With 3-1 loss, Republic FC falls in USL standings

For the second straight match, Republic FC gave up a goal in the first minute of play, but unlike last week, Sacramento could not turn it around Saturday, losing 3-1 to Oklahoma City Energy FC in front of a home crowd at Papa Murphy’s Park.

With Saturday’s results, Tulsa Roughnecks FC crept past Republic FC for the No. 6 spot in the USL Western Conference standings. Republic FC is now No. 7 with a two-point lead over OKC and four matches left in the regular season. The top eight teams in each conference make the USL playoffs; the top four host first-round matches.

Juan Guzman scored 40 seconds into Saturday night’s match for a 1-0 OKC lead, which grew to 2-0 after a ninth-minute score by Jonathan Brown.

Republic FC had some better looks in the second half, then scored on a 59th-minute header by Emrah Klimenta off a corner kick to cut the deficit in half.

An 83rd-minute strike by Miguel Gonzalez put the match out of reach at 3-1 – the final score after five minutes of stoppage.

The win was the first by OKC in Sacramento, according to Energy FC’s Twitter account.

Republic FC will play its final home match of the season at 7:30 p.m. next Saturday against Phoenix Rising FC before closing out its USL schedule with three road matches.

 

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This story was originally published September 23, 2017 at 10:06 PM with the headline "With 3-1 loss, Republic FC falls in USL standings."