Dallas Flash Has the Heat in Their Hands: Ready to Fight for the MLP Title

A month ago, Dallas Flash was watching its season slip away. They left MLP Austin with a 1-4 record, zero standings points, and a real risk of missing the playoffs entirely. Today, that same team holds the heat in its hands: champions of MLP San Diego, with a perfect 5-0 run through the event and a final that made it clear nobody can afford to underestimate them anymore.
Revenge served in San Diego
On Sunday, Dallas beat the Columbus Sliders 3-1 in the Super Sunday final — exactly one year after it was Columbus who knocked them out of the playoffs in that same San Diego. The day before, Saturday, they'd already sent a clear message by taking down the Los Angeles Mad Drops in group play. Two of the league's top three teams, knocked out in the same weekend.
"It's a good start for us going into the playoffs, and we were able to show everybody who we are," Dallas Flash owner Mark Molthan said after the match.
What doesn't show up in the box score
You can see it in the team — a different air about them. You can see confidence, which is very different from being confident. And that's the secret in every sport: when a team comes together, when there's a good atmosphere inside the group, results don't take long to follow. What we saw was a winning team, one that grows point by point, that pushes each other forward, where you don't see those tired, frustrated gestures a player sometimes throws at a teammate after a mistake. Quite the opposite. They're not perfect — because perfection barely exists in sports — but every unforced error doesn't discourage them, it makes them grow. That's exactly what we saw throughout these days of competition in San Diego. With this level of play on display, Dallas is a legitimate title contender, and they're going to be a headache for every other team left standing.
The trade that changed everything
Dallas's turnaround isn't a coincidence — it has a name attached to it. It all started with the June trade that sent Danni-Elle Townsend to the Dallas roster in exchange for Hurricane Tyra Black, followed by the addition of Alix Truong from the Phoenix Flames. Since those moves, Dallas has gone 12-4 — an almost total turnaround from the team that opened the season.
The numbers back up the story: Augie Ge and Danni-Elle Townsend are 11-2 together since she joined the team. And on the men's side, JW Johnson and Augie Ge — the original Flash veterans — have won 9 of their last 11 matches, including wins this very week over none other than LA's Ben Johns/Max Freeman and Columbus's Andrei Daescu/CJ Klinger.
Columbus, dominant on paper, still without a title
For Columbus, Sunday was the latest chapter in a strange season: they arrived at the final undefeated at 5-0 in group play, without dropping a single game — and yet they still haven't won a single event all season in 2026. It's almost the exact position they were in heading into last year's playoffs, when they found their best level right when it mattered most and walked away with the title. The question now is whether they can repeat that story.
LA Mad Drops, the other side of the coin
While Dallas was rising, the Los Angeles Mad Drops had their worst weekend of the year: they fell all the way to fifth place after being upset in group play by both Atlanta and Dallas. Ben Johns' team has all but locked up a top-five playoff seed, but the recent trend is concerning — even league analysts agree their best pickleball is now two months behind them.
What's next
The trade deadline closes this Monday at noon Eastern — the season's last chance to adjust rosters before the final stretch. With Dallas Flash arriving with real momentum and a fresh case to make for the title, the conversation about who's the true favorite of 2026 just got a lot more interesting again.