The Oakland Roots were unable to crack an organized Sacramento Republic effort and fell on the road 1-0 on Saturday night.
Despite the home side allowing the Roots to control the majority of possession during the game, Oakland was only able to muster ten shots with none on target. Meanwhile, Sacramento had only one of their seventeen shots hit the target, but that was all they needed.
It was the first time ever that Oakland had lost to Sacramento in USL League play.
Twenty minutes in a careless foul from Charlie Dennis just on top of the penalty box set up a free kick
Jack Gurr hit a shot under the wall and it squirted just past the goalpost and out for a corner.
On the ensuing corner, the Republics’ Conor Donovan shook loose his defensive coverage from Juan Carlos Azocar and perfectly bounced his powerful header into the net for the 1-0 advantage.
Six minutes later, another scramble in the box led to two shots on goal by Sacramento that fortunately hit the goal post twice for Oakland. Just before the half Roots keeper Paul Blanchette came up huge to stop a shot from Sac’s Keko Gontán.
Oakland’s two best chances came from Dariusz Formella. In the 58th minute when they were able to get close to Sacramento’s goal. However, Dennis could not cleanly feed Dariusz Formella, and the shot was blocked by Daniel Vitiello. In the 73rd minute, he got another clean shot that was also blocked.
Meanwhile, Roots keeper Paul Blanchette made several more excellent saves to keep Oakland in the game, but in the end, the visitors suffered their first loss in the Nor Cal Derby.
With the loss, Oakland fell four points behind in the playoff race to El Paso. They face an almost certain must-win next Saturday at home against division-leading San Antonio.
