Steven Gilmore blocked a field-goal attempt and returned it 55 yards for a touchdown, lifting the Birmingham Stallions to a 14-3 victory over the Columbus Aviators on May 17, 2026 at Protective Stadium.
The play finished a game that gave Birmingham its third straight win and flipped a halftime deficit: Jonah Dalmas, in his UFL debut, kicked a 48-yard field goal to put Columbus ahead 3-0 at the break, and the Stallions trailed until Dorian Thompson-Robinson connected on a 29-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Thomas midway through the third quarter.
Birmingham’s defense set the tone from the opening snap. The Stallions forced Columbus to a punt on the opening possession, then forced another three plays later after a roughing-the-punter penalty had extended the drive. On Columbus’s first drive the Aviators were held to negative four rushing yards, and Birmingham limited the UFL’s top rushing attack to just 74 total yards in the first half.
Offense was uneven early. The Stallions were 1-of-4 on third down in the first half and trailed 3-0 at halftime, but Thompson-Robinson’s third-quarter strike to Jordan Thomas reversed the momentum and set the stage for Gilmore’s decisive fourth-quarter play.
Gilmore also made a red-zone interception, picking off Jalan McClendon inside the 20, a turnover that erased another Columbus scoring chance and underscored how single defensive plays swung the game. Those plays, plus the blocked field goal returned 55 yards, provided the only offensive scoring Birmingham needed in a game dominated by low yardage and defensive stands.
The Aviators’ lone points came on Dalmas’s 48-yard field goal in the second quarter; that kick, notable as Dalmas’s UFL debut, left Columbus holding a 3-0 halftime advantage despite being stifled for much of the half. Even so, the low-scoring margins and the Stallions’ own third-down problems left the final outcome in doubt until Gilmore’s final act.
For the birmingham stallions, the win carried immediate consequence: it was their third straight and it comes six days before a rematch in Columbus. Birmingham and Columbus meet again Saturday, May 23, at 3 p.m. ET, a road test that will quickly measure whether Birmingham’s defensive performance was a single night’s surge or a stabilizing turn for a season that had looked precarious just three weeks earlier.
The simplest conclusion from Monday’s game is that Birmingham’s defense is now the team’s engine. The Stallions shut down an opponent that entered the night as the league’s top rushing attack, forced timely turnovers and special-teams heroics, and produced a win despite a middling first-half offense. The question the May 23 rematch will answer is whether that defense can repeat the performance on the road against the same rushing threat; if it can, Birmingham’s recent run is no fluke.
