It’s official: Mari Humberg is once again a member of the New Jersey 5s.

Major League Pickleball announced a trade between New Jersey (12-3, 36pts) and the Challenger level’s DC Pickleball Team (2-3, 9pts) on Thursday morning.

DC sent Humberg to New Jersey in exchange for Christa Gecheva and cash considerations.

Let’s get into how these moves impact each roster.

New Jersey: Anna Leigh Waters, Meghan Dizon, Mari Humberg, Zane Navratil, Will Howells, Craig Johnson

Humberg is back with New Jersey after the 5s traded her to the Brooklyn Aces (now DC Pickleball Team) for Amanda Hendry in a last-second move before the player drop deadline.

New Jersey, like all teams, had to drop at least one player from its 2024 roster and decided that it would be better to push Humberg to Challenger than to let another Premier team take her in the free agency draft.

The 5s actually had to wait until after the final waiver period ended on June 18^th to try and negotiate a trade to get Humberg back.

Once that window passed, they got right down to business.

Even though Humberg is taking the place of the No. 3 female spot on the roster, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she will play the same role.

Humberg did, of course, play for New Jersey in 2024 and was a big part of their run to the finals.

She went 29-2 playing alongside Anna Leigh Waters in women’s doubles and 8-22 with Zane Navratil in mixed doubles.

For comparison, Dizon is 11-3 with Waters and 6-8 with Navratil so far this season.

Ironically, Humberg and Dizon are also playing together at this week’s Select Medical Orange County Cup.

It’ll be interesting to see if the 5s make a change to the lineup ahead of their next outing at the Edward Jones MLP Mid-Season Tournament.

DC Pickleball Team: Andrea Koop, Christa Gecheva, Daniel de la Rosa, Stefan Auvergne

Gecheva joins a DC squad that is in 3^rd place in the Challenger level standings with a 2-3 record.

All three of DC’s losses so far have come in DreamBreakers, so the hope is that this move will help them win more matches in regulation.

She will play women’s doubles with Koop and could play mixed with Auvergne, if Koop/De la Rosa continue to play together like they did at MLP Austin.

Gecheva’s first opportunity to represent her new team will be at Edward Jones MLP San Clemente, set to run June 26-29.