Two spots in the AVP League playoffs are up for grabs in the final weekend of the regular season and all four teams competing have a shot.
But to paraphrase George Orwell from his classic “Animal Farm,” some of their chances “are more equal than others.”
Going into Week 8 of the League — which will be held indoors at the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb — the Dallas Dream are 8-4, the Austin Aces 6-6, the San Diego Smash 5-7 and the LA Launch 4-8. Each will have two games, encompassing four matches, and who plays whom will factor heavily into who advances to the four-team postseason next weekend.
Myriad playoff permutations affect the four squads and what transpires over the opening session on Saturday night – Smash vs. Dream and Launch vs. Aces – very well could determine the teams that will join the New York Nitro (12-4) and Miami Mayhem (10-6) in the single-elimination League semifinals.
Here’s a rundown:
- Dream: One match victory against the Smash puts the Dream into the postseason. It would give them nine wins and the most that either of the sub-.500 teams could earn is eight. Conversely, two losses to the Smash would not be catastrophic, since the Dream still could win 10 matches overall.
- Smash: A sweep against the Dream keeps the best-case scenario of a nine-win record alive. A split would not eliminate them, but from the standpoint of tiebreaker points, a three-set win and a two-set loss might prove costly, since the Smash and Aces each come in with 16 tiebreaker points.
- Launch: This one is simple. The Launch need to sweep the Aces in both matches. Those teams are first up on Saturday night, so the Smash will know the result before they play.
- Aces: Two wins over the Launch accomplishes two purposes. The Launch would be eliminated and the Aces would be better positioned than the Smash (at least one game ahead) going into Sunday afternoon’s action. A split would keep the Aces at .500 with the possibility of nine wins, thus very much in the hunt. Two losses, at best, would put the Aces at a one-point deficit in tiebreaker points with the Launch and the latter would hold the advantage in head-to-head, which is the second tiebreaking criterion.
The games in the second session at the 4,000-seat Comerica Center on Sunday afternoon are League rematches. The Smash and Launch split their matches on…
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