EDINBURG, Texas (Fwrd Axis) — After a week off, San Antonio FC returned to the pitch and earned a 3-2 victory over the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros at H-E-B Park on Saturday night.
The victory is the second straight and the fourth in the past five games for San Antonio, who moved atop the USL Championship Western Conference combined with Colorado Springs Switchbacks’ loss Saturday.
“I’m incredibly proud of how resilient the guys were. They battled hard for 90 minutes, SAFC Head Coach Alen Marcina said. “You know, we weren’t at our best but we found a way to win.”
Here are three main points from San Antonio FC’s win over RGV FC:
Bigger than soccer
After a mass shooting in Uvalde left 19 children and two adults dead, both San Antonio FC and RGV FC stopped play in the 21st minute and took a knee for one full minute as the public address announcer read out the names of each of the 21 victims.
It is not the first sports team to pay tribute as every sport in each league has paused to remember the victims lost to another round of senseless gun violence in America.
Dhillon’s brace
SAFC earned the win thanks to a big night from forward Justin Dhillon. He opened the scoring for the visitors in the 26th minute, scoring off a header from PC. He struck again in the 89th minute after getting the ball from Shannon Gomez, putting his club ahead for good despite a late goal from the Toros.
He'll take 2⃣@DhillonJustin get his brace for the night. #RGVvSA | @SanAntonioFC pic.twitter.com/yQg5MaAxHw
— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) May 29, 2022
“I just want to thank all the teammates because they’re the ones that are putting in the work with us every single week,” Dhillon said. “And the coaches that continue to give me and everyone else believe.”
Staying on top
As mentioned above, San Antonio’s win combined with Colorado’s loss to Monterrey on Saturday puts SAFC in sole possession of first place in the USL Championship’s Western Conference. SAFC has 27 points while the Switchbacks have 24.
SAFC and Colorado still have two matches against each other since their match last Saturday was postponed after multiple members of the San Antonio club tested positive for Covid-19.
“That’s a true testament to their commitment to their resilience, to maintaining their cohesion, to maintain being the aggressors,” Marcina said. We’ll learn from this game and move on, but it’s a well-earned three points.”
UP NEXT:
San Antonio FC is now 9-2-0 (27 points) on the season and will return to the pitch next Saturday when they face the Sacramento Republic FC (4-3-4) at 10 PM CDT from Heart Health Park.
