On March 29, the Empire Strykers of the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) hosted the St. Louis Ambush on the final matchday of the MASL regular season at the Toyota Arena. Last Sunday’s contest marked my second ever experience at a Strykers game. During my first trip to the Toyota Arena during the 2024-2025 season, I met and interviewed Marco Fabián, one of my favorite soccer players of all time, after an overtime loss to the San Diego Sockers.
This year, I was set to interview former University of California, Riverside (UCR) midfielder Leopoldo “Polo” Hernandez. During his time at UCR, Polo stacked accolades. In 2021, his first season at UCR, Polo was named Second Team All-Big West. He built off that momentum in 2022 by being named First Team All-Big West en route to leading his squad to the 2022 Big West Regular Season and Tournament Championship.
Although almost four years removed from the 2022 season, the Big West Tournament Championship is still fresh in Polo’s mind, he noted, “I’ve always said my favorite game of my soccer career has probably been that 2022 Big West Championship. I’ll never forget that Championship. The team we had was unbelievable. [UCR head coach] Tim [Cupello] put us in a great position to win that season.”
Once it was time for the Strykers to kick off against the Ambush, I was looking forward to watching Polo perform and he did not disappoint. With his team down 1-0 in the second quarter, Polo drilled a low-driven shot into the bottom left corner of the net. The goal leveled the score and got the Strykers offense rolling.
Throughout the game, Polo displayed great chemistry with fellow star midfielders Marco Fabián and Justin Stinson. The build up play and link up passes between the trio were beautiful to watch and a nightmare for the Ambush to defend against.
Polo spoke very highly of both teammates and how they’re able to find success together, “When I first joined the team, it’s kind of surreal knowing I’m going to play with Marco. Watching him while I was growing up and knowing I was going to play with him, I just wanted [to] pick his brain, try to learn as much as I can from him. [Just] trying to enjoy every time I’m on the field with him.”
He added, “Justin is an unbelievable player. In my opinion, he’s probably the best player I’ve seen in the league so far. In training, just trying to get chemistry, playing passing games in training, just talking to him, knowing what kind of passes he likes, so just little stuff like that, [that’s] how we build chemistry.”
For the rest of the game, the Ambush would score and put themselves ahead until the Strykers would respond with a goal of their own. However, belief in a Strykers win kept growing amongst the fans each time the Strykers tied the game up. With the score tied 4-4 in overtime, Strykers midfielder Dayerson Graterol scored the game-winner and Toyota Arena erupted shortly afterward.
After the game, Polo mentioned how important this win was for his squad, “Big win tonight. We wanted to put a show out for our fans. It’s been a couple games that we haven’t been able to get the dub here in front of our home crowd.”
When asked about how his time at UCR has helped him in his professional career, Polo shared, “Playing here is a little different. It’s 6v6, fast-paced, it’s taking me a while to get used to the game, but Tim preparing me with high-level players has been good [for me] coming into the [MASL] … I got to give [Tim] credit for this. He’s always held me accountable for every mistake that I’ve made or even the good things that I’ve done.”
With the 5-4 overtime win, the Strykers secured the final spot in the MASL playoffs after finishing the regular season a three-game win streak. They enter the playoffs as the lowest seeded team, but Polo will look to bring his championship experience from UCR to this year’s MASL playoffs.
