The Swope Park Rangers (14-10-8, 7th place) can secure a berth in the 2018 USL Cup Playoffs with a victory on Wednesday when they take on 2014 USL champions Sacramento Republic FC (16-7-8, 3rd place) at 9:30 p.m. CT at Papa Murphy’s Park in northern California
The club’s final road trip of the regular season comes with SPR sitting in seventh place in the Western Conference, one point above Saint Louis FC in the eighth and final playoff spot, with two games remaining. The Rangers, who claimed back-to-back Western Conference championships in each of the team’s first two seasons, are now on the cusp of a return to the postseason in head coach Paulo Nagamura’s first campaign and would join Sacramento as the only two Western Conference teams to reach the playoffs in 2016, 2017 and 2018.