever has the good matchup, you just try to let them run with it and go from there,” said Vallee. “We try to be fluid with it and not too prescriptive.”
The bottom line is that both units are scoring machines. It’s this completeness that has fueled Revolver’s outstanding record. They are 17-1 heading into the Series, with the only loss coming during a crossover round that, arguably, didn’t mean much.
Vallee takes a reserved view of the team’s success.
“I don’t think the results say too much about us besides that we, like a lot of other teams, can be a championship team. I try not to put too much stock into what happens in the preseason because the most important thing is Nationals,” he said.
“But I think the process is at least telling us that we’re doing some things right, and if we keep working before October we have a pretty good chance to succeed,” he added.
It’s hard not to agree with that assessment.
Machine: One Piece Away? (Or Perhaps Three.)
Until the final, Machine had been just as impressive as Revolver.
US Open, Pro Championships, Nationals ↩
Pro Championships 2025: To the Moon!: Revolver Dominate the Field (Men’s Div. Tournament Recap) is only available to Ultiworld Subscribers
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