Riverhounds rue missed chances as late goal ends U.S. Open Cup hopes

Much like their playoff defeat last season, all it took was one goal against the run of play to dash the Riverhounds' hopes of bringing home the trophy, as a late goal from Phillip Goodrum consigned Bob Lilley’s men to a 1-0 defeat at Highmark Stadium on Tuesday night. 

Keeping true to his word after the win over Miami FC on Saturday, Lilley rang the changes during this short week, with a completely different starting eleven to the one that took the field at Highmark this past weekend:

If Lilley wasn’t happy with how goalkeeper Eric Dick has been performing this season, despite keeping four clean sheets in the league this year, then you’d hate to think what he’d have made of the early performance of Joey Roggeveen in the FC Tulsa net to start the game. Twice he was forced to make what should have been routine saves from two rather tame Emmanuel Johnson shots, only to nearly let both of them into the back of the net. The shots only went out for corner kicks, but the message was pretty clear for the Riverhounds: Put the keeper under pressure and you might just get lucky. 

Sadly, though, the only person who seemed to hear that message was Johnson. He remained at the heart of the action by terrifying the Tulsa defenders with his electric pace and dribbling. First, he flashed a dangerous ball across the face of goal that was barely in front of Aidan O’Toole before once again coming incredibly close to breaking the deadlock himself at the half-hour mark. Latching onto a through ball from Babacar Diene on the counterattack, he led a 3-on-1 charge featuring O’Toole and Nate Dragisich and once again bore down on goal before firing a shot wide of the near post. 

Despite Johnson's role in setting the tone up front for the Hounds in his first start, speaking after the game, Lilley didn’t seem too happy with his decision-making in the final third:

“Shooting from distance is not a forward’s skill, it’s a midfielder’s skill," Lilley said. "For me the first half was a wasted half from an attack standpoint because we did not turn any turnovers into clear-cut chances, not one. Those are not clear-cut chances when their goalkeeper spills it. It’s a mistake.” 

Despite the personnel changes, at least one thing managed to stay the same for the Riverhounds, and that was maintaining a pretty strong defensive line. 

FC Tulsa barely troubled the backline except for one surging run through the middle from Juan Camilo Ponce and a shot from Harvey St. Clair that was deflected wide for a corner as Gabriel Perrotta was left with very little to do as the first half drew to a close.

That changed when the second half got underway. The visitors came closest to breaking the deadlock. FC Tulsa gave the Riverhounds a scare as Milo Yosef managed to bundle the ball into the net, only for the offside flag to save their blushes and rule the goal out. 

On the stroke of the hour-mark, Lilley made his first changes of the game. Junior Etou came on for the impressive Johnson, who picked up a leg injury during a collision, and Danny Griffin came on for Dragisich. That seemed to spark the Hounds back into life. 

The threat, perhaps unsurprisingly, came primarily through Etou who carried on his productive performance from Saturday night’s win, maintaining the Hounds' threat down the left flank, producing another great chance for the home side, squaring the ball to Bradley Sample on the edge of the box. But, his weak shot didn’t reach the goalkeeper before being cleared away. 

Just like the final game of the Riverhounds’ 2023 USL campaign, it turned out that failing to take their chances would end up hurting them. With the 90 minutes coming to a close and extra time on the horizon, it was heartbreak for the home side. 

Following a bit of a scramble in the box, Goodrum managed to keep his composure and fire the ball past Perrotta and into the far corner to silence the Highmark crowd with what would ultimately be the decider to end the Hounds’ U.S. Open Cup dreams at the first hurdle:

For a team like the Riverhounds and a coach like Lilley that pride themselves on being strong at the back, it’s hard to look at a moment like this and wonder where to start in terms of "blame," but there looks to be a lot to go around. 

Sample not getting a strong enough header initially and then not being able to locate the ball once it dropped, both Pierre Cayet and Jake Lent-Koop not closing the ball down quickly enough, Jackson Walti not reacting quickly enough, and goalkeeper Perrotta standing way too far to his left as a starting spot, which is probably why he didn’t bother to dive. If he would have been more central, a dive might have been able to tip the ball around the post.

After all the fuss over the winter about the state of the U.S. Open Cup, the lack of MLS teams taking part, the success of last year’s run to the quarterfinals and the round in which they entered, the stage was set for the Hounds to go on yet another deep run in North America’s oldest knockout soccer competition. 

Upon reflection, though, the mood in the Riverhounds' camp was pretty upbeat. I asked both Lilley and Griffin if there was any sense of regret about losing their first game in the competition, especially given the lack of MLS teams giving some USL teams a chance to make the same strides as the Hounds did last year:

"Any time we play a game we want to win, any time we're at home we want to win, so I think that's what stings the most," Griffin said. "... Obviously everyone's up for a game when you go and play an MLS team, but we're also up for an elimination game like this, so to not find a way to get the win is probably disappointing for us. So just refocus and get ready. We see them again in four days, we'll just have to execute on the weekend."

Meanwhile, Lilley wasn’t going to be drawn into any sort of debate about regret, choosing instead to remain focused on the even bigger picture and what a game like this would mean to the players that were involved.

"There’s no guarantee we win this game if we play our best lineup on short rest," Lilley said. "For sure Danny Griffin could have gone from the beginning, he had a huge impact when he came on, so did Junior Etou.

"We probably played better tonight than we did the other day against Miami. I thought we got a really sound effort from guys. I thought Jackson and Bradley did a good job in the middle of the field, that’s encouraging. Langston (Blackstock) was out there. Mike DeShields would have played tonight but he tweaked his hamstring, so Jake Lent-Koop came in who wasn’t even expected to start but he was ready to go."

Overall, it looks as if this game wasn’t seen as a stepping stone in terms of trying to get silverware in this competition, but for building a squad that can compete across the whole of the USL Championship season and maybe even deep into the playoffs. And if this showing is anything to go by, whilst there is still plenty to work on, the raw pieces are certainly there to take the team all the way.