Saturday night was a tail of two halves. The San Diego Loyal scored the first goal of the match but then allowed three straight goals to fall 3-1 to their rivals.

“I don’t think we played a good overall game to be honest,” head coach Nate Miller said. “We made a lot of mistakes and we didn’t control the transitions well. Our positioning when we had the ball high was poor. We need to fix those mistakes especially in the second half. We were frantic in the second half and we were not at our standard tonight for sure.”

Outside of the collapse from Miller’s squad, he mentioned that OC played very well. The Loyal were on a hot run of their own but luckily have a quick turnaround as they host another match this Wednesday night.

Evan Conway got the scoring started with an early goal in the 8th minute. Conway found himself wide open in the box and drilled a beautiful shot with his left foot. There was nothing OC keeper Colin Shutler could do.

Take a bow, Evan. 🎯#SDvOC pic.twitter.com/yEoLXgSww7

— San Diego Loyal (@SanDiegoLoyal) August 6, 2023

No. 9 scored his 9th goal of the season in stunning fashion as the Loyal supporters jumped to their feet.

The rest of the half did not showcase any added scoring. However, the intensity was clear as both teams defended the attack very well. Both sides finished with five shot attempts, while the Loyal had the only ones on target for the goal. SD finished with three shots on target, and Joe Corona almost added to the advantage with a header that wad blocked by Shutler.

For the first time in quite some time, the Loyal did not control possession through the first 45 minutes. OC owned possession 55.5% to the Loyal 49.5%. It was close, yet OC did their job to make sure the Loyal could not control the match.

OC started off the second half with a bang. They continued to barely control possession, and it panned out for them early in the second half. Former Loyal forward Thomas Amang scored the equalizer in the 52nd minute as Torero Stadium went silent.

OC took advantage of the mishap from the Loyal defense and drilled in the shot as Vegas was left shocked.

The momentum clearly shifted in favor of Orange County after SD went up early in the match. It seemed every opportunity went the orange way as they kept putting pressure on Vegas and the Loyal backline. OC ended up scoring two more goals before the time went out.

Late in the match, when the score was 2-1 in favor of OC, Ronaldo Damus went down in the box that should have been called a penalty. However, the head official kept the whistle silent as the stadium arrupted in boo’s. You could say that the Loyal were hosed out of a potential equalizer.

The match did not go the way the Loyal wanted, as they had a chance to climb the Western Standings. As a result, SD fell to (9-6-6) with 33 points, and OC jumped them in the standings into fourth place with a (10-9-4) record and 34 points.

The next match for San Diego will be at home against Loudoun United FC Wednesday, August 9, at 7:00 pm.

Match News & Notes

• Ronaldo Damus subbed in for Adrian Perez to begin the second half as Perez left the match with an undisclosed injury.

Chris Spiering

Chris is a graduate of the University of San Diego. He is the former Sports Editor for the USDVista newspaper. Chris is also an athlete and is huge fan of San Diego sports. Chris has covered the San Diego Loyal, and contributes regularly about the Padres.