The first ten minutes of the hot and hazy match was difficult to watch for anyone excited about the offensive lineup: They saw almost none of the ball. Orange County played a high press, and the Timbers 2 squad struggled to maintain possession, much less get the ball into the opponent’s half.
The few times the ball did make it to the attacking players, it was clear that Conechny, Melano, Langsdorf and Loria are still developing an understanding—which is to say that they lost the ball a lot.
Despite a couple of nice saves from Kendall McIntosh and hard defensive work from Lamar Batista and the rest of the back line, OC’s pressure finally paid off in the ninth minute as they crossed the ball across the Timber’s box to a completely open OC player who easily knocked it in.