For Toledo Villa, the playoffs have already started.

"Win to continue to play" was the mantra heading into Wednesday night's final home tilt of the 2024 season and Villa capitalized with a 3-1 win over visiting Buffalo. The victory gives Toledo a shot at making the playoffs, while also eliminating Buffalo from contention.

"Yeah, going in there were some scenarios where we could get away with a tie or whatever. But, we knew that we have our destinies in our own hands," defender Brady Horn said. "If we go out there and we win, we know we're getting a chance at the playoffs. And that's what we did."

Trace Terry scored an early marker and Toledo bounced back quickly to retake the lead in the second half while William Schaffer capped it with his first goal in a Toledo kit for the win.

So, here we go again! 

The final game of the season — just like last year —  will be against Cleveland Force SC, this time away, with Toledo needing to win ... and nothing else ... to advance.

The Force (5-4-2) sit in second heading into the final match of the season with 19 points while Toledo sits on 18. A draw or win by Cleveland will send it to the playoffs. So, Toledo must win.

Last year it was a similar scenario with Toledo and Cleveland tied on points but a second-half goal by Cleveland put it into the playoffs ahead of Toledo because of goal differential.

Villa (5-3-3) is now unbeaten in its last six matches with three wins and three draws as it has climbed into this chance to advance to the USL2  Playoffs to join Valley league champs Fort Wayne — which beat Dayton on Wednesday 1-0 to clinch the title — should they win at Cleveland.

Strong play by Jaland Larmond all night down the left side of the pitch started early as he bulldozed his way into the box in the seventh minute off a feed from Ali Nasser. Larmond drew defenders and Buffalo keeper  Andreas Kokoska toward him and slotted a pass to an open Trace Terry for the early lead.

Buffalo's Calum Newsom was issued a red card from the bench as the sub used abusive language toward the referees in the 20th minute. Since he was not in the match, it did not result in Buffalo going down to 10 men for the remainder of the contest. Toledo continued to find good chances in the first half as Taylor Dyson had a good shot on goal with a free kick from about 20 yards out while Andrew Schaffer fed a great pass to Terry who couldn't connect on a bicycle kick in the 36th minute.

In the second half, Buffalo's Ander Castillo tied the game up in the 65th  minute on a great individual effort. Still, Toledo responded quickly with a goal of their own — or rather an own goal — as Buffalo's Landon  Hungerford tried to defend a shot and instead the ball deflected off his sliding leg and into the net just a minute after tying the match. The goal was credited to Toledo's Odal Brown.

Brown, who came in as a sub in the 60th for Larmond, continued to wreak havoc on Buffalo's defense, and in the 90th minute he found Schaffer for his first career goal.

"He had one of those runs early on and we missed the opportunity," Schaffer said. "He was taking that outside back almost every single time. He's definitely the fastest guy I've ever played with ... maybe one of the fastest I've ever seen. I saw him take that touch by the guy and I just knew that if he just picked his head up I'd be right there, hopefully, to tap it in.

"Obviously it's a very special goal, it's my first season playing for the club and my first goal. I have my whole family here — my brothers here (teammates Alex and Andrew) and my girlfriend here. It just meant the world to me."

Toledo defended its home turf of Paul Hotmer Field well, finishing the home campaign unbeaten with four wins and two draws, scoring 11 goals while allowing six.

It's been tougher on the road for Villa, winning just once in five matches, including a 2-1 loss at Cleveland on June 4. A bulk of the team's loss came at the start of the year where they fell at Buffalo 4-1 and at Fort Wayne 1-0. Horn agreed that Villa has been a different team since.

"You can call it what you want: the first game of the season, a five-hour bus ride ... whatever it is, but after that game, we just really started to gel and really came together as a team and I think it shows," he said.
The defensive backline has been anchored by Horn along with Tristan Rose for the past few years while additions this season like Jaiden Ramsey-Kelly and Francis Kwashie have led to a good rotation, Horn pointed out.

"We've developed a really good chemistry," he said. "It was a rough start to the season with the big loss to Buffalo but since then, we really started clicking in and I would say that when we need to, this team can really rely on our defense to keep us in the game and get us results like this one."