RNC Finals Match Three Preview v MKE

The San Diego Sockers—presented by Kaiser Permanente—take the floor for the final time in the 2025-26 MASL season, hosting the Milwaukee Wave in the deciding Match Three of the Ron Newman Cup Finals on Monday night at Frontwave Arena in Oceanside. The match is scheduled for a 7:05pm kickoff, televised exclusively in the United States on the CBS Sports Golazo Network, with international coverage on Sportworld, Fox Sports Mexico, and the Unbeaten Network. 

After 98 regular season matches and 13 playoff matches around the MASL, Monday night brings a close to the season, where either the Sockers will win the 17th championship in franchise history, or the Wave will rally for their 8th franchise championship. San Diego won Match One last Wednesday in Milwaukee by a 5-4 score, but the Wave came back on Friday in Oceanside to post a 7-2 win, evening the best-of-three series. For the first time in league history, the Finals consist of three full games instead of two games and a “Knockout Game” (a 15-minute contest which followed Match Two in the event of a 1-1 tie). As such, for the first time since the 2019 Finals (which were a single game), Monday’s match can be considered a true Grand Final, with the Cup guaranteed to be raised after its completion.  

The Sockers and Wave, two of the most successful and stable franchises in the history of indoor soccer—combining for 23 major titles—are meeting for the first time ever in a championship series. San Diego has won sixteen championships in franchise history, including ten championships in eleven years in the original MISL that dominated the sport in the 1980s, six modern championships (four in the PASL 2010-13), and two MASL Ron Newman Cups in 2021 and 2022. Milwaukee is a seven-time indoor champion and--founded in 1984--the oldest continuously operating franchise in the sport. The Wave won three championships in the NPSL (which grew out of their original league, the AISA) between 1998 and 2002, then won three championships in the MISL (versions 2 and 3) in 2005, 2011, and 2012. The Wave were MASL Ron Newman Cup champions in 2018-19. The clubs have only met one previous time in the MASL playoffs, in the 2022 Ron Newman Cup quarterfinals, where the Sockers advanced in a two-game sweep. 

The Finals have advanced to a third and deciding game thanks to the tenacious effort of the Milwaukee Wave on Friday, who overcame a 2-0 deficit in front of the biggest sports crowd in Frontwave Arena history (5,521 screaming Sockers fans), scoring the final seven goals of the match unanswered in a 7-2 victory. The Sockers thought they had a 3-0 lead and first-half shutout when the final minute of the second quarter began, as midfielder Charlie Gonzalez arced what looked like a third goal toward the Wave net, only to see the ball bang off the inside of the right post and away from frame. Seconds later, Milwaukee worked the ball downfield and crossed a pass through the crease that Ian Bennett was able to convert into a goal at 14:40 of the quarter. Instead of a 3-0 halftime lead, the Sockers lead was 2-1, and Max Ferdinand scored ten seconds into the third quarter to forge a tie. Alex Sanchez netted the go-ahead goal later in the third quarter on a top-arc set piece, and the Wave defended a shootout and power play successfully at the end of the quarter. Rookie Lucas Nesthus—starting in place of the injured Oscar Flores—netted a fourth goal for Milwaukee halfway through the fourth quarter, and when the Sockers pulled goalkeeper Chris Toth for a sixth attacker, the Wave poured in three empty-net goals in the final 90 seconds to establish a much wider margin of victory than game flow would have suggested. Midfielder Cesar Correa had two of those empty-netters in addition to an assist, leading the Wave in scoring, while rookie goalkeeper Gerardo Perez stopped 8-of-10 shots.  

Three key starters will return to the San Diego lineup for Match Three after sitting out Match Two due to league-mandated suspensions. Team captain Cesar Cerda was shown a red card on video review after the conclusion of the Sockers’ Match One victory due to his kicking a player, the Wave’s Tony Walls, after Walls ran through him from behind with two seconds left in the match. The incident raised the temperature inside the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, with players jostling on the floor, leading to heightened emotions from the fans, and a group of fans then pelted Sockers players with beer cans and other projectiles as they attempted to leave the field. When a handful of Sockers responded to the fans’ violence, they were suspended by the league; midfielders Luiz Morales and Jesus Pacheco took a one-game suspension, while defender Stefan Mijatovic (who had been suspended multiple times by the league with previous teams and was on a “zero tolerance” policy) was banned permanently from the MASL.  

Nonetheless, San Diego will need much more from their star players in order to finish their quest for a third MASL Ron Newman Cup. Whether it was due to the vagaries of sport or the pressure of clinching or the excitement of a 5,000+ crowd, the Sockers managed to hit six posts and crossbars in Friday’s Match Two, repeatedly coming close without lighting the lamp. Out of San Diego’s top twelve regular-season scorers, only Nick Perera (first) and Drew Ruggles (tenth) had a point in Match Two, each registering an assist. The Sockers are closely monitoring the health status of their hottest scorer at the end of the regular season, forward Tavoy Morgan, who has been nursing a foot bruise and was slowed noticeably in Match Two.  

Meanwhile, the Wave are preparing for life without MASL Newcomer of the Year Oscar Flores, who suffered a quad injury during pre-match warmups before Match Two and is not expected to be available for the Grand Final. Ricardo Carvalho and Ian Bennett took the shifts at forward in place of Flores, who had led Milwaukee with (4-5=9) points in their first seven playoff matches. The Wave are riding with goalkeeper Gerardo “Jerry” Perez, a 21-year-old rookie who doubles as a mobile sixth attacker, regularly coming all the way up-field in a strategy that Milwaukee calls “Jerry Ball”. Perez scored seven goals in the regular season and has two more in the playoffs.