Mike Littlehale put 190.5 on Sam Wadhams, the tenth-highest total in league history, and won by 80.5. Wadhams managed 110.0 and still left 15.5 points on his bench.
Littlehale's 190.5 was not a scoreline so much as an eviction notice. Bucky Irving contributed 36.0 of it, and the rest arrived in the unhurried manner of a man emptying someone's house into a skip. Sam Wadhams scored 110.0, which in most weeks is a respectable afternoon's work and in this one was simply the number written on the toe tag.
The margin was 80.5. To be clear about the scale of that, it is larger than the entire output of Tom Pauza, who scored 71.5 and lost his own game by 31.0. Littlehale could have surrendered Irving, the whole 36.0 of him, and still won by more than forty. He did not surrender Irving. He is not that sort of man.
Wadhams left 15.5 points on the bench, which the Chronicle notes only for the sake of the record, since deploying them would have moved the final deficit from 80.5 to 65.0 and spared him nothing but the arithmetic. He falls to 2-3. The league's tenth-largest score in twelve years of business, and it was spent on him.
Littlehale climbs to 4-1 with 649.0 points for, second in the table, a game and three points behind Donald Hefferon's unbeaten run. It was also his hundredth regular-season win, 101 counting the playoffs, which have contributed one. The front of this league is now a two-man argument between a perfect record and a man who scores like a siege engine. They do not meet next week. The league will have to wait.
Hannan Merritt beat Ian Dudley 148.5 to 117.5, a 31.0 margin and a thoroughly competent afternoon undermined by the 44.5 points he elected to watch from the sidelines. Braelon Allen alone put up 23.5 in civilian clothes. Christian Watson's 37.0 did the heavy lifting on the field, which is the only reason the bench ledger reads as comedy rather than as a coroner's report.
Dudley, meanwhile, is 0-5. He has 507.0 points for, tenth in the league on that measure, and a schedule that has so far declined to show him mercy of any kind. This is the third year running that this particular week has found him on the wrong end of the result; in 2024 Merritt beat him by 1.5. The method has changed. The outcome has not.
Matt Francis beat Ian Pfeiffer 177.5 to 125.5, Jahmyr Gibbs supplying 40.5, and moved to 99 career wins. He leads the league with 653.0 points for and sits seventh at 2-3. Pfeiffer has now lost three straight.
Jaylen Warren scored 43.0 for Jeff Abbott, bettered this week only by Drake Maye's 44.0, and Maye was playing for the other side. Travis Gervais won 150.5 to 138.5. Abbott is 1-4 with 696.0 points against, the most in the league.
Tim Kelly beat Tom Pauza 102.5 to 71.5 and benched 0.0 points, the only manager in the league to manage it. He now leads the series 9-3. Pauza is 3-2 on 477.5 points for, the second-fewest in the league.
Donald Hefferon is 5-0 after seeing off Andy Borah 113.5 to 83.5. Josh Allen's 36.0 covered a bench holding 30.5 points, including Ollie Gordon II's 14.0. The league's only unbeaten record survives.
Pauza v Hefferon — Pauza trails Hefferon 6-10 all-time and meets the league's only unbeaten side.
Gervais v Kelly — Gervais leads Kelly 6-4; two three-and-two records, one of them leaving.
Dudley v Borah — Dudley 3-4 against Borah, a meeting of the desperate and the benched.
Littlehale v Abbott — Littlehale 9-5 over Abbott, who just lost despite Warren's 43.0.
Pfeiffer v Merritt — Pfeiffer 9-4 against Merritt, historically lopsided, currently nothing of the kind.
Francis v Wadhams — Francis trails Wadhams 6-8 all-time despite leading the league in points for.
Heavy scoring over Coach Mike's territory, drifting south. Low-lying managers advised to move valuables upstairs.
Clear and unbroken above Donnie for a fifth straight week. Barometer falling somewhere, just not there.
Persistent bench fog across Hannan's sideline. Visibility forty-four and a half points, improving slowly.
Duds remains under the same stationary front since September. No relief indicated through the weekend.