For the first time in 2025, the Oakland Roots were winners at home on Saturday, April 19, defeating Orange County SC 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. After a dominant first half and a defensive showcase in the second, the Roots’ victory moved them to 2-1-4 in the USL Championship.
The Roots began the match looking hungry for a goal. Their attacking pressure in the final third, even without possession, led to numerous turnovers and extended periods of looking dangerous up front.
This tenacity didn’t take long to pay off. In the 10th minute of the match, an Orange County SC turnover on a pass toward their own back line led to a shot in close from Roots forward Peter Wilson. The shot rebounded off the keeper and back to Wilson, who played an easy cross in front of the net to linemate Wolfgang Prentice. Prentice struck a ball to the right side, beating the out-of-position keeper and scoring his fourth goal of the season—his third in Roots’ last two USL Championship contests—and putting Oakland up 1-0.
Following that goal, Orange County began to work their way back into the contest, earning their best scoring chances of the first half. But this momentum shift was short-lived. Oakland soon went right back to work on offense, hemming Orange County into their defensive third and moving the ball brilliantly around the pitch.
In the 31st minute, the Roots doubled their lead. On a counter-attack opportunity, they pushed numbers quickly up the field and into the Orange County area. A cross from the left side of the field landed just to the right side of the goal at the feet of midfielder Jürgen Damm, who waited patiently before chipping it short over the defense to find Wilson, who elevated over two defenders and put a header off the post and in to make it 2-0.
In the second half, the Roots initially dropped back a bit to protect their lead. Orange County began to hold an advantage in possession time, but despite that, the Roots’ defense and a few key plays by goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh frustrated the Orange County attack throughout the second half.
The Roots kept their 2-0 lead to the final whistle, earning their first home victory of 2025.
The Oakland squad will now head back out on the road for their first action in the Jägermeister USL Cup, where they will face USL League One’s Spokane Velocity for a Group Stage fixture on Sunday, April 27, at 4 p.m.
Talking with the Head Coach
After the match, Head Coach Gavin Glinton said he was “super happy, ecstatic, with the result, getting a shutout, first win at home.” He emphasized that he was “really happy with the effort and the commitment that the guys put in. …I thought the attention to detail and the game plan worked out well. We were able to hurt them where we wanted to hurt them. …I think a couple of tweaks that we’ve made over the last couple weeks have really started to work out for us. But most importantly, I think it’s the identity that we’re starting to see and starting to come out. And yeah, let’s keep it going.”
Coach Glinton also noted that playing three games in a week with a lot of travel “hasn’t been easy, with rotations and a lot that went into the last week. So, credit to the guys for being able to manage it well.” Glinton added that the team showed “really good fight” and have improved some of the things they hadn’t done well in terms of attention to detail against Tulsa in the previous weekend’s match.
“I thought the match against Tacoma was probably our best attacking match and where we start building a little bit of that other side of the identity that we want—our ability to control the match and be able to possess and put teams under. I thought we did a really good job with our repressure,” Glinton said. “And so, the goal today was, can we put both of those together into one match? I think we made big strides in that respect. Still a ways to go, but we’re starting to see our ability to fight and our blue collar as well as our ability to be aggressive and force teams to be uncomfortable. I’m really happy with that.”
Glinton added that the Roots still have a way to go, but are starting to seeing their ability to fight and their “blue collar,” as well as their ability to be aggressive and force teams to be uncomfortable. “I’m really happy with that,” he said.
Summary
Scoring:
- OAK: Wolfgang Prentice 10’
- OAK: Peter Wilson 31’
Discipline:
- OAK: Wolfgang Prentice 38’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Neveal Hackshaw 45’+ (yellow card)
- OAK: Bobosi Byaruhanga 54’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Baboucarr Njie 57’ (yellow card)
- OAK: Jürgen Damm 67’ (yellow card)
Oakland Roots SC
Lineup: Kendall McIntosh, Baboucarr Njie (Justin Rasmussen), Julian Bravo, Wolfgang Prentice (Panos Armenakas), Peter Wilson, José Luis Sinisterra (Daniel Gomez), Tyler Gibson, Neveal Hackshaw (Gagi Margvelashvili), Bobosi Byaruhanga, Jürgen Damm (Ilya Alekseev), Kai Greene
Unused subs: Camden Riley, Raphael Spiegel, Ali Elmasnaouy, Luis Saldaña
Line: Shots: 9 | Shots On Goal: 6 | Corner Kicks: 7 | Fouls: 20 | Offside: 1
Orange County SC
Lineup: Colin Shutler, Nicholas Benalcazar, Tom Brewitt (Vukashin Latinovich), Kyle Scott, Ousmane Sylla, Bryce Jamison (Christopher Hegardt), Pedro Guimareas (Ashton Miles), Lyam MacKinnon (Cameron Dunbar), Kevin Partida (Benjamin Barjolo), Mouhamadou War, Ryan Doghman
Unused subs: Gavin Karam, Daniel Garcia, Tetsuya Kadono
Line: Shots: 10 | Shots On Goal: 2 | Corner Kicks: 7 | Fouls: 7 | Offside: 3
