MASL: Chihuahua wins regular season crown by slimmest of margins, earns No. 1 seed in postseason
- Dan Stickradt
- Apr 4
- 4 min read
NATIONAL SOCCER NEWS: www.nationalsoccernetwork.com
BY DAN STICKRADT
NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF NEWS | WEB AND CONTENT EDITOR
BUSINESS: (248) 525-2349
TWITTER: @msn_stickradt @NatSoccerTV
CHIHUAHUA, Mexico – Who says that all points don’t matter in sports?
It meant everything to the Chihuahua Savage during the Major Arena Soccer League regular season in 2024-25.
The Savage captured their third straight regular season MASL crown by collecting 58 total points in the final standings. Runner-up San Diego Sockers finished with 56 points.
The Savage picked up two more bonus points along the way, as both Chihuahua and San Diego finished with near-identical numbers.
Chihuahua finished 12-0-0 at home and 8-4-0 on the road – the same as the Sockers. Both teams finished 20-4-0 overall.
The difference was the Chihuahua recorded 18 regulation wins while San Diego finished with 16 regulation wins.
The Savage still had the most vaunted offense in the league by a wide margin. Chihuahua outscored the opposition 218-114 for a +114 margin.
The next closest group was the Baltimore Blast (167-123, +44), Milwaukee Wave (177-144, +33) and the San Diego Sockers (152-19, +33).
Following the Sockers in the final regular season standings were the Baltimore Blast (48 points), Kansas City Comets (46), Milwaukee Wave (4), Utica City SC (41), Empire Strykers (437) and the St. Louis Ambush (32).
The top eight teams will commence at Frontwave Arena in San Diego April 4-7 with the Ron Newman Cup on the line. The MASL postseason is all at one location with San Diego earning the bid to be the host site.
For Chihuahua, the Savage are going after their third straight Ron Newman Cup behind its powerful offense. The team has had 21 different goal scorers with seven players scoring at least 11 goals this season.
Jorge Rios has led the way with 33 goals and 19 assists for 52 points – as his goals and total points leading the league in the regular season. Behind him the Savage have a multitude of weapons up and down the lineup and inside the top 50 in the league stats in terms of goals, assists and points along with multiple other categories.
Hugo Puentes added 24 goals and 19 assists, followed by Jaime Alejandro Romero (20 goals, 12 assists), Pedro Castaneda (19 goals, nine assists), Jose Gilberto Lopez (17 goals, eight assists), Erik Tovar (13 goals, four assists), Roberto Escalante (12 goals, nine assists) and Bryan Macias (11 goals, 16 assists) also putting up quality numbers.
The Savage have 14 players that finished with six or more goals and 24 players that registered points.
In goal, the 1-2 punch of Diego Reynoso and Christian Hernandez and have shined bright.
Reynoso finished 12-2-0 in goalposted a 4.46 goals-against-average, a .707 save percentage, recorded 132 saves in 188 chances and allowed 56 goals. Hernandez was 6-2-0 in goal, posted a 5.02 goals-against-average, recorded 94 saves in 138 chances, and finished with a.681 save percentage.
RALLYING BACK TO CLINCH TITLE
HARRISBUERG, Pa. – The Chihuahua Savage found itself in an unusual position Saturday night.
The visiting Savage trailed 4-1 just 2:30 into the second quarter against the home-standing Harrisburg Heat..
The high-powered Chihuahua offense came alive and the defense more than clamped down on the Heat. Chihuahua captured its fifth straight win by closing out with a 6-0 run in downing the Heat 7-4 at the Harrisburg Farm Complex and Equine Arena.
Jorge Rios finished with two goals and two assists during the Savage’s game-clinching run, as the visitors scored twice late in the second quarter to bring them to within 4-3 at the break and continued to press with four more goals after halftime.
Jesse Penalver tied the game at 4-4 just 2:33 into the third quarter with Hugo Puentes notching the go-ahead and game-winning goal at the 13:13 mark of the third.
Bryan Macias and Miguel Angel Diaz also scored for chihuahua, as their tallies were the team’s second and third goals of the night. Rios, who assisted on the game-winning goal by Puentes, scored the final two goals of the match in the fourth quarter.
Bradley Kersetter staked Harrisburg to an early 1-0 advantage.
(20-4-0) evened things up on a goal by Cesar Ruiz, Thiago Freitas scored to make it 2-1 in favor of the Heat while, Malcolm Harris tacked on two others, the latter 2:30 into the second period. The Heat went ice cold after that and not only didn’t score during the rest of the second quarter, but were shutout in the second half. Chihuahua outscored the Heat 4-0 in the second half.
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