The Chicago Bandits’ season ended just short of a championship for the second consecutive year after a 6-1 loss to the Utah Talons in Game 2 of the 2026 AUSL Championship on Sunday.
Utah completed the two-game sweep behind three home runs, 10 hits and a strong outing from Montana Fouts, who kept one of the league’s most productive offenses off the scoreboard until the seventh inning.
The Bandits finished with eight hits but struggled to convert them into runs. The squad stranded nine runners and was held scoreless through the first six innings.
The Talons immediately took control when Jayda Coleman opened the game with a single and Jadelyn Allchin followed with a two-run home run to right field. Utah extended its lead to 4-0 in the fourth after an error allowed Hannah Flippen to score and Allchin drove in Aliyah Andrews with a double down the right-field line.
Bri Ellis added a solo home run in the fifth, and Sahvanna Jaquish delivered another in the seventh to give Utah a six-run cushion.
Chicago produced multiple opportunities against Fouts, though the group had little to show for it on the scoreboard. Jocelyn Erickson and Keirstin Roose recorded consecutive singles in the second inning, while Morgan Zerkle reached safely in each of her first two plate appearances. The Bandits also put two runners on base in the fifth with singles from Bella Dayton and Skylar Wallace, but each threat ended without a run.
Chicago finally broke through in the seventh. Mary Iakopo drew a leadoff walk, Dayton followed with her second hit of the game and Wallace lined an RBI single into left field. The rally ended there, however, as Fouts retired Sami Williams and Zerkle to secure the title.
Dayton and Zerkle led the Bandits with two hits a piece, along with Wallace, who went 2-for-4 with the team’s lone RBI.
Kat Sandercock took the loss after allowing four runs, two earned, on seven hits over 3.2 innings. Taylor McQuillin and Lexi Kilfoyl combined to finish the game out of the circle.
The defeat brought another painful ending for Chicago, which also lost to Utah in the inaugural AUSL Championship Series last season.
Following the loss, head coach Shonda Stanton emphasized that the final result would not erase the group’s progress or the relationships built throughout the season.
“It’s easy to focus on the things that didn’t go well, but when I think of this team and you think of what we’ve done to get to where we are, we battled adversity throughout the year,” Stanton said. “Not the way we want it to end, but it will not define us.”
Stanton also pointed to Fouts’ ability to attack the top of the strike zone as a major factor in Chicago’s offensive struggles. Although the Bandits finished with eight hits, they were unable to produce the type of damage that had defined their offense for much of the season.
“I felt like we were chasing up,” Stanton said. “We needed to be letters and lower if we were going to have a shot.”
The Bandits placed runners on base in five innings, but Utah consistently prevented extra-base hits and limited Chicago’s ability to create a big inning.
“You tell me we have eight hits, I’m gonna tell you we’re gonna have 10 or 12 runs,” Stanton said. “But that’s just how good she is, and that’s how good their defense was.”
The Bandits leave College Station without the championship title they pursued, but with a second consecutive appearance in the league’s final series and another season that established Chicago as one of the AUSL’s most consistent contenders.
“Once a Bandit, always a Bandit,” Stanton said. “What we’ve done to get back here to the Champ Series–that’s unbelievable. The numbers we put up, we got to celebrate those things.”
Siera Jones is the digital media reporter at Athletes Unlimited. You can follow her on Instagram and X @sieraajones.
