Four Teams to Play for WPSL Title Starting Friday

The WPSL season is a sprint for each of the 100-plus member clubs. Now, slightly more than two months after the season started, the field is down to four.

Seattle Sounders Women, Pensacola FC, the Chicago Red Stars Reserves, and Fire & Ice SC (St. Louis) will play for the WPSL’s national championship this weekend in Oklahoma City, Okla. The Sounders are the champions of the West region, Pensacola won the South, and the Red Stars won the Central.

Cleveland Ambassadors – the winners of Columbus Eagles FC’s Valley division – went on to claim the East region title with a 1-0 win over SUSA Academy this past Sunday. Cleveland was then forced to pull out of the national final four due to internal reasons with the club. The league selected Fire & Ice SC – the reigning national champions, who lost 1-0 to the Red Stars Reserves in this year’s Central region final – to replace Cleveland.

Chicago and Pensacola play in the first national semifinal on Friday night at 9 p.m., and then Seattle and St. Louis will play in the second semifinal on Saturday at 1 p.m. The winners will face off for the Jerry Zanelli Cup on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. (all times are EST).

Friday night’s semifinal was originally scheduled for 8 p.m. but has been delayed an hour because of extreme heat in the Oklahoma City area.