Week 16 gave us a pretty clear picture of who will be moving onto the playoffs. As of this moment, the West teams that have qualified are San Diego, Chihuahua, Texas, and Tacoma. For the East, Monterrey, Milwaukee, and Utica have qualified, while Baltimore and Kansas City are battling for fourth place. While we do know who is moving on, we don’t know the seeding and week 16 did have a lot of games that had a lot of weight in the seeding. Let’s start with Tuesday.

Tuesday, March 5th

Chihuahua Savage 6-4 Empire Strykers

Chihuahua visit Empire. Chihuahua would open up the game and would not lose the lead for the full game. Though Savage won, Marco Fabian was a key player in this game, he would get a hattrick but it was not enough to get any points for the Strykers. These two have one more regular season game, but it looks like Savage is going to run the tables.

Thursday, March 7th

Monterrey Flash 10-6 Chihuahua Savage

The last regular season game of the Mexican Indoor Classic. Many people thought Chihuahua would finally get their revenge, however, they will have to wait til the playoffs, if they both make it. Monterrey would start off with two goals and would keep the lead. They kept extending the lead and Chihuahua would fight to catch up but it was never enough. The 10-6 win means Flash has won every match of the Mexican Indoor Classic. Impressive!

Friday, March 8th

Milwaukee Wave 6-3 Utica City FC

This game had a lot of meaning in the standings. At this point, no one will knock off Flash, so this was for second place. Milwaukee opened up the scoring with Max Ferdinand and Marcio Leite, two of the players who were awarded stars for the game. The Wave would lead the full game and had a comfortable win, Willie B would have a huge game to get Milwaukee all three points and probably securing second place in the standings.

Chihuahua Savage 8-6 Baltimore Blast

Baltimore is on a field trip, first stop Corner Sports. Chihuahua started with a three-goal stream, Baltimore would score five, and Chihuahua would get four unanswered goals to earn the lead again. The game would end in a Chihuahua win. This was one of two games in Mexico and this loss is slowly closing the playoff door for the Blast.

Saturday, March 9th

Dallas Sidekicks 5-2 Harrisburg Heat

The Battle of the two bottom teams, also game one of the weekend. Dallas would control and win this comfortably. Gustavo Piedra would have a huge game for Dallas, he got 2 goals and 1 assist. This is also the third win of the season for Dallas.

Tacoma Stars 7-6 Texas Outlaws

This is probably the most entertaining game of the West. The game was back and forth, Outlaws started on the front foot and Tacoma fought back to take the lead and win the game. It should be noted that both Texas and Tacoma were without their leading scorers. The Stars outshot Texas 44 to 25 with Alessandro Canale, Nani Mendoza, Micheal Ramos, Justin Stinson, and Stefan Mijatovic each getting a goal and an assist.

Sunday, March 10th

Milwaukee Wave 8-7 St Louis Ambush

This game had overtime and a shootout, what a game! Milwaukee would get the first goal, St Louis would answer and this was the story of the night. The lead exchanged hands until the fourth quarter, where the Ambush were forced to find two late goals, which they did on two power play goals. So to overtime they went, while both had opportunities, no one would find the golden goal. This game was decided by shootouts and it was Milwaukee who would get the two points.

Kansas City Comets 11-6 Utica City FC

The battle of the blue turf. This game was “a tale of two halves”. Utica City FC would lead for most of the first half until the 9th minute when Kansas City tied it up. The Comets would then take off and get the lead for the rest of the game. Zach Reget would find his form once again and would get four goals in this game, Rian Marques also had 2 goals and 2 assists.

Harrisburg Heat 11-6 Dallas Sidekicks

Second game of the weekend in the battle of the bottom teams. Harrisburg would control and win this game very comfortably in comparison to the first leg. The Heat would be led by Dominic Francis and Elton de Oliveira with five points on the night. This marked the second game the Heat have won this season. The two split the weekend.

Monterrey Flash 5-4 Baltimore Blast

The second stop for Baltimore in Mexico was Monterrey Arena. This was a great game for the Blast as they took a point but they needed all three. This was a very defensive game, but did have a back and forth exchange of the lead and goals. The game had one more tie in the third quarter and this was how the game would end so the game went to overtime. Two minutes into the OT, Monterrey would get a golden goal via Jhon Ponce.

San Diego Sockers 10-3 Empire Strykers

San Diego vs Empire went the way it normally goes. The Sockers would go on a six-goal unanswered streak. Empire had a few moments where they looked to fight back but San Diego was too in control. 10-3 was the story of the night, Sockers were too good for Empire to keep up.

- Geo Monterroso

While Geo is a contributing writer for Protagonist Soccer, he’s also the founder and host of the Goals N Boards podcast. It’s the best podcast strictly devoted to MASL.