The Utah Salt Ratz have to consider their inaugural regular season a success. In the first season of existence in the Men's Premier Soccer League the Ratz finished in first place. They led the league in scoring and were second in the league in goals allowed. The Ratz had the league's leading goal scorer in KC Nordfors and went 13-3.
That is all fine and good, but the regular season is over. The playoffs start today. Utah faces the Northern Nevada Aces tonight in a first round playoff matchup. Utah has fared well against the Aces to this point. They won all three regular-season games by a combined score of 11-3.
When it came to the regular season, the Ratz fared well against every team but one. The Chico Rooks had Utah's number for the regular season. Utah was 13-0 against every other team in the league, but 0-3 against second-place Chico. Chico will be facing the Arizona Sahuaros in the other playoff game. The winner of that game will face the winner of the Ratz-Aces game to decide the league championship.
The Ratz may not have any MPSL playoff experience, but the players in general all said they had played in other tough elimination games. They said they had competed in high school playoffs, or at the club level in tournaments for years.
If the game were to be played on paper the Ratz would have a decided advantage. Utah averaged nearly three goals a game at 2.93, while the Aces managed only about a goal and a half at 1.53. Defensively, the Ratz surrendered only 1.26 goals a game, while Northern Nevada gave up an average of 2.0 for the season. Again, meaningless comparisons as both teams will start the game even. The game is played, not printed.
"We set our goals at the beginning of the season to win a championship, and we are going to prepare to do it," said coach Dominic Militello of his club last week. "I think all we need to do is continue doing what got us here and we can finish on top."
The game will be played at Juan Diego High School and begins at 7:30 p.m. It will be a memorable moment as Utah kicks off what it hopes will be the first of many playoff games to come.
E-mail: mblack@desnews.com