Orange County secures big 3 points on the road.
Sacramento, CA - A week after a devastating late goal against Los Dos brought Orange County a tough home loss, the team looked to rebound on the road against a Sacramento side they bested 1-0 at home a few weeks prior.
The team brought energy to the game immediately, willingly controlling and maintaining a much more controlled pace over the game against Los Dos, allowing less counter attacking opportunities for Sacramento to capitalize on. The team equipped a similar formation from the prior game against Sac, with Michael Orozco being moved up from backline towards a defensive midfielder position with Rob Kiernan and Rhys Breen flanking him. This formation continued to stymie the Sac offence, leading to less opportunities for the team to create chances, especially in the first half.
The scoring opportunities started early for Orange County, as a little trick play on a free kick in the 22nd minute saw Chris Wehan, Mikko Kuningas and Ronaldo Damus catch the entire Sacramento defense sleeping. A fake pass down the line from Wehan to Mikko instead turned into a left footed inswinger by Mikko, and redirected into the back of the net on a touch by Damus, who in the confusion for Sacramento’s back line had snuck into the six yard box and proceeded to open his goal scoring account on the 2021 season.
From that point, the game got chippy. Before the end of the first half, the referee would show three yellow cards to Sacramento players, much to the dismay of the crowd in attendance at Heart Health Park. Sacramento also saw a couple of scoring chances fail to produce, including a header by Cameron Iwasa going wide, as well as a shot on goal opportunity being negated by an offsides call.
The second half started out fiercely, as another set piece, this time a corner kick, resulted in another goal for Orange County. Wehan’s corner kick to the far post was redirected back to the middle by Brent Richards, who had snuck off his marking man Luis Felipe. From there, an easy header by the six and a half foot tall Eero Markkanen catapulted the ball into the back of the net behind keeper Tomas Gomez.
In the 52nd minute, during another stoppage in time, Dan Casey and Brian Iloski ended up on the ground, with Casey kicking Iloski during the stoppage, while the latter man was getting up from his own tackle. This action brought out a straight red card from referee Ismir Pekmic, with little to no protest from Casey.
In the 60th minute, Tucker Bone brought one goal back for the home side. Coming off a nice little shot from the right hand side of the box, Bone was able to possess the ball of a cross in a moment where Kevin Alston had fallen in coverage. With the ball on his right foot, Bone struck the ball to the right hand side of keeper Patrick Rakovsky, ending the shutout. This goal sparked a ten minute run of play where it looked like the home side, despite being a man down, would find a way to equalize the game. Despite scenes reminiscent of the September 9th game nearly a year ago where Sacramento would find two late goals against Orange County to win the game despite being a man down, this year the more experienced back line and goaltender combination was able to parry away the attacks.
In good measure 87 minutes into the game, a beautiful first touch off a Ronaldo Damus pass led Brian Iloski, who was one of the members from that September 2020 game, into open field to extend the OCSC lead by one, effectively ending the game. With his expert first touch, Iloski drove into the box, cut hard right to dodge a defender, before cutting back left to juke out another sliding Sacramento player. Finally, he sent the ball past Gomez, right into the top of the netting with a beautiful left footed strike to score a well deserved mark to open up his career tally for Orange County, despite being left without so many times before.
After another five minutes of play, the referee blows the whistle, granting Orange County with a hard fought three points on the road, sending home Sacramento fans unhappy. With the win, Orange County moves back up to 5th place in the West/Pacific division, one point behind familiar foe Sacramento, who has played two more games on the season. Of all the other teams ahead in the standings, only Tacoma’s Seven points in four games challenges Orange County’s place in playoffs right now (Phoenix has played 6 games, with 13 points, and LAII has 11 points in 7 games). Next up, Orange County has a week with two games to be played. At home Wednesday June 9th vs. a struggling San Diego side who despite being up two goals in stoppage time, stumbled and drew against a strong Phoenix team. After that, new kids on the block Oakland come to Championship soccer park for their first ever game vs Orange County on Saturday, June 12th.
Scoring:
22’: Rolando Damus (Kuningas)
49’: Eero Markkanen (Richards)
60’: Tucker Bone
87’: Brian Iloski (Damus)
Discipline:
26’: Dariusz Formella (Yellow)
33’: Chris Gloster (Yellow)
36’: Mitchell Taintor (Yellow)
52’: Dan Casey (RED)
77’: Tucker Bone (Yellow)
77’: Mikko Kuningas (Yellow)