MLS postpones Galaxy, LAFC games because of Hurricane Hilary
With Hurricane Hilary threatening to hit Southern California this weekend with rain and high winds, MLS is postponing Sunday night’s games at Dignity Health Sports Park and BMO Stadium, the league confirmed to The Times.
The galaxy It was scheduled to host Real Salt Lake at 7:30 p.m. in Carson, but RSL said Friday morning it would not be making the trip. This game will be rescheduled on October 14th.
Eliminated in the group stage of the Leagues Cup tournament, the Galaxy have not played for three weeks. Their next game is at home with the Chicago Fire on Saturday.
LAFCMeanwhile, he was also scheduled to play the Colorado Rapids in downtown LA at 7:30 p.m., but that game was also postponed. It will now be played on August 23rd.
The National Hurricane Center issued its first tropical storm warning for Southern California on Friday morning as Category 4 hurricane Hilary moved north along the Baja California coast. It’s expected to reach Southern California late Sunday, around the time both MLS games were supposed to start. Forecasters expect the storm to remain a hurricane as it nears the coast of Baja California through Saturday night and Sunday morning, but it will likely be downgraded to a tropical storm by Sunday afternoon.
Still, parts of California, Arizona and Nevada are expected to experience “life-threatening” rainfall — up to a year’s rain in hours — leading to a risk of flash flooding from the Baja California peninsula to southern Nevada’s Southland in the next days. The center of the storm is expected to hit the Los Angeles area on Sunday. No tropical storm has hit the area since 1939.
A high-risk excessive rainfall warning has been issued for much of inland Southern California — from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Coachella Valley and down into the Anza Borrego Desert — noting the high possibility of flash flooding Sunday and Monday.
RSL was scheduled to leave Salt Lake City at 2 p.m. Saturday and had planned to stay in Southern California through Tuesday before traveling to Houston for the US Open Cup semifinals with Dynamo on Wednesday. The approaching storm forced those plans to scrap and RSL will not come to Carson until the penultimate weekend of the regular season, forcing the Galaxy to play their last four games in 17 days.
Meanwhile, the Rapids, which normally fly to West Coast night games on game day, were scheduled to depart Denver Sunday morning. They will now play in Los Angeles on Wednesday instead.
Sunday’s postponements mark the second rain break for both the Galaxy and LAFC. The two Southern California rivals were scheduled to open the season on February 24 at the Rose Bowl, but the game was pushed back to July 4 when heavy rain rendered parking lots around the stadium unusable.
The approaching storm also caused Pepperdine to reschedule its women’s soccer game against Michigan from Sunday to 3 p.m. Saturday, while UCLA women, the reigning national champions, meet Portland Sunday at 10:30 a.m., 4½ hours ahead of schedule.
