The New Jersey 5s opened the 2026 championship series against the St. Louis Shock in epic fashion with a comeback DreamBreaker victory in front of a captivated audience in Central Park on Saturday afternoon.

The Shock seemed to be in full control after winning women’s doubles with Anna Bright/Kate Fahey and men’s doubles with Hayden Patriquin/Gabe Tardio, but the 5s were nowhere near finished at that point.

New Jersey took both mixed doubles games with wins from Anna Leigh Waters/Noe Khlif and Jorja Johnson/Federico Staksrud to bring on the first DreamBreaker of the weekend.

The only other DreamBreaker between these two teams this season came at the opening event in Dallas, where the Shock prevailed 21-15.

Since then, both teams had made notable moves to bolster their singles talent, with St. Louis bringing in Hunter Johnson from the Chicago Slice and New Jersey acquiring Staksrud from the Orlando Squeeze.

Both teams sending these heavyweights out in the first position set the tone for what was one of the most evenly matched DreamBreakers of the season, and a spectacle certainly worthy of the MLP finals.

The Shock had the first look at match point with Tardio serving to Will Howells at 20-19, but Howells kept his team alive to tie the score at 20-20.

That set up Waters and Fahey—who are the top two seeds in the women’s singles draw at next week’s Veolia Pickleball National Championships on the PPA Tour—to take the court, both just two points away from triumph.

And it was Waters who shined when the lights were at their brightest, winning the next two points to complete the comeback and bring New Jersey one match win away from the title.

“It was such a team effort,” Waters said of the performance. “To be down two games and then win the next two mixed and then win the DreamBreaker, it’s really hard to do. We stuck together as a team, which is really important.”

The DreamBreaker, especially, was a true team effort, as each individual rotation was competitive:

•                   Federico Staksrud 7-5 Hunter Johnson
•                   Will Howells 4-8 Gabe Tardio
•                   Anna Leigh Waters 6-4 Kate Fahey
•                   Jorja Johnson 5-3 Anna Bright

Staksrud, who gave one of the season’s most spirited performances in the contest, spoke afterwards about how much his new team means to him.

“From the first minute that I was traded to this team, they made me feel like I have been a part of the team for like the last five years,” he raved. “I love the whole organization, and I love the players. We’re not finished.”

The 5s are now just one win away from capturing their first season-long MLP title in franchise history.

The challenging part, however, is knowing that they been in this exact same situation—up 1-0 in the championship series—each of the last two seasons but have fallen just short of glory each time.

As such, Waters doesn’t want to get excited too early.

“We’ve been here before, but this time we’re gonna close it out,” she affirmed. “That’s all I’m gonna say.”

Match 2 of the series will start on Sunday at 11am ET, with a national broadcast window on CBS from 12-1pm ET before moving to Pickleballtv and Tennis Channel afterwards.