Kansas City Stampede 2026 Preview - Grade-A Expectations

By: Brandon Borges

Last Season

The Kansas City Stampede’s record last season belies what was a solid team with oodles of talent. After an electric series sweep against the Houston Legends, the Stampede ran into the buzzsaw that was the eventual 2025 MLQ champion, the San Antonio Soldados. Outside factors made those two series Kansas City’s only two of the year, which was a shame. The team was quite young and could have used a lot more in-game experience before competing against another title favorite, the Chicago Prowl, at MLQ Championships, where they went down in two games. 

A year like the 2025 Stampede could undercut expectations heading into this season, as fans and teams alike could look past Kansas City in favor of the perennial favorites within the newly aligned Central Conference to win the Championship. However, any coaching staff that does so will do so at its own peril, as the Cattledome has brought in Grade-A stars to pair with a young squad on the up-and-up.

Returning Players

Lauren Curry (Reign QC)

Derek Dearking (Creighton Quadball)

Justin Dewick

Haley Grothaus

Jackson Herdade (Chaos QC)

JD Hopton

Justin Ward (Mizzou)

Keighlyn Johnson (Chaos QC)

Lauren Smith (Reign QC)

Miles Himmelmann (Mizzou)

Addison Himmelmann (Mizzou)

Chanun Ong (Boom Train)

Daniel Rendon (Reign QC)

Drew Smith (Chaos QC)

Purvi Mujumdar (Chaos QC)

Audrey Shively (Mizzou)

Vincent Reyes (Boom Train)

Tayler Wiederhold (Mizzou)

Additions

Bitzy Archibold (Reign QC)

Mimi Baldwin (Creighton Quadball)

Tiffannie Chang (Creighton Quadball)

Ryan Cleary (Creighton Quadball)

Brenna Duncan (Trainwreck)

Gregorio Gomez (Mizzou)

Henry Hamilton (Mizzou)

Erin Higgins (Mizzou)

Ryan Mehio (Reign QC)

Darian Murcek-Ellis (Reign QC)

Mason Royal

Riley Usami (Reign QC)

Departures

Aaron Grant

Aaron Stout

Alex Tidler

Ben Engels

Brooke Erwin

Janessa Duce

Layla English

Nivash Jayaram

Rachel Rader

Ryan Dickey

Wyatt Ross

The Smith Machine

Last year, head coach Lauren Smith was able to form a strong offensive system around a number of young players who took on major roles for the Stampede. Losing reliable utility player Nivash Jayaram is a tough blow, as Jayaram was able to fit into any position of need for Kansas City. However, retaining Jackson Herdade, Vincent Reyes and Smith herself keeps consistency and allows the team to stick to and evolve its stratagem. 

Herdade was the key offensive initiator for the Stampede last season, not shying away from his own shots and opportunities while still sticking to the KC game plan and executing it very well. No coaching adjustments would have mattered had Herdade not been able to both understand and perform within the system, and his return will likely keep him in a pivotal role.

Of course, Reyes’s scoring excellence befits a system that allows it to flourish. Reyes scored a phenomenal 17 goals in his series against the Legends last season, and his latest tournament performance at the US Quadball Cup saw him score the most goals among all Club Division chasers. An electric shot and a willingness to exhibit it mean defenders have to honor Reyes’s pump fakes, and that, paired with Reyes’s athletic ability, makes stopping the Boom Train star a nightmare. The Stampede will continue to build around that unstoppability.

What Smith can do as a player on the field herself is extraordinary to watch in its variability. The athletic finishes at the hoops and the one-on-one tackles on speedy offensive chasers immediately jump off the screen, nearly as high as Smith can jump. The understated aspect of Smith’s game, however, is her high quadball IQ. Smith’s defensive positioning prevents offenses from making even relatively safe passes around normal hoop defenders, and it does not come at a cost to the integrity of the defensive set. Offensively, Smith has a deep understanding of defensive beater tendencies and when a defender leaves themselves open for an inside cut. It is no wonder why Smith has been such an effective head coach.

Janessa Duce’s departure from the Stampede hurts, as Duce was also a solid hoop defender and crisp passer who worked in tandem with Smith. But Kansas City is receiving a treat of a new arrival in the form of a budding star. Creighton’s Mimi Baldwin showed out this latest USQ season with rangy hoop defense, gritty hustle for loose balls, slick catch-and-shoot ability and excellent passing both out of pressure and into scoring positions. Now, as a member of the Stampede, Baldwin can operate with more of the best chasers in the sport and leave her mark on the summer.

Taking the Reigns

Kansas City has clear offensive scoring talent up and down the roster, so much so that listing those accolades would make this article more of a novel. Individual scoring ability, however, can only take a team so far in the Frontier Division, as head coaches Hayden Boyes and Brandon Kubena of San Antonio and Houston, respectively, both have proven they get the very best out of the talent of their own rosters. 

A top team in MLQ needs offensive talent, which the Stampede have in spades, but that talent needs to be versatile and multi-faceted. This is where the new additions from Reign QC are the most important. It starts with one of the best offensive playmakers and point defenders in the league: Ryan Mehio returns to the Cattledome after a year with the Minneapolis Monarchs. Mehio, who earned MLQ’s first-ever Rookie of the Year honors in 2024 with Kansas City, earned his stripes as a strong driver who mainly looked for his own shot. He comes back to the Stampede in 2026 as one of the best assist generators in the league, netting 22 dimes over five games of recorded stats in the 2025 regular season. Mehio has honed his ability to find the easiest goal available for his team, locating backside cutters and dishing to open players when teams send multiple bodies to him on drives. That type of player is critical in unlocking the talent around them.

One passing option Mehio has at his disposal is Bitzy Archibold, another chaser coming over from Minneapolis and historically one of Mehio’s most consistently great off-ball targets. Another target is Riley Usami, a lightning-fast player with a quick shot who can always pour on the points. 

However, when Kansas City is ready to completely overwhelm the opposing team, they have the out-and-out best passing target in the league: Darian Murcek-Ellis. Murcek-Ellis cut his teeth with the Stampede early in his career, but sojourned in the North Division for the past two years with Chicago. Now, Murcek-Ellis has returned to the Cattledome, and multi-faceted does not even begin to describe what the Team USA standout can do. A ferocious defender, Murcek-Ellis swallows up shot attempts in his vicinity, and when he plays on-ball defense, he leaves chasers nowhere to pass and nowhere to go. A fantastic offensive initiator as well, Murcek-Ellis is never caught flat-footed and can dance around even elite defenders. But the jack-of-all-trades is indeed master of some, as Murcek-Ellis is the de facto best dunker, alley-oop catcher and off-ball target in the league. He knows exactly when the defense is giving him a chance to catch a pass in motion and flush the quadball home. 

Opposing defenses will already sweat the new additions of Mehio, Archibold, and Usami to the Stampede, but Murcek-Ellis has the potential to make Kansas City nigh-unstoppable.

Beating the Barn Door Down

The true ceiling of the Stampede will be determined by how well they can manage the bevy of different beating styles their roster has. High-pressure beaters, physical beaters, high-motor beaters, conservative beaters, all of these players are talented. But to fully employ a system, the key will be to give clear direction to what these beaters need to accomplish. 

Luckily, speaking of “clear,” the Stampede have beaters with proven on-pitch and off-pitch leadership skills with experience in working with a talented roster, and those are Lauren Curry and Ryan Cleary. Curry and Cleary are mission-focused in their beating approach, rarely sucked into unnecessary action and are aware at all times of what needs to be accomplished on pitch for the team to succeed. Both originally part of the Creighton program, Curry and Cleary have ample experience in high-level games, with Cleary having won the Division One College championship two years in a row. 

Also from the Creighton program are Derek Dearking and new arrival Tiffannie Chang. Dearking is an innovative and athletic talent with a rocket of an arm, and Chang excels in getting dodgeball control back for her team with relentless pressure on armed beaters and heads-up awareness in transition beater play. Kansas City has a great baseline for quality beating with these players, all boasting high-level pedigree and experience.

The matter of multiple styles comes into play when considering the talent and alumni of Mizzou. Opposing beaters need to be well aware of the physicality of Keighlyn Johnson, who will not hesitate to hit armed beaters hard with tackles and wraps. In that mold of beating is Audrey Shivley, who made a number of dodgeball steals as part of Mizzou’s run in Sacramento. Justin Ward boasts a powerful arm to pair with some impressive speed, and has stopped a number of fast break attempts with some jaw-dropping running throws. And it would not be a Kansas City team without at least one Himmelman, and that is no different this year, with Miles and Addi Himmelman joining the squad again. They both employ lightning-fast reflexes and quick feet to always keep opposing beaters on guard and away from the chaser action. Mizzou’s latest run at USQ Nationals re-established the program as a breeding ground and display for young talent, and Stampede fans should expect to see these young stars compete and improve over the summer.

The Season Ahead

Kansas City will first be in action on June 13, as they host the improved Legends squad in Topeka, Kansas. The Stampede has gotten the better of Houston in their last two series together, but those games always come right down to the wire in displays of offensive firepower. As stated, Kubena always gets the best out of his squad through the use of an offensive strategy that carried the Texas Copperheads to major victories over championship contenders during the USQ season. It will be up to Smith and assistant coaches Herdade and Usami to steer the ship and make adjustments when needed. 

The second Stampede series will, in fact, be the final regular-season series of the season, as the team will travel to San Antonio on July 18 to face the reigning MLQ champions. With the spotlight firmly on this series as the tone-setter for the Central Division Championship, expect Kansas City to push hard for a statement win and take as much momentum as possible into the tournament. Fans of MLQ were unable to watch the series last year, so if there is a fitting conclusion to what promises to be a deeply competitive season, it will be this retooled Stampede competing to knock off the Soldados.

Kansas City is coming into this season as an on-paper favorite to win it all. With an experienced and knowledgeable coach in Smith, combined with several of the best offseason additions in the league, the Stampede have no true discernible weakness to highlight. This has been said of previous Kansas City teams, however, and the Stampede have hit walls when forced to compete with experienced teams that can both match the talent of the Stampede roster and work within a system that promotes on-pitch chemistry. 

Boasting one of the most exciting rosters in the league, Kansas City will have eyeballs glued to their performances, but to reach the pinnacle and snatch the elusive MLQ Championship, their individual talent will need to be harnessed within a system that the roster can execute.