Charlotte Aviators remain the East Division’s toughest measuring stick

Charlotte’s 5-7 finish in East Division play last season was its best league mark since becoming an official Major League Quadball franchise, and it still left the Aviators in the same uncomfortable place they have occupied for years: the team contenders have to pass through, not around. The East now runs through Boston Forge, New York Titans, Washington Admirals, Ottawa Black Bears and Charlotte, and that collision map has made every Aviators weekend feel like a stress test.

That role did not happen by accident. Charlotte was founded in 2020 by Ryan Davis and Hanna Reese as the Charlotte Royals, then spent 2021 and 2022 as an MLQ Trial Expansion Team in the East Division before becoming an official franchise in 2023. Head coach Lee Hodge and manager Hanna Reese helped steady the transition, and the results have been consistent if not flashy: 3-9 in East Division play in 2023, 3-9 again in 2024, then 5-7 in 2025. The record says middle tier. The structure of the roster says something closer to durable.

Charlotte’s postseason and marquee-series moments have shown why the standings never fully explain the Aviators. In the 2024 MLQ Championship play-in bracket, Charlotte ran away from the Toronto Raiders, 195-70, with the return of U.S. National Team beater Celine Richard giving the Aviators a different level of bite alongside Kody LaBauve, whom MLQ described as the regular-season league leader in stops. That pairing gave Charlotte a backbone few middle-tier teams can match when the games get tight and the snitch timing starts to decide everything.

That pressure showed up again in 2025, when Charlotte’s split-series win over Washington turned into a three-game nail-biter. The Admirals are one of the East’s heavier checks, and Charlotte still found a way to make the series bleed across all three games. That is the Aviators’ calling card: they do not just collect results, they make better teams work for them.

The 2026 schedule kept that identity grounded in place as much as style, with Charlotte’s home event set for Indian Trail, North Carolina, on Saturday, June 27. In a 15-franchise league split across the East, North and South divisions, Charlotte remains tied to the Charlotte-area footprint, and that home base has not softened the competitive edge. If anything, it has sharpened it. The Aviators keep functioning as the East Division’s cleanest measuring stick, because every contender still has to prove it can handle Charlotte before it can claim anything bigger.