Hetmyer, Stoinis and Jasdeep fire Orcas to huge win

Seattle Orcas jumped to second place on the MLC 2026 standings following a massive 88-run victory over the Washington Freedom at the Oakland Coliseum. A powerful batting performance headlined by Shimron Hetmyer's unbeaten 79 and Marcus Stoinis's death-overs blitz saw the Orcas post 227. Jasdeep Singh then returned 5 for 24 to skittle a powerful Freedom line-up for just 139.

Back after a five-day break following their record-breaking win over MI New York, the Freedom opted to chase in Oakland and faced a version of themselves from that evening in Dallas. Orcas openers Tim Seifert and Shayan Jahangir added 59 in 6.1 overs with Seifert adding 37 of those runs before falling to Ian Holland. Jahangir was dismissed quickly thereafter but another partnershp quickly brewed between Matthew Breetzke and Hetmyer.

After a slow start in which he made 10 off 12, Breetzke turned up the gears and smashed three sixes in his 23-ball 32 even as Hetmyer maintained a brisk scoring pace throughout. Despite the southpaw racing to a 24-ball half-century, the Orcas only had 150 on the board at the end of the 16th over. Then began the carnage as Stoinis took on Holland, who had figures of 2 for 19 from his first three overs. In the 17th over, Holland kept trying to bowl the yorker and ended up dishing full deliveries right in Stoinis's swinging arc, who struck those balls, including the off-pace ones, straight towards the sight screen for five sixes. After hitting four in a row, he missed a slower ball into the surface and swung too early. He still rounded off that over with a another straight six.

Marco Jansen dismissed Stoinis (42 off 16) and then had Dasun Shanaka caught behind next ball, but Hetmyer closed out the innings with three consecutive sixes in the final over. As many as 77 runs came from the last four overs, and an innings that seemed to just about inching towards the 200-mark, finished at 227.

That was still an above par score on what was still a slow-ish track. Washington Freedom do possess a powerful batting line-up. However, none of their batters got going today. The openers - Steve Smith and Mitchell Owen - fell cheaply to Jasdeep and Baartman respectively. Jasdeep picked three wickets in the fifth over and that effectively sealed the deal for the Orcas. They kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Jasdeep came back to bag a fifer. If not for lower-order cameos from Holland and Amila Aponso, the eventual margin of defeat will have been even higher.

Brief scores: Seattle Orcas 227/6 in 20 overs (Shimron Hetmyer 79*, Marcus Stoinis 42; Marco Jansen 3-33) beat Washington Freedom 139 in 16.2 overs (Amila Aponso 31*; Jasdeep Singh 5-24) by 88 runs