The NASL regular season wrapped up last week and teams are preparing for playoffs. Quarterfinals start Saturday night, with the RailHawks hosting Fort Lauderdale. Puerto Rico will host Minnesota on Sunday night to round out the quarterfinal round.

The RailHawks finished off the season by hosting the Rowdies on Saturday. The two teams had met in Tampa Bay just three days before and both matches resulted in ties (highlights here).

The two teams could not find the back of the net on Saturday in front of a RailHawks record crowd of 7,310 fans for a league match. However, the RailHawks players thanked the fans for their support on Saturday and encouraged fans to come back to playoffs.

Prior to the match, RailHawks players received the annual awards recognizing their performance and contributions this season. Sam Stockley received the Team Leadership Award, Ty Shipalane was named the WakeMed Unsung Hero and the fans voted Justin Willis as the Fan Favorite Player.

Captain Kupono Low was named Defensive Player of the Year, and Nick Zimmerman was named both Offensive Player of the Year and team MVP.

Despite the lack of goals in this game, the RailHawks finished the season with the second most goals scored with 44. Combined with last year’s NASL-record 50 goals scored, the RailHawks have proven to always play exciting and attack-focused soccer.

The tie for the RailHawks and Rowdies meant that neither team moved in league standings, keeping the Rowdies in second place and the RailHawks in fourth going into playoffs.

Tampa Bay’s goalkeeper Jeff Attinella won the NASL Defensive Player of the Week for his performances against the RailHawks in both matches of the week.

With the Rowdies only getting one point, that meant that San Antonio were named the NASL Regular Season Champions with 47 points. The Scorpions tied the Stars 1-1 in their season finale at Heroes Stadium (highlights here).

Pablo Campos scored first for the Scorpions, giving him 20 goals in the season, tying former RailHawks striker Etienne Barbara’s record from last season. Kevin Friedland scored his first goal of the season to draw the Stars even.

With his 20 goals, Campos earned the 2012 NASL Golden Boot Award for the player with the most goals. RailHawks Nick Zimmerman came in second with 15 goals.

The Scorpions also won another award with goalkeeper Daryl Sattler having the lowest goals-against average. His 0.79 GAA awarded him the 2012 NASL Golden Glove Award.

The Silverbacks ended their season in Puerto Rico with a 1-1 tie. Having finished 7th in the regular season, the Silverbacks are done but they finished their season on a five-game unbeaten streak.

Midfielder Danny Barrera scored the goal for the Silverbacks and his performance in the recent games won him NASL Offensive Player of the Week.

The Islanders managed to pull out a point, keeping their third-place standing and thus will be hosting the Stars for their quarterfinal on Sunday.

Up in Edmonton, the Eddies not only hosted Fort Lauderdale, but also NASL Commissioner David Downs and NASL Board of Governors Aaron Davidson. The NASL Officials visited Edmonton to conduct meetings with civic, corporate and soccer leaders to build community support for FC Edmonton and generate interest in building a permanent stadium for the Eddies.

In their game, FC Edmonton managed to tie the Strikers after being behind for most of the match. The Eddies scored twice in the 90th minute to finish the game tied at 2-2 (highlights here).

With the tie, Fort Lauderdale finished the season in fifth place with 36 points.

The other NASL award given out for the season was the 2012 Fair Play Award. Tampa Bay received the award that is given to the team with the least amount of accumulated yellow and red cards throughout the season.

All the final week’s action can be found on the NASL Weekly Rewind as well as on MLS Reserves, Soccer by Ives and Inside Minnesota Soccer.

The NASL also reported that attendance over the regular season for the league went up this year. Cary News took a good look at the attendance over the season for the RailHawks, which rose for the third straight year.

This weekend features the NASL quarterfinals. Only four teams will be in action as the season is over for Atlanta and Edmonton, and Tampa Bay and San Antonio have byes into next week’s semifinals.

The RailHawks will host the Strikers in what promises to be an exciting matchup. In both previous matches between the teams at WakeMed, the score ended at 3-3. Also, in both matches, one team came back from a 3-1 deficit to tie late in the game.

The other quarterfinal will take place in Puerto Rico as the Stars visit the Islanders. After both quarterfinals, the winners will be matched with the highest remaining seed facing San Antonio and the lower of the two teams facing Tampa Bay in the Semifinal Series.

Tickets for the RailHawks quarterfinal are still available and can be purchased by calling the Cruizers Box Office at (919) 459-8144 or by going to www.CarolinaRailHawks.com.