Hounds kick off home stretch with gut-wrenching defeat, push winless streak to eleven

The Riverhounds tried, the Riverhounds came close, the Riverhounds didn’t score, the Riverhounds didn’t win. Copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste.

I love this job, I really do, but that is how the Riverhounds had me, and probably a large amount of the fanbase feeling as a stoppage-time goal from Ousseni Bouda condemned them to 1-0 defeat on Saturday night at Highmark Stadium, pushing their winless streak to 10 games in the USL Championship, 11 if you include the U.S. Open Cup.

Trust me, I had about five different attempts to write that opening without trying to sound too similar to what has been written before. But when the Riverhounds serve up what they have done for the past month and a half, you’d have a hard time trying to make it work too.

If you don’t have what it takes to read this, I don’t blame you. But for those who want to know how the latest disappointment for the Hounds unfolded, it went something like this.

Whilst the Riverhounds didn’t come out with the blood and thunder that they needed to get the fans onside, they were certainly the better team to start proceedings, spending some solid time in the Monterey Bay half.

Some nice interlinking play out left between Emmanuel Johnson and Junior Etou, led to Johnson pulling the ball back to the edge of the box where Bradley Sample unleashed a powerful volley that took a wicked deflection off a Monterey defender, and even had goalkeeper Carlos Herrera scrambling to hold onto it before pushing it behind for a corner.

From the resulting set-piece, the Hounds should have been awarded a penalty as Langston Blackstock was hauled down in the box, but much like the Pirates over at PNC earlier in the day, the referee wasn’t willing to give them anything. Although given their performances in front of goal recently, they probably still would have missed the spot kick like they did in Las Vegas last week. 

And whilst the Riverhounds can indeed take some of the blame for their poor play in front of goal in the past few weeks, there are times when you have to simply put it down to other forces, as was the case with five minutes to go in the opening half. Sample fed the perfect slide rule pass through to Edward Kizza in the box, and he did everything right to get his foot around the ball and get a shot away. However, his first-time effort was blocked by the onrushing Herrera with a great stop.

At halftime, the numbers told something of a familiar tale…

USL Championship

Stats from the Riverhounds' match against Monterey Bay FC

The start of the second half brought no changes in personnel, nor did it bring a change in the story as the Hounds continued to pepper Herrera in the Monterey goal as Robbie Mertz fired a powerful effort from outside the box. But as has been the case for the past few games, they also received their first warning from their opponents that they could be punished as Eric Dick came racing out of his goal to try and clear a ball over the top, only for Alex Dixon to get there first and strike a looping effort that thankfully for Dick bounced just wide. 

Now comes the time you get a little insight into what happens in the press box at Highmark… as so little action took place in the bulk of the second half, we were able to make jokes about the Hounds’ goalless streak. Here are some of the best:

‘Last time the Riverhounds scored, the Steelers were known as the Steagles’...‘The last remaining footage of a Riverhounds goal was in black and white'... ‘The last time the Riverhounds found the net, the United Kingdom still had the 13 colonies’.

Feel free to pick your favorite. 

With time running down the Hounds did throw up some moments to get the fans excited. First, Babacar Diene saw his header go straight at the goalkeeper after Jackson Walti’s flick-on. Then, Kenardo Forbes blazed a shot over from 12 yards out, summing up just how bad things have gone in the past few weeks. 

And then came the moment anybody could have spotted coming from a mile away. Literally seconds after the board went up to signal three minutes of stoppage time, and the PA announcer had told the fans to ‘make some noise’, Highmark was sent into silence. Sean Suber tried to cushion the ball back to Dick, but didn’t get enough power on his pass, only for Bouda to nip in, steal the ball away and fire a shot into the back of the net to give Monterey a very much undeserved three points: 

As Bob Lilley pointed out in his press conference after the game, this really comes down to bad decision-making on Suber's front, who had had a pretty solid game for the most part. There's a pretty old saying in football 'When in doubt, kick it out', and that's what Suber should have done here. 

Unless he was 100% sure that the ball was going to reach Dick, that ball shouldn't have gone near him. Put the ball in the river if you have to, but in that situation, you are waiting for disaster to strike, either by under-hitting it (as he did) or maybe even over-hitting and putting the goalkeeper under too much pressure when he receives it. 

The players were greeted with a few boos after the game, and it’s not hard to see why. For a team that gave this city so much hope last season, created a platform to kick on and establish themselves as a destination for sports fans, to be treated to this has to be so disheartening that there is no other way to express themselves. 

With three more home games to come over the next three weeks, if things carry on like this, you have to wonder whether they are in danger of throwing away everything this club did last year.