The final week of the NISA regular season came to a close, and what was expected to be a busy weekend finale turned into a light one as we only had one out of the four scheduled matches played. The Savannah Clovers FC forfeited their match against the Michigan Stars FC, Club de Lyon FC forfeited their match against the Maryland Bobcats FC, and Arizona Monsoon FC forfeited their match against Irvine Zeta FC. Savannah, CDL, and Arizona were all road teams, and the Stars, the Bobcats, and Zeta FC were all awarded a 3-0 win by the league. The Bobcats’ unbeaten run gets extended to 17 matches, and they’ve tied former NISA club Chattanooga FC’s unbeaten streak from last season. As for the only match played over the weekend, the LA Force won the Coast Highway derby over Capo FC and got their fourth consecutive win over their SoCal rivals. We’ve got plenty to cover today, so let’s recap all the NISA action.
Los Angeles Force 2 Capo FC 1 (Saturday September 21)
The Los Angeles Force extended their unbeaten run to 11 matches after a 2-1 win over Capo FC at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Saturday. The Force got off to a flying start with two goals in two minutes from Michael Salazar and Alex Thompson-Hill to put LA up 2-0 just before halftime. Bryan Ortega received a second yellow card and was sent off, and the LA Force would have to play down a man with 10-men in the second half. Capo FC pulled one back on a penalty kick goal from Daniel Segal to trail by one. Capo FC couldn’t capitalize to find an equalizer late in the match despite being a man up. The LA Force got their fourth consecutive win against expansion side Capo FC and finished with a 4W-0D-1L head-to-head overall record over their SoCal rivals in the Coast Highway derby. Capo FC ends its inaugural season in NISA on a five match-winless streak and ends the season with an overall record of 4W-3D-9L (Note: at the time of writing this post, Capo FC still has two matches against Arizona Monsoon FC on the league schedule marked as postponed). The LA Force finish top of the West with a record of 14W-2D-2L to end the regular season.
That closes out the 2024 NISA regular season. We move on to the NISA Playoffs, which will begin next weekend. In the Eastern Conference championship, the Maryland Bobcats FC will host the Michigan Stars FC for the third consecutive time at the Maryland Soccerplex. The Los Angeles Force will host the Western Conference championship at Veterans Memorial Stadium and take on Irvine Zeta FC one more time in the 405 derby. The winners of the conference championships will meet in the NISA championship final on the weekend of October 25 to 27, with a final date and time TBA. What are your thoughts on the 2024 NISA regular season and who you got taking the NISA championship trophy in the NISA Playoffs? Let me know in the comments section below.
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