MANCHESTER, Tenn. (Oct. 22, 2026) – Team MillerTech’s Jacob Wheeler of Birchwood, Tennessee, and Adrian Avena of Marmora, New Jersey, staged a remarkable comeback Thursday on Normandy Lake, overcoming a nearly three-hour scoring drought to win Knockout Round Match 2 of the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents. The duo caught 27 scorable bass weighing 39 pounds, 14 ounces – with nearly all their bass coming in the second half of competition – to claim the top spot and advance to Friday’s Championship Round.

Team Ferguson’s Brent Ehrler and Justin Lucas delivered the most consistent performance of the day, leading for much of the competition before being overtaken by Team MillerTech in the final period. The pair finished second with 20 scorable bass weighing 29-2, comfortably securing the final Championship Round berth by 8 pounds, 12 ounces over Team B&W Trailer Hitches’ Nick LeBrun and Todd Faircloth . LeBrun and Faircloth held their own early but struggled to maintain momentum during the second half of the day, ultimately finishing third with 13 bass weighing 20-6 and bringing their Heritage Cup run to an end.

Link to Hi-Res Photo of Heritage Cup Knockout Round Match 2 Winner Team MillerTech
Link to HD Video Clip of Heritage Cup Knockout Round Match 2 Highlights
Link to Morning Photo Gallery: Heritage Cup Knockout Round’s final match underway at Normandy Lake

For Team MillerTech, the victory was anything but certain during the opening hours. Wheeler and Avena began the morning searching for bass with forward-facing sonar, targeting baitfish suspended around standing timber in the deeper drains and pockets of Normandy Lake. Despite locating plenty of fish, they struggled to generate bites, remaining scoreless for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes of competition.

The pair experimented with several approaches, moving between offshore baitfish, shallow banks, boat docks and riprap in search of a productive pattern. Nothing seemed to produce until later in the day, when changing conditions finally began to position the baitfish and bass in a way that allowed Wheeler and Avena to capitalize.

As the sun climbed higher, scattered baitfish began concentrating into tighter schools and moving deeper in the water column, drawing bass into more predictable groups. The duo eventually located fish in two separate drains, where they found bass actively feeding around schools of baitfish approximately 20 to 25 feet below the surface.

That discovery was key. Using forward-facing sonar to track the fast-moving fish, Wheeler and Avena developed an effective one-two punch with minnow-style presentations and spoons, triggering a flurry of catches that rapidly erased their deficit and propelled them past Team Ferguson during the final period.

“That was definitely a grind for most of the first two periods,” Wheeler said. “We finally figured it out, and it was a combination of several different things. We caught some on a minnow and some on a spoon, and we made the right adjustment in that last period. I feel like we really got dialed in, and we both started making good casts and working together.”

Avena said the key was recognizing how the fish were positioning around the bait and making precise presentations as the schools moved through the deeper water.

“When these bass are roaming on bait, they’re moving really fast,” Avena said. “If you’re not making a precise cast, especially when they’re down at 20 or 25 feet, you’re not going to catch them. This afternoon, they started sitting closer to the bottom and grouping up tight. We’d catch them on a minnow, pull that group toward the boat and then drop a spoon on their heads. It was an effective one-two punch.”

The shift in fish behavior proved particularly important on a lake where the fall transition had produced inconsistent fishing throughout the Knockout Round. Early in the day, Wheeler and Avena could see bass following their presentations on forward-facing sonar without committing. As baitfish began schooling more tightly, however, the bass became increasingly aggressive, competing for the same presentations and allowing the pair to catch multiple fish from productive areas.

Wheeler said the timing of their discovery was just as important as finding the right locations.

“A lot of times in the morning, those fish will be floating high in the bait and moving around,” Wheeler said. “As the day goes on, they start to congregate. We got into a good position where those fish were grouping up around the bait, and we were able to get on them. We just had to keep adapting and looking for that bite.”

The duo’s ability to replicate the pattern in multiple drains proved to be the difference-maker, with both anglers contributing to a late surge that produced nearly 40 pounds of bass. Their catches included all three black bass species – largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass – highlighting the diversity of Normandy Lake’s fishery and the effectiveness of their approach.

Team MillerTech said the turnaround was especially satisfying after spending much of the morning searching for answers.

“We literally tried a little bit of everything,” Avena said. “Finally, we got the right clue in one little area. We knew there might be a handful of places like that on the lake, and once we stumbled into one, we just kept rolling.”

The top two teams from Knockout Round Match 1 at the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents that now advance to Friday’s Championship Round are:

1st:          Team MillerTech, 27 bass, 39-14
Adrian Avena, Marmora, N.J., 11 bass, 15-10
Jacob Wheeler, Birchwood, Tenn., 16 bass, 24-4

2nd:        Team Ferguson, 20 bass, 29-2
Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 11 bass, 16-11
Justin Lucas, Guntersville, Ala., nine bass, 12-7

Eliminated from competition are:

3rd:         Team B&W Trailer Hitches, 13 bass, 20-6
Todd Faircloth, Jasper, Texas, four bass, 5-11
Nick LeBrun, Benton, La., nine bass, 14-11

Complete results from throughout the week can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Overall, there were 60 bass weighing 89 pounds, 6 ounces caught by the three teams in Knockout Round Match 2 on Normandy Lake Thursday. Team Ferguson pro Brent Ehrler caught the Berkley Big Bass of the day – a 2-pound, 7-ounce largemouth bass.

With the Knockout Round now complete, four teams remain in contention for the Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents. Friday’s Championship Round will feature Team Ferguson’s Brent Ehrler and Justin Lucas, Team Lucas Oil’s Michael Neal and Wesley Strader, Team MillerTech’s Adrian Avena and Jacob Wheeler and Team Star brite’s Bobby and Chris Lane.

The Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents is hosted by Experience Tennessee, in partnership with Manchester, TN, Winchester, TN, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Bill Dance Signature Lakes and Fish Tennessee, and takes place over six days in Manchester, Tennessee. The competition water for each day is top secret and is only revealed to the anglers when they arrive at the boat ramp each morning. Anglers are driven directly to the day’s competition area launch ramp by their officials. Competition begins on the water at 9:15 a.m. CT.

The MLFNOW!^® broadcast team of Chad McKee and J.T. Kenney will break down the extended action live on Championship Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT. MLFNOW!^® is livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com, the MLF and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) apps and Rumble. The final hour of each day of competition will be broadcast live from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET on RFD-TV.

The Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents featured 12 two-man teams divided into three groups as they entered the one-day Elimination Round matches. Each of the three Elimination Round matches featured four new teams, with the top two teams from each match of the Elimination Round advancing to the Knockout Round on Days 4 & 5. In the Knockout Rounds, three teams competed each day, with the top two teams from each Knockout Round match moving on to the Championship Round on Day 6. In Friday’s Day 6 Championship Round, the final four teams will compete in a one-day shootout to determine which team will win the 2026 Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents trophy.

The MLF Starlink Team Series Presented by Bass Pro Shops features four Cup events in 2026 – the Patriot, Heritage, Challenge, and Summit Cups – with 12 two-man teams of Bass Pro Tour anglers competing for a share of  $560,000 in prize money. Teams were formed through a selection process, where 48 team captains – based on Fishing Clash Angler of the Year (AOY) standings throughout the 2026 Bass Pro Tour season – selected a teammate. Teams will compete throughout the fall of 2026.

The MLF Starlink Team Series Toyota Heritage Cup Presented by OFF!^® Deep Woods^® Repellents will also air on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour original episodes each Saturday afternoon beginning in February 2027. The complete television schedule for the Starlink Team Series on Outdoor Channel will be posted at MajorLeagueFishing.com.

Proud sponsors of the MLF Starlink Team Series include: Abu Garcia, B&W Trailer Hitches, Bass Boat Technologies, Bass Pro Shops, Bass Force, Berkley, Black Buffalo, BUBBA, Cigars International, Epic Baits, Ferguson, Grizzly Nicotine Pouches, Kubota, Lowrance, Lucas Oil, Mercury, MillerTech, NITRO Boats, OFF! Deep Woods Repellents, Onyx, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Power-Pole, Ranger Boats, Rapala, Starlink, Toyota, YETI, Yuengling and Zenni.

For complete details and updated information on the MLF Starlink Team Series, visit MajorLeagueFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow MLF’s social media outlets at Facebook,  X, Instagram and  YouTube.