...Well, that’s not how this was supposed to go.
OCSC, after an abysmal March, limps into April with a record of 0-2-1, good for 2 points and 10th place in the West. A far cry from the 6 points we’d hoped for.
Game 1 Recap: OCSC 1-3 Loss v. Louisville City
Game 2 Recap: OCSC1-1 Draw v. Tampa Bay
Game 3 Recap: OCSC 2-2 Draw v. Las Vegas
Box scores don’t tell the whole story. OCSC looked good-to-great in the first two matches, yet floundered against an inferior opponent in game three. I said in the Pre-Season Edition that I hoped that OCSC could hang with the two Eastern Conference heavyweights, and for the most part they did despite the lack of results. The Vegas game is the real disappointment. I said there was no reason to lose to Vegas, yet OCSC did. It’s not an acceptable result, and the team needs to bounce back in a big way in April. Fortunately, there are five games this month, so there’s plenty of opportunity to make up dropped points.
Point Targets Update
Already, OCSC is more than 3 points (or 1 win) off the 58-point pace I targeted before the season began. There are 31 games remaining, so a hot streak can wipe that away pretty quickly. But another couple of sputters from the lads in orange and black will start to make this target unreachable.
Additionally, the PPG has increased from 1.7 to 1.81. That extra .11 doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you spread it out over the remaining 31 games, it’s 3.41 points. Those late dropped points in April could come back to haunt the team...
But let’s not dwell on that. What’s done is done, and there’s nowhere else to go but up. As we head into April, what does the season roadmap look like now? Surprisingly, not as bad as you might think.
3 wins. If OCSC wants to get back on track, they need 3 wins in the month of April. It’s doable, especially if the team looks like they did against Louisville and Tampa. If they come out playing like they did against Vegas, then we’re in for a rough month.
Matches at a glance
Where can OCSC find 3 wins in April?
The team makes their first trip away from Championship Stadium to kick off April against Hartford Athletic. Hartford is off to an even worse start than OCSC with just 1 point after 3 games. They’ve given up an astounding 7 goals, most in the league. OCSC needs to take advantage of their Swiss cheese defense and get their first win of the season here.
Game 2 is against El Paso, a team that finished in 8th place and just missed out on the playoffs in 2022. After 4 games this season, they find themselves in...8th place with 3 points. They’re tied for the most goals given up so far in the West with 6 allowed, tied with OCSC. Expect a lot of goals on April 1.
Game 3 is back in Irvine against Indy Eleven, currently 6th in the East with 4 points after only 2 games. They’re a stingy defense with only 1 goal allowed, but their offense has yet to come to life as they’ve only scored 2 goals. Small sample size, of course, but this game looks to be the opposite of the El Paso game in terms of goal scoring.
Continuing their short homestand, OCSC hosts Birmingham Legion for game 4 of the month. Birmingham sits atop the East with 7 points after 3 games. They’ve yet to lose in 2023, and 4 of their 5 goals have come at home. This will be a tough match, and it’s hard to see OCSC taking points, but I’m open to being pleasantly surprised.
OCSC wraps up the month away at New Mexico United. As of now, they’ve only played one match in 2023, a narrow win against Tulsa on the road. There’s not much to say about New Mexico this season just yet, but they were a playoff team a year ago, so I wouldn’t take them lightly.
The end of the month is harder than the beginning, so the more points the team can bank before the Birmingham game, the better. Ideally, they go into game 4 with 3 wins, but I’ll take 2 wins and a draw if I must.
Around the League
The Pre-Season target used data from 2022. Now that we have some 2023 data, here’s what the playoff picture in the West looks like at the moment.
The variance on these numbers is wild due to the small sample of games, but you get the idea. For context, OCSC is currently on pace for 22 points. Once we get through May, we’ll have a better idea of the true point range to make the playoffs. So for now, my target of 58 points hasn’t changed.
A long month
Not only does OCSC have 5 league matches in April, they also have an Open Cup match against Capistrano FC, a semi-pro team in the NISA Nation league. OCSC should have no problem using bench/reserve players and winning the game handedly. There is zero reason to utilize the A-lineup with five other games in the month.
Buckle up, friends. Unfortunately, April looks to be a crucial month for OCSC. Let’s hope they’re up to the task.
Note from the editor
**This article was posted midway through the month of April, and does not represent games that took place since March. Those games which will be discussed in the next edition of this article.