2009 Women's Professional Soccer Playoffs

The 2009 WPS Playoffs were the postseason to Women's Professional Soccer's 2009 Season, that started on August 15 and culminated on August 22 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Format

The top four WPS teams, based on their regular season finishes, qualified for the playoffs. In the First Round, the third-ranked team hosted the fourth-ranked team. The winner of that match advances to the Super Semifinal, where they traveled to the second-ranked team. Finally, the regular season first-ranked team hosted the winner of the Super Semifinal in the WPS Championship match.

This format, fairly unusual in the American sports landscape, preserves the knockout-style postseason most American sports fans are familiar with, while also highly favoring the regular season first-ranked team.

Standings

Place	Team	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	GD	Points
1	Los Angeles Sol	20	12	3	5	27	10	+17	41
2	Saint Louis Athletica	20	10	6	4	19	15	+4	33
3	Washington Freedom	20	8	7	5	32	32	0	29
4	Sky Blue FC	20	7	8	5	19	20	-1	26
5	Boston Breakers	20	7	9	4	18	20	-2	25
6	Chicago Red Stars	20	5	10	5	18	25	-7	20
7	FC Gold Pride	20	4	10	6	17	28	-11	18

Bracket

	First Round					Super Semifinal					WPS Final
											1	Los Angeles Sol	0
						2	Saint Louis Athletica	0			4	Sky Blue FC	1
	3	Washington Freedom	1			4	Sky Blue FC	1
	4	Sky Blue FC	2

Results

First round

August 15, 2009

4:00 pm EDT

Washington Freedom	1 – 2	Sky Blue FC
De Vanna 79'	Report	Kai 56' Francielle 85'

Maryland SoccerPlex, Germantown, Maryland

Attendance: 4,217

Referee: Daniel Fitzgerald

Super Semifinal

August 19, 2009

6:00 PM CDT

Saint Louis Athletica	0 – 1	Sky Blue FC
Logterman  90'	Report	Dowling 30' Schnur  67' Kai  78'

Soccer Park, Fenton, Missouri

Attendance: 5,064

Referee: Ted Unkel

WPS Championship

August 22, 2009

1:00 PM PDT

Los Angeles Sol	0 – 1	Sky Blue FC
	Report	O'Reilly 16'

The Home Depot Center, Carson, California

Attendance: 7,218

Referee: Kari Seitz

Los Angeles Sol

Sky Blue FC

LOS ANGELES SOL: GK 23 Karina LeBlanc DF 22 Manya Makoski DF 11 Brittany Bock  52' DF 3 Allison Falk  27' DF 14 Stephanie Cox MF 6 McCall Zerboni  36' MF 4 Aly Wagner  63' MF 7 Shannon Boxx (c) MF 8 Aya Miyama FW 10 Marta FW 9 Han Duan  79' Substitutes: GK 1 Val Henderson DF 2 Keri Sanchez DF 19 Sharolta Nonen  36' DF 21 Johanna Frisk MF 17 Liz Bogus MF 18 Katie Larkin  63' FW 16 Lyndsey Patterson  79' Manager: Abner Rogers

SKY BLUE FC: GK 23 Jenni Branam DF 17 Keeley Dowling DF 4 Jen Buczkowski DF 3 Christie Rampone (c) DF 12 Meghan Schnur MF 20 Kacey White MF 10 Yael Averbuch MF 24 Francielle FW 9 Heather O'Reilly (MVP)  84' FW 11 Rosana  72' FW 6 Natasha Kai  68' Substitutes: GK 22 Cori Alexander DF 38 Julianne Sitch MF 7 Kelly Parker MF 13 Noelle Keselica  84' MF 14 Collette McCallum  72' FW 15 Katie Hooker FW 16 Kerri Hanks  68' Manager: Christie Rampone

MATCH OFFICIALS Assistant referees: Marlene Duffy Veronica Perez Fourth official: Margaret Domka

MATCH RULES 90 minutes. 30 minutes of extra-time if necessary. Penalty shoot-out if scores still level. Seven named substitutes. Maximum of three substitutions.

Media coverage

Both the First Round and the WPS Championship was viewable on Fox Sports Network, while the Super Semifinal was on Fox Soccer Channel. Also, all three matches were webcast on the WPS website.