Now just over a month away, the November 17-18 NorCal Premier Soccer Fall NPL Showcase looms large as both a chance for players in our leagues to show their best self to the plethora of college coaches on hand and the opportunity to cement league status. This past weekend was a chance for the latter as many sides made moves to solidify their standings as either Champions League hopefuls — for the girls — or Champions League qualifiers — for the boys. Here are your game of the week recaps.

NPL SCHEDULES AND RESULTS

NPL MATCHDAY

U15 Girls Champions League

San Juan SC Spirits 1 – Marin FC 1

San Juan Goal: Long
Marin Goal: McKechnie

In a match between the defending Champions League champions in San Juan SC Spirits and the defending State Cup Champions Marin FC, Susannah Long put the hosts ahead in just the fifth minute, poking home an opportunistic cross to put the 3-0-2 Spirits up 1-0 early. But after a flurry of attacks for San Juan, Marin FC (3-0-1) finally put one back just nine minutes from time, ensuring that the points would be split between these two Champions League contenders.

KEY MATCHES

U17 Boys NPL

Sacramento United 4 – Placer United 3

Sac United Goals: Allen III 2, Churchill, Cruz
Placer Goals: Benitez 2, Carvellio

In a wild affair between defending State Cup champions Sacramento United and defending Champions League winners Placer United, the hosts came out with a 4-3 victory. The game featured four lead changes in all, with Fredrick Allen III finding the winner in the 68th minute. Before that, Julian Churchill opened the scoring in the eighth minute, only for Placer to score twice in the first half. Just after the break, Allen III and Luis Cruz scored for Sacramento before Placer tied it, setting up Allen III’s winner, which put the hosts just three points out of the top spot in the table.

U14 Boys NPL 1 East

FC Sporting Munich 1 – San Francisco Glens 0

Sporting Goal: Stupak

Coming into the match near striking distance of the top-ranked CenCal Cosmos, FC Sporting Munich and the San Francisco Glens were playing catchup as the second and fourth-ranked sides. But Munich came out on top, thanks to a 58th minute strike from Dmitri Stupak in a tightly-contested match that could have gone either way. The win put FC Sporting just four points behind the Cosmos with a game in hand.

U16 Girls Champions League

Pajaro Valley 2 – Mustang SC 0

Pajaro Goals: Yanez, Vasquez

While Pajaro Valley may be two points off of top-of-the-table MVLA in the standings, they were only able to get to this point via a victory against Mustang SC this past weekend. Pajaro scored in both the 50th and 80th minutes to garner a victory that helped them to a 3-0-1 record on the season, while Mustang SC dropped to 2-3-0 and will need to make a real turnaround to save their season.