SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio FC snapped a six-game winless streak as they cruised to a 4-0 victory over Orange County SC on Saturday night at Toyota Field.
The Story: San Antonio scored three goals in the second half to put the game away to earn their first win since August 16.
- Nathan scored the opening goal in the sixth minute off the feed from Tani Oluwaseyi to give the home side the early lead.
- Tulu put San Antonio up two goals in the 50th minute, banging home a header for his first goal in SAFC colors.
- Oluwaseyi safely put San Antonio in a comfortable spot with a goal in the 57th minute.
- Santiago Patino joined the scoring party just three minutes later with a chip-shot goal in the 61st minute.
“The truth is we’ve dropped way too many points this year,” Oluwaseyi said. “We’ve had a lot of games where we should’ve left with three points and something’s gone wrong and we’ve conceded and ended up tying so many of the last few matches. So finally being able to see it over the line, see it over the 90 minutes, was incredible.”
Learning a lesson: After San Antonio gave up a two-goal lead in their draw against Tampa Bay last weekend, Marcina said his club needed to learn from the individual errors.
- San Antonio scored three second-half goals, including two in a three-minute span.
- Goalkeeper Nick Marsman recorded his first clean sheet of the season, making five saves.
“If you ask any of the players it’s a very confident group, because we know we’ve done extremely well and again the moment we are focused in our box and we don’t make any less-than-desirable decisions in and around our box, and that we continue to be ruthless in the opponent’s box, only good things can happen,” SAFC Head Coach Alen Marcina said.
Much-needed win:
- After Saturday’s action, SAFC trails Sacramento by a point for the top spot in the Western Conference with three games remaining.
- SAFC becomes the only team in the Western Conference to reach the playoffs in each of the last four seasons.
“It’s another great achievement for the club, the only Western Conference club since 2020 to make four years in a row in playoffs,” Marcina said. “So an incredible achievement there, and like always we want more, but all in all a great performance tonight.”
Up next: San Antonio FC is now 14-5-12 on the season (54 points) and will return to the pitch next Saturday when they open a two-game road trip in California to face Oakland Roots SC at 9 p.m.
