The Colorado Force has qualified for the W-League playoffs on the strength of three consecutive victories, combined with three consecutive losses by the Seattle Sounders.

The Force ended the regular season with road victories at Ventura County and Los Angeles and with the team’s first ever defeat of the Vancouver Whitecaps, a 3-0 drubbing on Friday at the Loveland Sports Park. The victory pushed the Force into second place in the Western Conference with 18 points.

Meanwhile, the Sounders were stuck at 15 points after losing each leg of a three-game road trip through Southern California. The trip ended with losses to L.A. on Friday and the conference champion Pali Blues on Saturday. Seattle’s 4-1 loss at Palisades High School sealed the deal for the Force.

Colorado finished with a record of 4-2-6. Seattle ended up 3-3-6.

The Force will travel to meet Pali, the W-League’s defending champions, at Pacific Palisades, Calif. The time and date of the match has yet to be decided, but it will occur by next weekend. The United Soccer Leagues, the governing organization for the W-League, will release the playoff schedule early next week.

Pali finished the season 9-0-3 (30 points) to win the Western Conference regular season title for the second straight year. In Loveland, the Force held Pali to a 0-0 draw, and the Blues won 3-0 when the teams met in California.

SOME PROPS FROM THE PILOTS: Force striker Lisa Franke, who finished the regular season with four goals, was featured in a profile on the Bethel College Web site. Check it out here.

MORE PRESS CLIPPINGS: Patrick Ridgell of the Longmont Times-Call wrote a profile of the Force’s Nikki Marshall, who also has four goals in W-League play. Ridgell calls the team the Fort Collins Force, but what the heck. Marshall says she’d like to play in Women’s Professional Soccer someday. Read the story here.

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