The San Diego Sockers are in the playoffs as the PASL-Pro Western Division Champions. The division championship was secured via a two-game weekend sweep over the Tacoma Stars in Washington.

Kraig Chiles led the Sockers’ powerful offensive assault with a personal career high five-goal game in the Sockers 14-4 blowout win on Friday. Last season, Chiles scored 28 goals (32 points) in a 15 game season. This season Chiles has 25 goals and 11 assists (36 points) through 13 games making him a strong candidate to be the league’s MVP.

Saturday’s win centered on defense as goalie Riley Swift, the MVP of last season’s championship game, held the Stars scoreless in a 5-0 win. The victory clinched the PASL-Pro Western Division title. “Clinching the division and getting that playoff spot was huge,” says Swift. “It is something that we have been talking about all year but is something that we have really been talking about the last few weeks. It allows us to focus in on the championship.”

The shutout was also the first shutout for the Sockers in their history of PASL-Pro play and a huge accomplishment for Swift. “Shutouts are far and few between in indoor (soccer),” explains Swift. “It says a lot about our team. We are working together. Not only are we trying to get points on the board, we are also working hard to keep balls out of the back of the net.” Swift earned his first Sockers Player of the Week honor this season with this brilliant performance.

Saturday’s game also served as the Western finals for the U.S. Open Cup, a season single elimination tournament open to all arena soccer teams. With the win, San Diego advances to the finals of the U.S. Open Cup Championship and will host the championship game of the tournament at the Del Mar Arena against either the Cincinnati Kings or Louisville Lightning on March 19.

Unfortunately, this year’s PASL-Pro championship playoff series will not be at held at the Del Mar Arena as previously scheduled. Recently, Commissioner Kevin Milliken announced that the 2010-2011 finals will be held at the Cincinnati Gardens on March 12-13.

San Diego had earned the right to host this year’s playoffs by having the best regular season record in the league last season. The Sockers said they agreed to transfer the playoffs back to Cincinnati with hopes of helping grow the league’s Eastern fan base.

While that may be true, the larger reason for the change of venue is that Cincinnati had earned the right to host the playoffs in 2009-2010 but transferred them to San Diego because at that time Cincinnati’s arena was unsuitable to host the playoffs. This gave the Sockers a huge home field advantage in winning the PASL-Pro championship last season. Now Cincinnati is getting the opportunity host the playoffs that they were originally scheduled to host last season.

This means the Sockers still have a lot to play for despite already winning the division. There are still three games left to play, all of them at home. If the Sockers finish this season with the best overall PASL-Pro record, they will secure the right to host the playoffs next season and that will not be changed.

Furthermore, the Sockers have never lost at home and the want to preserve their pristine record at the Del Mar Arena going into next season. “We don’t want to lose at home,” Swift adamantly explained. “We definitely are not going to sit back and casually stroll into the playoffs. We are going to keep working hard. We definitely want to keep our at-home win streak intact.”

The final home stand and three games of the season kicks off this when the Sockers once again take on the Tijuana Revolucion this Saturday, February 12 at 6:15 p.m.

This will be the fourth matchup this season against their south-of-the-border division rivals. The Sockers won each of the first three games including the team’s most recent home game where Paul Wright scored a hat trick with three goals in the first period of the 13-6 victory. That performance earned Wright honors as Sockers Player of the Week and PASL-Pro Co-Player of the Week.

Tickets for the remaining three games and the U.S. Open Cup finals are available at (866) 799-GOAL (4625) or at sdsockers.com.

PASL-Pro Western Division Standings

Team W-L Goals GA

San Diego Sockers 11-2 112 64

Tacoma Stars 8-6 92 97

Revolucion Tijuana 5-7 116 100

California Cougars 4-9 83 109