The rematch for second place refused to name a winner. Billed as the game to break their deadlock — winner out, loser stuck — it ended 2-2, and the man who forced it was Fran Lara. Down 2-0, the prized returnee, back from hockey in Canada and the US, scored both Verde goals: one in the second, the equalizer early in the third. Lara sits on 19 career points, fifteenth all-time, riding a four-game goal streak and a seven-game point streak, both career bests.

Blanco had it won and let it slip. Andrés Mata opened the scoring off a Francisco Trejo feed — the two-time champion, fifth all-time on 43 points and on a career-best seven-game point streak — before captain Fermin Javier struck late in the first for a 2-0 cushion. The all-time goals king's unassisted 53rd was a sixth straight game with a goal for the one-club man second all-time in points. Yet Blanco have not won since opening night, and Adrián Contreras — third all-time, the finest player never to lift a ring — was held off the sheet.

Behind it stood Emmanuel Santiago, the three-time Mejor Portero and owner of Sunday Night's best-ever save percentage, who stopped 25 of 27 to keep it alive; young defender Lucero González, one of Sunday Night's women to watch, set up the equalizer. Verde carry Sunday Night's highest team shooting percentage, 20 percent, and a perfect penalty kill — without a power play all year. Both climb to five points, Blanco second on head-to-head, Verde third on goal difference. Nothing separates them.