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In a repeat of the 2024 Conference Final, the Chicago Hounds travel to Fort Quincy to face the New England Free Jacks in the 2025 Eastern Conference Final!

Both sides made it through the Conference Semifinals relatively comfortably. The Free Jacks dominated the Miami Sharks, scoring 4 tries to Miami’s 1 to secure a 32-10 victory. The Chicago Hounds had a slightly tougher time against Old Glory DC. They trailed 10-16 at the half before keeping the Flags scoreless in the 2nd for a 27-16 victory in front of a home crowd. Now in the Eastern Conference Final, it’s the top seed against the 2nd seed! The last time these two sides met in the post season, the Free Jacks scraped a 23-17 victory en route to their 2nd of back-to-back Shields in 2024. Including that match, these sides have met 6 times with New England holding a 4-2 lead in that series. They split the regular season series 1-1 but the Free Jacks took the most recent meeting with a 27-17 win back in Round 13.

The Chicago Hounds were definitely up for this game, and struck first through a Tim Swiel score after 11 minutes. just a few minutes after this, Bryce Campbell intercepted Free Jacks ball and looked guaranteed to extend the Hounds lead if not for a sensational try-saving tackle from Paula Balekana. The Hounds did extend their lead to 0-10, but that missed score would come back to haunt Chicago. There were no scores between the 20 minute mark and half-time, The Free Jacks stayed afloat despite the Chicago Hounds dominating possession and territory. The 2nd half looked to be more of the same, as Noah Brown finished another Chicago score in the 43rd minute to extend the lead to 0-17 after the conversion.

Around 10 minutes later, still down 17, the Free Jacks offence started to show signs of life. Jed Melvin trundled over to open the scoring for the hosts. Within 5 minutes, the Free Jacks had completely flipped the momentum and pulled the score back to 14-17 thanks to a try from Cam Nordli-Kelemeti. The Chicago Hounds were still holding on however, and stretched their lead to 14-20 a few minutes later through a penalty from Chris Hilsenbeck, who then missed another penalty 3 minutes later that would have made it a 2-score game with 15 to play. After 12 minutes of intense defence from the Hounds, the Free Jacks were able to break through as Kyle Ciquera barged under the posts for an automatic 7pts to give New England their first lead of the game with roughly 90 seconds to play. The Hounds kicked-off quickly, and managed to earn a penalty in kickable range for Hilsenbeck with the clock in the red. With the Eastern Conference on the line, Hilsenbeck lined up the kick…and unbelievably, the in-stadium feed cut out for the most important 10 seconds in the 2025 Eastern Conference, on MLR’s national broadcast. The Commentary team were left as clueless as the audience.

A few panicked minutes later, Ben Holden relayed the news that Hilsenbeck’s kick had rang off the left upright, and was unsuccessful. The New England Free Jacks claimed their 3rd Eastern Conference title in a row with a narrow 21-20 victory in which they led for all of 90 seconds. They book their spot to fight for the Threepeat in Rhode Island next weekend! For the Hounds, it’s the same story as 2024 but on the back of a far stronger season. They look to the off-season and building for 2026.