Re: Ajax makeup games. I believe a second set of potential dates for the AJAX matches could be July 18-20 since the playoffs aren't scheduled to start before the weekend of July 22-23.
Payback Time for Ajax!! Here's something I posted last July 23rd: Actually it would even be better to schedule the makeup match for early on a weekday morning so that the Ajax players would not only be tired, but would also have to sit through several hours of peak rush hour traffic.
Too bad Rachel won't be with WFC for the rest of the regular season, but perhaps she will be available for the WPSL Championship weekend in Salt Lake City.
Just posted on the SeaLions' Website: "SEALIONS LOOK TO CLINCH PLAYOFF SPOT WALNUT CREEK -- With 2 wins and 6 points this weekend, San Diego WFC can clinch a playoff berth and regain sole possession of first place in the WPSL West, which some are calling the world's toughest women's soccer conference. But the SeaLions will have to do it on the road, and that's never easy, especially here in Northern California, where they will face Lamorinda EastBay on Saturday and then San Francisco on Sunday." (I don't write 'em I just report 'em!)
Good Luck to the Sea Lions! I hope that the team then doesn't have to turn around and play 2 week games against Ajax in the week before the playoffs. That would just be so wrong!
International Rankings of Women's Clubs I recall reading somewhere that the Storm were ranked 8th and that FC Indiana were ranked 4th internationally, but haven't been able to find the source of this information. Does anyone have a link they can provide? Thanks!
Sealions Look To Clinch Playoff Spot It is important to note that although it is technically correct that the WFC can clinch a playoff berth, they will also need a little help for this to happen this weekend. The Storm and Sol have to have at least a draw in one of their two remaining matches in order for the WFC to be able clinch a playoff spot with two victories in Northern California this weekend . Obviously one of the best case scenarios for the WFC would be for Sol and Storm to draw in their match at Santa Rosa High School this Sunday afternoon.
Schedule for Ajax Matches Perhaps I'm wrong Tsunami, but I believe that the only potential dates left for the matches against Ajax are the 18th, 19th, & 20th of July.
Re: Sealions Look To Clinch Playoff Spot Also if the Storm defeats Sol and San Diego wins both of their matches they will clinch a playoff spot this weekend. With their victory at home and draw on the road against the Storm, San Diego would win the head to head tie-breaker with the Storm.
This was posted on the SeaLions' website: "SEALIONS PUSH ONE STEP CLOSER TO PLAYOFFS LAMORINDA -- San Diego WFC beat Lamorinda East Bay 4-1 Saturday night, on goals from Kristen Koehrn (Davidson), Lizzy Coghill (Notre Dame), Danica Carey (Nebraska) and Lorrie Fair (USWNT), to move into a 3-way tie for first place in the WPSL West. The SeaLions (9-1-1) have 28 points and share the top spot with Sonoma County Sol and California (Sacramento) Storm."
Lorrie Fair? She is listed on the roster, but with a 'R' instead of a number. I took that to mean a reserve who wouldn't be playing this year. I'll be interested to see who (and how many actually made the trip this time - especially considering how few made it up to play the Sol early on.) I was really worried about this away game against the Power, who have been tough when playing at home. The score makes it appear that SD had an easier time of it on the road against this team. According to the WPSL site, both the Sol and Storm won their games. No result is listed for Ajax.
Sealions Push One Step Closer To Playoffs Congratulations SeaLions and a special thanks to oldgoalie for posting this result so soon. That is great to see that Lorrie Fair not only played yesterday, but scored a goal as well.
I think this is the 3rd or 4th game Lorrie (Ronnie Fair's sister) has played with the SeaLions; she played with them on one of their other trips north as well.
Thanks again oldgoalie. According to the match report posted at the WPSL site, Lorrie Fair started the May 27th road match against the Storm that ended in a 0-0 draw: http://www.wpsl.info/results/2006/index.php?g_id=64
Actually the Power have now lost three straight at home by a combined score of 13-3 after winning their first three matches also by a combined score of 13-3. San Diego won last season's road match against the Power quite convincingly as well by a score of 6-2. The Storm defeated Las Vegas 3-0 and Sol also defeated the Pride 3-0. If the WFC takes care of business and defeats San Francisco at Kezar this afternoon, the Sol - Storm match played later today will only determine which one of those two clubs finish third in the WPSL West.
Hot off the newswire: "SEALIONS CLINCH PLAYOFF SPOT! Sunday Jul 16, 2006 SAN FRANCISCO – San Diego WFC secured a spot in the 2006 WPSL playoffs with a convincing 4-2 victory over the San Francisco Nighthawks Sunday afternoon at Kezar Stadium." Full details posted on the SeaLions' website (wow, they're fast!)
Congratulations Sealions!!!! Congratulations to the WFC SeaLions for winning twice on the road this weekend and clinching a spot in the WPSL playoffs!! Also a big thanks to oldgoalie for putting an end to the suspense by giving us such a quick update . Here's the link to the complete report on today's great victory: http://sealionsoccer.com/news/index.php/?cat=1&id=60
Congratulations to Ajax for also clinching a playoff spot. This may actually turn out to be a good result for the San Diego WFC as well since Ajax's victory has eliminated the Storm and Sol from playoff contention. Now that the only thing left to be decided in the WPSL West is the placement order of the top two clubs, perhaps the WFC and Ajax will only need to play once this week instead of twice.
The SeaLions have posted playoff info on their site: "SAN FRANCISCO -- San Diego WFC SeaLions will host WPSL-Southwest Division champ Denver Diamonds in the opening round of the 2006 WPSL Playoffs. The match will kick off Saturday, July 22 at 7:30 p.m. PST at Manchester Stadium on the campus of Cathedral Catholic High School."
Home Playoff Game I'm glad to hear that the SDWFC will host a playoff game, especially against the Diamonds, who really got preferential treatment 2 years ago, costing the Sea Lions their playoff spot. So, from the wording in the announcement, I take it that not even 1 of the 2 Ajax cames won't be played after all?
Re: Home Playoff Game I'm real excited about the fact that we will have our first postseason match played here in San Diego since the 2003 WUSA Championship played at Torero. Interesting to note too that three players on the SeaLions roster also played for the 2003 San Diego Spirit squad that narrowly missed making it to the WUSA Championships match. It didn't seem all that reasonable to let Denver host one of the playoff matches when they only played five regular season matches. This decision to have San Diego host the playoff also does to some extent make up for what happened two years ago when Denver was more or less handed a spot in the WPSL playoffs when they weren't penalized for their forfeit against Ajax.
Re: Home Playoff Game That appears to be the case Tsunami. I sort of have mixed feelings about this because on one hand I would have really liked to have seen the SeaLions play Ajax with a chance to finish first in the WPSL West and thus get an automatic spot in the WPSL semifinals. However, if San Diego did end up playing Ajax at home mid-week, there would be very little time to promote such an important match. Also if the WFC wasn't able to pull out a victory over Ajax they would have to turn around and get prepared for their all important playoff match against Denver and only have one or two days rest in-between matches.
U-T Article on Ouying Zhang "Round Tripper" - Former captain of China's national team returns to San Diego to resure soccer career with Sea Lions amateur squad http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060719/news_lz1s19sealion.html There is a small picture of Ouying on the front page of the sports section, with a larger one accompanying the main article on page two. A sidebar has information on the Saturday playoff game and on the dates/times for the Final Four games.
It looks like there has been a TIME CHANGE in the SD v. Denver Playoff match. The SeaLion website says "7:00 p.m. game time." Better to get there early anyway!