ONTARIO, Calif. – There wasn’t any on field celebration when the Sockers clinched the top seed in the MASL’s Western Conference. The locker room celebration was minimal.

Winning the conference was never the goal. It’s not even the bare minimum for the 16-time champions, but it now gives them a chance to play worry-free against three playoff teams to finish the season.

It may not have been the season the team is used to, losing four games with three of those at home, but even a down year for the Sockers still puts them at the top of the West.

In their 11-5 win over the Empire Strykers on Sunday, the Sockers jumped on the Strykers early for four first-quarter goals with six different players finding their way on the scoresheet with points.

“It was good to kind of get our legs moving in that first quarter and, you know, the team, I think in general, put together a pretty good four quarters,” Kraig Chiles said.

They finished the game with six different goal scorers combined for 11 goals, one-upping their 10 goals in the previous game against the Strykers on March 10. It’s the most goals they’ve scored in a two-game span all season.

The Sockers are also getting healthier. Gabriel Costa, in his first game since Feb. 1, scored this goal to begin the scoring, cast and all.

WELCOME BACK TO THE FIELD GABRIEL COSTA

In his first game since February 1st, Costa gives the @SanDiegoSockers a 1-0 lead

Catch the action on @CBSSportsGolazo! pic.twitter.com/8PUsLz4WVo

— MASL (@MASLarena) March 17, 2024

Costa added another goal and an assist later on the game, too. He sits at 24 points in 12 games this season.

The team still hopes that Leonardo De Oliveira, who hasn’t played in a game since Feb. 18, will be back before the playoffs.

Maybe the most important, and most promising, part of the game was the special teams unit’s performance.

“Our power play against unit, we didn’t give up any goals there or [the] sixth attacker against four guys, we didn’t give up any goals there. So overall very pleased with the defense,” Phil Salvagio said.

The nearly two whole minutes of playing 6-on-4 and still killing the penalty was especially great to see after their struggles for most of the season with the sixth attacker, including the previous week where the same Strykers team played their goalkeeper up in the third quarter and snuck three goals in.

The power play unit played all of five seconds on their lone power play opportunity before this happened:

Straight from the training ground @SanDiegoSockers 😤 pic.twitter.com/8mBX94566N

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) March 17, 2024

Maybe some good signs to come for the worst power play team in the league this season?

The game was the first in the MASL to be played on CBS Sports’ Golazo Network, introducing a whole-new audience to indoor soccer, potentially for the first time, with a name fans would recognize like Marco Fabián against some of the top players in the league like Tavoy Morgan and Charlie Gonzalez, the first two stars of the game, in a matchup between a pair of SoCal teams.

“It was a really good atmosphere,” Chiles said. “We had a little pregame meeting about this game being played on CBS, and wanting to highlight the sport in a positive light, to hopefully give the league an opportunity down the road to potentially pull a TV deal. So I’m hoping the feedback was good. I’m hoping the viewership on CBS was good and I honestly think we gave them a good game.”

The game was just as good, maybe even better, than anything one could ask for in a Sockers-Strykers game. Fabián’s first-half hat trick kept the Strykers within striking distance of the top team in the west with a two-goal game at halftime, keeping first-time viewers engaged for a second half that saw the Sockers run away with the game.

The hope for people around the league is that the game will lead to a future TV deal that could put the MASL on the network on a weekly basis beginning next season.

Having clinched the highest seed they can reach, the Sockers get to focus on their last three opponents – all of which will be in the playoffs – without having to worry about wins or losses but playing to the best of their abilities in three good tests before the playoffs where the margin for error will be razor thin.

It begins a two-game midwest road trip to face the East’s Milwaukee Wave on Friday, March 22, and the Kansas City Comets on Saturday, March 23, before the season finale and the goodbye to the Grand Old Arena on Saturday, March 30, against the Tacoma Stars.

The three games will be a good test for all teams involved with all three opponents still playing for seeding. The Sockers are locked in to the No. 1 seed but they’re also not one to not care about winning either. They’ve had enough of losing this season already and have the opportunity to avenge their loss to Kansas City earlier this season.

“These games are important,” Salvagio said. “You want to show that, we play each other, we’re ready to go.”