Sonoma County Sol FC 0 - 1 Napa Valley 1839 FC

I picked this match as the one to watch last weekend and it was a wild one. Apparently this is known as the Wine Country Derby? News to me, but I’m all for derbies, especially ones with cool names. The match turned early on, when visiting Napa Valley’s Luis Mendoza was taken down in the box. Daniel Morales, in his article on the match, described the foul. “Before he could get a shot off, the midfielder was clipped by Sonoma County’s Sebastian Herrera and awarded a penalty just one minute into the contest.” Dario Pavon stepped to the spot and scored what would be the game winner, just 3 minutes into the match. That’s Pavon’s 4th goal in as many matches. The rest of the match was scoreless and Sonoma’s Alex Climaco picked up a red in the 83rd minute. With the win, Napa jumps to the top of the standings in the Golden Gate Conference.

Oakland SC 1 - 8 El Farolito

Erik Arias had him a day! In an entirely uneven matchup, El Farolito would put eight goals in the net. Arias netted half that total himself. His four goals on the day boosted him to a tie (6 goals) for the NPSL golden boot with Contra Costa’s Nathaniel Carrasco. Julio Cervantes managed the loan goal for the home side. On a side note, this matchup featured two of my favorite logos in the NPSL. With the road win, El Farolito moves into 3rd place in the Conference, while Oakland falls into 5th.

SC Brave Lions 2 - 1 Las Vegas Legends FC

The Pacific Conference finally got rolling and SC Brave Lions has entered the chat. The Glendale, CA club kicked off its NPSL season hosting Las Vegas Legends. The match ended in a 2-1 scoreline, with the home side taking the three points. The goal scorers for Brave Lions were Nikola Vinski and Surik Karamyan. The win put Brave Lions into the top spot (for the moment, it’s VERY early) in the conference.

This Weekend

Next weekend we get a massive influx of clubs kicking off in the NPSL, so the job of picking a match to watch will be much harder. So for this weekend, for my money, I’ll take Tallahassee SC hosting Jacksonville Armada in the kickoff match of the South Region and the Gulf Coast Conference. Jacksonville was the #1 seed in the South playoffs last season so it will be interesting to see how this team kicks off the new season.