Compare custom-field value of entry to registration-form field value before saving user
Thanks to Brad Bell, I was able to troubleshoot using var_dump. The code above works correctly, but I'm unaware of how to do a simple validation of the code within the controller, w/o creating a new model, &amp; send back a response.

Instead (for simplicity on my end), when the validation fails, I redirected to an error specific page, referencing the code entered &amp; team name.