Well, that was frustrating. RIFC were only able to come away with a point on Saturday night, drawing with Oakland Roots 1-1. This result was probably the most misleading one of the season for us as far as how the game went. We’ll get into that more soon, but first we have to look at what happened on the field.

THE SETUP

The thing that stuck out to me about this lineup most was Marc Ybarra and Mark Doyle both getting starts over Zach Herivaux and JJ Williams. I wrote about the Ybarra vs Herivaux competition in the leadup to this game but as it turns out, Herivaux has a broken bone in his foot that he suffered during the Detroit City FC game. After the game on Saturday, Khano Smith said that Zach could be out 2-4 weeks. As for Doyle starting over JJ, I was a little surprised to see this. If it isn’t injury related, then my guess would be that JJ has temporarily lost his starting position due to not getting goals. Doyle did show good attacking movement against Oakland but was unable to produce any finishes.

I mentioned at the top that this result was probably the most deceiving one of the season for us. That is because we absolutely dominated this game and deserved the 3 points. As Khano said after the game, we were the better team from minute 1 to minute 97. Oakland Roots did have an early chance in the 4th minute when Johnny Rodriguez headed wide, but outside of that we were the dominant team for the first half hour. Noah Fuson had this chance in the 13th minute:

It was a great pass from Stephen Turnbull and brilliant skill from Fuson to take it down and get the shot in.

We kept the pressure up and looked destined to score but couldn’t finish our chances. Oakland Roots would then finally get the ball forward and were able to win a corner. Oakland CB Neveal Hackshaw would get past Karifa Yao and bury a header into the back of the net in the 33rd minute to give his side the 1-0 lead completely against the run of play:

It was really frustrating seeing this one go in. For one, Yao needed to mark his man better there. But also, we had just had several chances to score and were really imposing our will. Goals can change games though, and I would say Oakland got into the game a little bit more for the rest of the half. We were still the better team but went into halftime 1-0 down.

We continued our dominance in the 2nd half, even more so that in the 1st 45. It started with this fantastic chance for Turnbull that we weren’t able to finish:

Turnbull got into that half space on the right that he loves so much but couldn’t chip it over the diving goalkeeper.

The half went on and we had several chances to score. It was really that way for the whole game. I’ve just picked out a couple that I thought were notable but we were constantly in the attacking third. Oakland’s goal scorer Neveal Hackshaw would hack a man down (pun and terrible wording intended) in the 72nd minute and get a red card for my favorite term in the sport, DOGSO (denial of a goal scoring opportunity). It was JJ Williams who was put through on goal with a long ball over the top before Hackshaw pulled him down.

Being a man down only compounded Oakland’s issues and at last we would get a breakthrough in the 87th minute:

Albert Dikwa found himself in the middle of the box which is where I like to see him. None of this drifting out wide stuff that we’ve seen lately. Actually, drifting out wide has worked for him but still, I want to see the guy get some goals. Joe Brito put in the perfectly placed cross there and we were finally level at 1-1. That’s how the game would end though and for all our efforts, we only got the one point.

I guess so. The verdict on this one is difficult to come to. On the one hand, I was absolutely livid leaving the game Saturday night. I wasn’t mad at how we played, I was mad at the end result. It ended up dropping us down to 8th when a win could have put us 5th in the Eastern Conference. It’s always infuriating when you’re the better team and don’t get the win. On top of that, Oakland time wasted basically the entire second half. Even before they got their red card. This was lead by their goalkeeper Paul Blanchette, who not only time wasted on every goal kick, but also flopped all over his own penalty area looking to draw fouls. It was a truly embarrassing performance.

On the other hand, we played incredibly well in this game. Yeah the result sucks, but dare I say we put together a typical Louisville City at home performance (their typical performances at home, not ours when we played there). I even had the thought as the 2nd half was going and we were still down 1-0 that maybe this is what Louisville City felt like when we beat them 5-2. Or something like it anyway. Luckily that never-say-die attitude that we’ve had over this long run of form remained and we were able to get a draw.

For more on this game, as always check out Timmy’s Player Ratings and the Match Reaction, this time with Ryan and Scott. I’ll be back later this week for the Prematch Lookout as we look ahead to a crucial match at Loudoun United this weekend. Until then, UP THE TIDE!