I will not mince words when I say this, I have a lot of different emotions with regards to the game that took place on Saturday night. Orange County SC continued their death march of a USL Cup run against AV Alta FC and were unable to come away with a win against the League One side for a second consecutive season.
The game had no real weight to it yet still there was a sense of defeat when the full time whistle blew.
The obvious glaring issue is that OC have now conceded two or more goals in their last six games across all competitions. For being a defensive-minded team, they sure are not giving their offense much of a chance. The offense has quietly stepped up, but that side of the field has its own array of underlying issues that are not quite shown in the stats.
The silver lining to this sluggish summer start? The three losses in the USL Cup do not have any bearing on the regular season. There is still one more of these group stage games to go, but the 2026 tournament will be one to forget.
As far as how the game itself went: it was more of the frustrating issues that have plagued the club for a few seasons. Orange County fielded a mixed lineup of veterans and young players and were able to get the opening goal early on from open play, yet they could not manage to score again. Was it a bad game played by Orange County? Not really. AV Alta was only able to generate two shots on goal all evening, yet they converted both against the run of play. This was another game that they would like to move on from.
FIRST HALF
The biggest question going into the game was what lineup was OC going to field. It was known that this game with no implications was not going to be treated like a regular season game but rather more akin to mid season friendly. There are two ways to go about this: you can either play a very young lineup or since this game came off a break treat it as a tuneup game with a more experienced lineup to get back into the regular season marathon. I believe OC went with the latter of the options with players like Tom Brewitt, Ousmane Sylla, Lyam MacKinnon and Chris Hegardt all getting starts. There were some younger players in the mix as well like Tetsuya Kadono, Nicola Ciotta and Efren Solis. OC themselves had a number of players unavailable due to either injuries or international duty too so perhaps there was a finite amount of lineup combinations.
With this lineup, OC really did dominate the possession numbers for the majority of the match. The midfield in particular easily was able to break the AV Alta lines with passing and the entire lineup found themselves up the pitch quite a few times. AV Alta would score first in the 22’ minute but it would be called back for offsides and Tom Brewitt would respond in the 27’ minute with his first goal for OC with a header in the box off a Chris Hegardt cross. The goal was very much deserved for Orange County and they did well too after controlling the game.
But of course, the little mistakes are the ones that get punished and OC who are playing very high up would leave Kadono hung out to dry. With only minutes to spare left in the half, AV Alta from near their own box would play a long ball over top and AV Alta’s Collin Anderson converted his one on one. This was AV Alta’s only shot on goal all half and the fact it came from just a booted ball that beat an entire left flank of the defensive line was not amazing to watch. Both teams would go into the break tied at 1.
SECOND HALF
The first half did see one change made by AV Alta which did waste a window. Orange County would not make any changes in the match until the 68’ minute meaning whoever was on the pitch was who they were going to roll with. It was still much of the same as the first half with OC really holding the ball and hovering in their offensive half. But as much as their positioning was dangerous, OC really had a hard time getting any of their forwards involved. This is not to say that they did not try, by the time that the game ended OC had tried 15 shots in total. Only 2 of those shots were on target. Lyam MacKinnon would get what looked to be a great chance with only one defender to beat but his shot would be woefully skied. Orange County really loves to play their wing backs up the sides on the attack however actually putting balls into the box was a challenge all night.
If Orange County’s lineup was young, it would only get younger as the night went along with players like Guimaraes, Marinch and Kurnik all coming on later in the match. AV Alta also fielded a very young lineup with the player with the assist from the first half only being 16 years of age. It would be another young player Ilias Aoumaich that would score the game winner for Alta in the 76th minute. Aoumaich, who is only 20 years old, would get the ball on the side of the box, manage to beat two OC defenders and his shot beat Kadono on his near post as well.
Just like last season in the same stadium, Orange County would score first then concede the next two goals. But unlike last year, they failed to score an equalizer. OC still were somewhat menacing but were really all bark and no bite. They would only generate one shot on goal in the second half. With that goal conceded and nothing to answer with, OC would lose the match 1-2 and would drop to 0-3 in the USL Cup.
OVERVIEW
A big identity crisis that Orange County has is how they treat tournament games as a whole. Recent and distant memories would suggest that OC puts all their time and energy into the regular season. This should definitely be the case this season.
If the goal of the match was to play the game with no damage, then that ultimately failed as both Tom Brewitt and Grayson Doody appeared to take knocks.
If the goal of the match was to play the younger players, then it was kind of achieved, but not to the extent some may have wished to see.
If the goal of the match was to win, then that obviously did not work either.
I am not one to be a doomer with this team, I have seen them at much lower points and know they are capable of achieving some great things still. However I cannot tell myself that this was a good game for some players. Orange County is nearing the halfway point of their summer road trip and are fortunate that the losses taken do not have lasting implications. But if you are going to treat these games as throwaways then I am expecting an energized team next week in New Mexico.