When there’s a month to play in the regular season, the narratives for each club and the way their season is going to play out are close to set.

As someone once said, “You either have what you want, or the reason why you don’t.”

But there’s always the potential for things to get flipped on their head or deliver a twist you didn’t see coming. Almost across the board, that’s what we got out of the USL Championship’s Western Conference this weekend.

• SCISSORTAILS DENIED: It started with conference leader FC Tulsa, which despite having accrued the most road points in the West this regular season was once again unable to solve an Indy Eleven team fighting for its playoff life. With the chance to clinch a home playoff game for the first time looming, the Scissortails fell 2-1 despite allowing only five shots to their hosts.

• CARDINALE SURPRISE: That opened the door for second-place Sacramento Republic FC to halve the gap to Tulsa at the top of the standings as it visited a Monterey Bay FC side that was winless in its last nine games and that hadn’t defeated Republic FC in more than two years. Not so fast, as Adrian Rebollar’s second-half winner gave the hosts a 1-0 victory at Cardinale Stadium, keeping their playoff hopes alive.

• RISING RALLY: The strange occurrences could be found across the conference. On Saturday night, Oakland Roots SC looked certain to keep its postseason hopes alive after taking a three-goal lead at Phoenix Rising FC after 22 minutes, only for Rising to produce another late-game comeback for a 3-3 draw. It marked the first occasion since Roots joined the Championship it had failed to take victory after holding a three-goal lead, and a fifth consecutive draw for Rising, one off the league’s regular-season record.

Even the results that lived up to the form book had unexpected wrinkles. New Mexico United came away with a 2-1 win against Lexington SC, capping a tremendous six-point week for the side on Sunday night, but was sat waiting in the locker room for twice as long (208 minutes) waiting out lightning delays as it was on the field at Isotopes Park.

“Right when you think you've experienced everything as a coach or a player, there's something new,” said United Head Coach Dennis Sanchez. “This was a test of mentality in a lot of different ways. Concentration, focus, stopping, starting. That's our third game in eight days. It's our sixth game in two weeks. Just really happy for the guys.”

For Monterey Bay in particular, it was the weekend they had to have. Not only was the side one of only two to claim victory, but it managed to close the gap to eighth place to three points with three games to go. It’s still a long-shot MBFC will reach the postseason for the first time – it needs plenty of help in addition to likely needing to win out – but coming through against its NorCal rival at home is something to hold onto.

“The West is crazy at the minute,” said MBFC Head Coach Jordan Stewart. “But, listen, we can only control ourselves. Yes, we can say that we left it a bit late, but if there’s an opportunity to win games, that’s what we’re going to try to do and execute.”

As the overall tenor of the weekend showed, while there are still points to be fought for, and postseason places to be earned, you’re never that far away from a potential surprise.