The Aviators head to Texas for a pair of division games, facing off against the South Division leader Austin Sol the day after playing the last-place Houston Havoc. Despite playing both teams tightly earlier in the season, beating the Havoc but falling to the Sol, head coach Jake Baumer and assistant coach Linda "Skipper" Hamon know these games will be entirely different.

“One advantage, I think that Texas has is going to be they play in this heat.,” Hamon said. “So we're definitely mindful, even from last team meeting, we had practice [Tuesday] night to remind folks that we need to start hydrating now so we can kind of curtail any sort of injuries or cramping that might happen just due to change of environment.”

While the heat might be comparable between Los Angeles and Texas — although Texas is already slightly hotter — the humidity is not similar whatsoever. The humidity is slated to reach into the 60s and 70s for game time in both spots, making it that much hotter for a team which plays in a much less humid environment.

Even with the adversity, the team is getting ready to play teams it knows it can beat.

At 2-7, the Aviators are looking for more than just wins with such a young squad. There are only six players who have played in all nine games for LA this season, and three of them are rookies between Jonathan Lyle, Owen Shaff and Max Combs.

“This is such a unique season where we brought in a lot of first-year UFA players,” Hamon said. “As an organization, we still want to grow those players. This is still really good reps. … I just hope that they come back next year and are able to build on that growth.”

With how close each of the first games against these two teams ended, the Aviators are still gunning for wins and have shown they have what it takes to take home both matchups. 

Houston’s season has gone from bad to worse since its trip to the West Coast, losing six straight. The Havoc’s loss to the Aviators, the first in the losing streak, was the slimmest margin of the six games as they’ve lost three straight by nine or more.

But most of those losses were road games for Houston, who now finds itself at home. On the road this season, the Havoc have had an average scoring margin of -7.5, but that deficit decreases to -4 when they’re at home.

“Whenever you're home, you always have the advantage of your home crowd, and you know how the wind swirls in your stadium,” Hamon said.

Given it took the Aviators double overtime to defeat Houston the first time out, they should not take their opponent lightly especially given the quality of their next opponent. LA can make sure it does not finish last in its first year in the South Division with a win over Houston, which certainly seems to be the easier opponent on paper this upcoming weekend.

The other team on that piece of paper, the Austin Sol, have already clinched a playoff spot and are looking to win their first division title in franchise history. The Atlanta Hustle sit a half game back of the Sol in the standings, but own the tiebreaker, making the matchup with LA a near must-win for Austin.

Even though the Sol are on the brink of a division title, it took a last-second goal to clinch the win over the Aviators. But similar to Houston, Austin plays much better at home than on the road and has not yet lost at Westlake Chaparral Stadium this season.

“I think we'd be naive to think that we can walk in and keep it as close as we did, as easily, maybe, as we felt like we had the first game,” Hamon said.

While Joey Wylie led the way for the Sol in the first LA-ATX matchup with his five assists, Austin showed a balanced attack as six different players had two goals for the squad in its 18-goal outing. 

Overall, the Sol boast four players with 20 or more goals and eight players with double-digit goal totals. Comparatively, the Aviators only have two with 20 or more — Jonathan Lyle and James Franklin — and five in the double digits. With such a balanced opponent, LA will need to guard everyone on the line as if they’re the first offensive option the entire game.

“If you were to kind of join our huddles, we've been talking about playing all four quarters,” Hamon said. “That's been a struggle for us throughout the season, is playing all four quarters well, and that is our goal for both games, but especially the Austin game.”

With two very different opponents on the docket for the Aviators, they will need to rely on all of their guys to bring home a win, if not two. LA will face off against Houston on Friday at 5:30 p.m. PST before taking on the Sol on Saturday at 5 p.m. PST. Fans can watch both games at https://www.watchufa.tv/.