McMinnville Favorites 2026

Inside the McMinnville Community Center, timers clicked in rapid sequence across dozens of competition stations as the early months of the 2026 speedcubing season took shape in McMinnville, Oregon, USA. The single-day schedule on March 7, 2026, brought together 83 competitors for 17 rounds of action across 13 distinct disciplines, setting an early performance baseline for the regional circuit.

This edition of McMinnville Favorites 2026 arrived at a critical junction on the spring calendar, offering both seasoned solvers and newcomers a concentrated stage to calibrate their skills. As the wider competitive season begins to accelerate, tournaments of this scope provide essential data points, measuring technical consistency and puzzle management across everything from standard cubes to blindfolded and mechanical variants.

The 3x3x3 Cube tournament drew a field of 79 entrants through two competitive rounds. William Greninger secured top honors on the podium with a winning average of 7.67 seconds, highlighted by the tournament's best single solve of 4.90 seconds. Benjamin Gottschalk took second place with an average of 8.02 seconds, while Ezra Fish completed the podium in third at 8.17 seconds, concluding a fast set of 3x3 results in the main event.

Beyond the traditional Rubik's Cube, Greninger delivered an exceptional display across the larger multi-layered puzzles. In the 4x4x4 Cube, Greninger finished first with a 27.14 average ahead of Fish at 31.08 and Vietnam's Quan Trần Thanh Lương at 34.53. Greninger continued his sweep in 5x5x5 Cube, taking victory with a 54.14 average over Fish and Lương, before claiming the 6x6x6 Cube title with a 1:39.47 mark in front of Lương and Tyler Halgren.

In the shorter formats, Ezra Severson captured two event titles, posting a winning average of 1.32 seconds in 2x2x2 Cube ahead of India's Ian Cantius Fredric at 1.35 and Tyler L. Nguyen at 2.14. Severson also took first place in Skewb with an average of 2.88 seconds, leading Carston Hendricks and Nguyen. Tripp Peters topped the Pyraminx table with a 2.46 winning mark, while Adhiyan Kumaresan claimed the Clock event with an average of 4.03 seconds.

Away from the main finals, the day offered meaningful personal breakthroughs across the scorecards. David Halpern entered three events and dropped his Pyraminx personal best to 7.97 seconds, a 41.4 percent improvement over his prior mark of 13.60, alongside a first career 3x3x3 Cube attempt of 40.81 seconds. Tayler Merwin contested five events, improving his 2x2x2 mark by 39.8 percent down to 2.37 seconds, his 4x4x4 Cube time by 21.8 percent to 52.20 seconds, and finishing seventh in 7x7x7 Cube with a personal best of 4:46.18.

Other competitors expanded their repertoires into new disciplines during the meet. Kaylee Duda recorded a personal best of 3.25 seconds in 2x2x2 Cube, an improvement of 31.1 percent, and made a first official attempt at 4x4x4 Cube with a 1:35.69 single. Juan Antonio Orozco Lopez cut his 7x7x7 Cube mark by 25.8 percent to 2:55.85 to place fourth, while trying Clock for the first time with an 11.31 single. Gabriel Michael Caruso took eighth in Square-1 after completing a first Megaminx attempt in 2:31.78, Brayson Cooper tried 3x3x3 One-Handed for the first time with a 1:00.12 solve, Robert Schultz cut his 2x2x2 best by 22.3 percent to 4.26, and Caleb Wilson navigated their first WCA competition across five events, finishing 11th in Clock.

The remaining puzzle divisions at McMinnville Favorites 2026 produced sharp contests across specialized formats. Tyler Halgren captured first in 3x3x3 One-Handed with an average of 14.52 seconds and added a win in 7x7x7 Cube with a 2:43.24 mark. Ezra Fish took the Megaminx title averaging 45.46 seconds, Benjamin Gottschalk won Square-1 in 6.71 seconds, and Kinkajou Celeste Oren solved blindfolded to win 3x3x3 Blindfolded with a best single of 1:32.87.

Across 13 disciplines, solvers from the United States secured 33 podium places, with representatives from Vietnam earning four and India securing two. This speed cubing meet demonstrated the depth of the Pacific Northwest field, establishing early-season standard times as participants look toward the broader schedule of the competitive cubing competition calendar.