Growlers edge Havoc 23-20 in tight South Division battle

San Diego had to win the hard way to leave Houston with a 23-20 victory at Dulles High School on Saturday, June 20, and the Growlers did it by surviving possession after possession instead of blowing the Havoc out of the building. The result pushed San Diego to 4-5 and dropped Houston to 1-7 in the South Division, turning a three-goal final into a game with real playoff weight for a team trying to stay attached and another trying to prove it can keep pace with better clubs.

KJ Koo was the sharpest player on the field for San Diego, finishing with 5 assists, 3 goals and 2 blocks. Houston still had a pulse because Mark Turner kept moving the disc and the field, piling up 666 total yards and 8 assists, but the Havoc could never quite turn that pressure into the kind of late break that flips a one-score game. Those numbers fit the scoreline: Houston was annoying, connected and hard to shake, but San Diego was cleaner when the game tightened.

That narrow margin made sense when you looked at both schedules. Houston had already lived through a 29-13 loss to Atlanta, a 22-20 loss to Austin, a 15-13 win over Vegas, a 24-13 loss to Seattle, another 29-14 loss to Atlanta and a 32-11 loss to Carolina before San Diego arrived. San Diego had been just as volatile, with a 22-20 loss to Carolina, a 16-15 win over Atlanta, a 25-15 loss to Oakland, a 26-17 win over Vegas, a 23-17 loss to Oakland, a 20-19 loss to Austin and a 22-21 win over Colorado, then a 20-21 loss at Austin on June 19. The 23-20 final was less a surprise than the latest entry in a season full of tight turns.

The South context gives the win extra bite. Ultiworld’s June 15 power rankings had San Diego at No. 8 and Houston at No. 20, and its June 23 playoff-picture column listed San Diego and Atlanta as the last South Division teams still in contention for the final playoff spot. Ultiworld’s South Division preview had already framed San Diego as a surprise playoff team from 2025 that got stronger in the offseason, while Houston, founded in 2023, is still trying to turn competitiveness into consistent results. San Diego kept that playoff thread alive; Houston again showed it can hang, even if hanging is not yet the same as winning.