5 THINGS | What To Watch For In Fall Season Week 9

Omar Cummings, who leads the NASL with 10 goals, hopes to get back on track after going two games without a goal as the defending league champion Scorpions go for a second straight win and try to keep alive their flickering hopes of qualifying for The Championship, the league’s four-team postseason tournament.

Here are the five keys to keep an eye on this weekend:

1. Hello Again: One week after a trip to Texas resulted in the end of Jacksonville Armada FC’s two-game winning streak in a 1-0 loss to San Antonio, the two teams meet again, at Community First Park. Statistically, the Armada FC (3W-1D-5L, 10 points) took the game to the Scorpions (2-2-4, 8 points), with a 55 percent to 45 percent edge in possession, a 9-5 edge in total shots and an 8-4 advantage in corner kicks. But only five minutes after he entered the match in the second half, San Antonio’s Billy Forbes ended Jacksonville’s bid for a third consecutive shutout with the game’s only goal. The defending league champion Scorpions need wins to get back in the race for The Championship.

2. Streaky Strikers: To be sure, the weather in South Florida is nothing short of hot this time of year, but the Fort Lauderdale Strikers (3-4-2, 13 points) have been running hot and cold. A rampant Stefano Pinho (three goals in last two games) has helped lead the Strikers to consecutive wins as part of a three-game unbeaten run that put the club back in The Championship conversation. That streak came after two losses, which came after a four-game unbeaten streak to open the Fall Season marking the return of coach Günter Kronsteiner.

3. Ontario Homestand: First-place Ottawa Fury FC (6-2-1, 20 points) will play its league-leading seventh home match of the Fall Season when the team faces the struggling Tampa Bay Rowdies (2-1-6, 7 points), who have removed the interim tag and named Stuart Campbell coach. After Wednesday’s scoreless draw against the visiting New York Cosmos, Ottawa is 4-1-1 at TD Place. The club needs to bulk up on points now, with only three more home games on the slate after Saturday’s match.

4. Rough Times: On the road is not where you want to be when you’re mired in a losing streak, but that’s exactly where Carolina and Tampa Bay find themselves this weekend. Neither team has won on the road so far in the Fall Season (the RailHawks are 0-0-4; the Rowdies are 0-1-3). Carolina (2-2-5, 8 points) is without a victory in five games, including three straight losses in which it has yielded three goals in each game. Tampa Bay (2-1-6, 7 points) has lost three in a row and has only one win in its past eight matches. Through it all, the Rowdies remain as the No. 4 seed for The Championship by virtue of their strong performance in the Spring Season. Carolina is at the Cosmos on Sunday afternoon; the Rowdies play at first-place Ottawa on Saturday night.

5. Laces Tighten In Race To The Golden Boot: Who will get to slip on, figuratively speaking, at the end of the season the emblem of goalscoring supremacy in the NASL? San Antonio’s Omar Cummings has been sitting atop the scoring table with 10 goals, but he has not scored since his two-goal outburst on Aug. 8. Fort Lauderdale’s Stefano Pinho has vaulted into second, one goal behind Cummings, on the strength of scoring three goals in the past two games. A run of goals in seven straight games puts Christian Ramirez on eight goals for the year, good for No. 3. Five players -- Leo Fernandes (Cosmos), Nacho Novo (Carolina), and Lance Laing and Tomi Ameobi (both of FC Edmonton) -- are tied with seven goals each.