SAFC takes on Tulsa in showdown with playoff implications

A showdown for one of the top four spots in the USL Championship Western Conference table will be at stake when San Antonio FC hosts FC Tulsa on Saturday at Toyota Field.

SAFC (9-5-8, 32 points), fifth in the conference standings, and Tulsa (10-6-5, 35 points), which is ahead of San Antonio in fourth place, kick off at 7:30 p.m.

With eight games remaining in the regular season, SAFC is trying to climb up the Western table, as nabbing one of the top four spots would allow the club to host a first-round playoff game. The USL Championship playoffs start in November.

SAFC’s playoff chances got a big boost last Saturday in Albuquerque after a 2-1 win over New Mexico United. With the victory, San Antonio knocked New Mexico out of first place in the Western Conference standings and halted the United’s 13-match unbeaten streak. It was New Mexico’s first loss since May.

The big win came at the right time for SAFC, which had lost two straight games at home coming into the New Mexico match and had been shutout in both matches, the first time this season San Antonio had lost two consecutive matches at Toyota Field and had been shutout in back-to-back games on its home pitch.

“Really, really much-needed three points,” SAFC defender Akeem O’Connor-Ward said on the win at New Mexico. “So, it was really a good result for us and a really good fight from our team. The last two games, we got shut out at home, gave up four goals between those last two games, so we showed a lot of character to come here in a really tough environment, tough circumstances with the delays and the guys really put a good performance together and stayed together, which I’m really happy (with).”

San Antonio scored the first goal early in the match on a New Mexico own goal. After New Mexico tied the match in the second half, Nicky Hernandez scored the game-winning goal in the 53rd minute when he slid past a drawn-up New Mexico goalkeeper in the box before firing a shot that rolled into the goal. Hernandez’s score was set up by a high floating pass from Mikey Maldonado.

SAFC coach Carlos Llamosa said his club played great throughout the entire match and did not let up after New Mexico tied the game in the second half.

“We showed personality,” Llamosa said. “We gave up an early goal in the second half, but then right after we created two chances. Santi [Patiño] hit the post, and then two or three minutes later Nicky [Hernandez] scored the second goal, so we never went down after that goal, and after that we created more chances, as well. I’m happy with the guys without the ball. With the block defensively, we were really good and really tight, and I think we disrupted a little bit of New Mexico’s game.”

In turning its attention to Tulsa – the defending Western Conference champion – SAFC faces a club it has already played three times this season, two of those matches in tournament competition. In April, Tulsa eliminated SAFC in the second round of the U.S. Open Cup 1-0 at Toyota Field.

SAFC got payback in June, when it beat Tulsa 2-1 on its home pitch in group play of the Prinx Tires USL Cup. The first regular season league match between the clubs ended in a 0-0 draw in Tulsa in March.

O’Connor-Ward said the win over New Mexico showed SAFC has the right mentality and is headed into the right direction as the club heads into the last two months of the season.

“I think we have eight games left,” O’Connor-Ward said, “so we want to start ramping it up at the right time, and this was a really, really big game for us to be able to kind of see if we can overcome adversity, and we’ll use this to keep going forward,” 

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This article originally published at SAFC takes on Tulsa in showdown with playoff implications.