It's done by points earned/maximum possible points earned, the latter being 3*number of games played. HV has won the regular-season championship at this point by winning their last game. Official numbers are here. Official playoff page is here.
Looking at the rosters of the Northeast Teams - Hudson Valley, Washington and Boston were stacked. They had women from all over the country. The other rosters from LI, NJ, CT, NY and WMass looked very weak. I tried to find the colleges the women went to and they were not impressive. The CT team played several high school players. The NJ team was full of Philly and NJ schools. The LI team had several kids from NY schools. WMass was full of CCSU and U Hartford. NY was all NY kids as well. No wonder the top 3 ran away with everything. This league needs to do a better job with having the top teams play each other. There were 12-0 and 7-0 scores and nobody wins in those games. A waste of time for everyone. Have a 10 team national league for the top teams that have women looking to get into the WPS so they can play each other.
I agree with you eastcoastsoccer, but it's impossible with money and travel. And I mean impossible. That's what these W-League Playoffs are for.
We had some discussion of that idea on this thread. It would be wonderful to have an elite W-League division where teams like the Pali Blues, FC Indiana, Washington, Hudson Valley, Ottawa, and Atlanta could face up against each other repeatedly over the course of a season. Unfortunately, as cobi13 notes, the W-League just doesn't have the budget for that kind of travel. Just doing it in the playoffs is hard enough. There have been "haves" and "have-nots" in the W-League for as long as I've been following it. It does make for some ugly games, but then there are some interesting upsets as well. This year there's been more parity than usual, possibly due to most of the best players going to WPS, with no team compiling a perfect record. Perhaps that will start a trend toward greater evenness.
Official playoff match schedule: So in the East we're getting Atlanta vs Charlotte, Part III instead of Atlanta vs Boston. Weird. Has any other team in W-League history NOT chosen to go to the playoffs?
Official article with playoff schedule is here. That is odd about Boston, but maybe they figured it wasn't worth the trouble to go to Atlanta just to lose (most likely) in their one match down there. Charlotte at least is (much) closer. On another note, it seems a little unfair to make the Freedom play Tampa Bay rather than Charlotte. The Freedom are the top seed in the tournament and should therefore play the weakest team.
In the Central Conference Divisional game, the Buffalo Flash easily beat the Quebec City Amiral, 5-0. Their reward will be to face the 10-0-2 FC Indiana Lionesses on their home turf on Friday.
I missed scoring that game, but from what I understand, Buffalo started their new Japanese forward that game, Rie Sawai. Supposedly the tandem of Pam Conti and Sawai came up big in the offensive end of the field - supposedly, they very easily passed around Quebec City's defense. I was also told that Maria Ruiz was a sub in that game - I have a feeling that the nagging leg injury she was nursing was still bothering her. Her last game she came off the bench for 15 minutes. It's possible that Coach Lines is saving her for Indiana. Despite being the underdog against Indiana, if Buffalo's Back 4 play big, it's possible to keep the game close. Against Ottawa, the Flash kept it very close, despite losing. Buffalo's offense is very potent, and if given enough room, they can make things happen quickly.
Washington beats Tampa Bay 2-1, goals from Tegeler and Lenczyk. Freedom had a bulk of the possession but were vulnerable to Tampa's fast forwards. Seemed like the Hellenic ran out of gas in the later portions of each half and it cost them. Charlotte beats Atlanta 2-1 in what was one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen. Charlotte came back with two goals in the final five minutes of the match but they were on the back foot the entire time. Penalty about five minutes from time for handball in the box, but no way it should have been a straight red for the Atlanta player. Then, a few minutes later, a ticky-tack foul was called a few yards from the box, dead center, after the refs had let the players all but mug each other all match. Ozimek's free kick was perfect, over and around the wall and into the top corner, nothing keeper could have done. Officials also missed at least one BLATANT handball in the Charlotte box near the end. Just a disgraceful performance by the entire crew, hopefully they won't get another game at this level.
Thanks for the update. I've seen the W-League Freedom back line burned by fast forwards (Casey Nogueira, anyone?) even when it was populated by our now-WPSers. Does Charlotte have players who can challenge them?
No. Charlotte didn't get close to troubling Betos outside of dead ball situations with Ozimek. I fully expect Washington to mop the floor with Charlotte if the Freedom are finishing the chances they create.
Well, that's been their one weakness the past couple of years, so we'll see. Meanwhile, I wonder if Boston's having second thoughts about declining the playoff spot.
so Pali won 5-2 over Colorado Force. Cheney played, but suddenly Tobin has dropped off the roster. WTF?!
Here's the USL scoring summary: - http://www.uslsoccer.com/stats/2009/1239553.html Sounds pretty wild - tie game going into the 88th minute, then Pali scores three times.
but Cheney plays and Tobin doesn't? Tobin's off the roster! and Ali Hawkins (UNC roommate/teammate/close friend, played for LA Legends??) has also dropped off the LA roster too!! Needless to say... i'm VERY, VERY confused.
Ottawa beats FC Indiana 2-1 in what has to be considered an upset. So semi-finals are: Ottawa vs Washington Hudson Valley vs Pali
The amateurs beat the pros - huzzah! But, yes, that's a bit of a surprise. Hudson Valley is the #1 seed, while this makes Washington the #2 seed as their regular-season record is better than either Ottawa or Pali. I'd like to see the match played at the Soccerplex, but I felt the same way about the Eastern Conference championship. We'll see if it happens.
Maybe Ottawa will surprise everyone and the finals will be in Ottawa. I have no idea on how to compare the 4 teams that are remaining, but I would assume any of them could win!
Since they neither play each other nor have any common opponents, there's no way of telling. The Pali Blues look formidable on paper, but then do did FC Indiana and Atlanta, and they're both gone.
League really needs to figure this out...way too many teams being affected by missing players. Totally changes the landscape of the matches... http://equalizersoccer.com/WebPages/blog.aspx
Pali Blue 4, Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues 0 Washington Freedom 0, Ottawa Fury 0. Washington wins 3-1 on PKs. Championship match Friday at 7:30 pm at the Maryland Soccerplex.
Is that confirmed that it's in Maryland? Sadly there won't be a third rematch of Freedom-Quickstrike. Good luck against Pali, they ran all over us. Unfortunately (and I truly mean this without trying to make excuses), perception of the level of play for these teams is so skewed because of poor scheduling. Pali is a great team, and surely thinks the Hudson Valley is shite. However, HV was down 5 starters because of college. If that same Pali team was to play Washington I would say they would have very good odds of winning, but now they are losing several players, so the Freedom will probably be sitting there wondering how they beat down the Lady Blues 4-0. Who knows, the whole thing is a mess. We'll see what happens. What college players are being lost for Freedom?
The final's definitely at the Soccerplex. I have mixed feelings about a third try at the Lady Blues because it would be up your way rather than down here. The only players I know we'll be without are Christine Nairn and Tiffany McCarty, but we've been without them most of the season due to NT callups, so that's not much of a change. I'll ask the coach if we're expecting any issues along those lines.