Despite Oakland Roots successful start to the season, the largest blemish on their record so far was last season’s Golden Boot winner Peter Wilson’s lack of goals.
Wilson made up for his early-season deficit by scoring a hat trick to power Oakland over the Las Vegas lights on Wednesday night at the Oakland Coliseum 4-2.
“Pretty proud of the guys, especially on a short turnaround with lots of injuries and a red card [from Saturday’s game],” said Roots head coach Ryan Martin after the game.
From the start of the match, it looked like Wilson was determined to end his scoring drought. In the second minute, he unleashed a shot from the corner of the box, forcing a diving save from Vegas keeper Jared Mazzola.
In the fourth minute, Wilson was able to get past the Lights’ defense and have a one-on-one with Mazzola. However, his shot was just outside the post.
Finally in the 18th minute Wilson got his first goal of the season when Wolfgang Prentice was able to cross a ball in front of goal that lead to the easiest of tap-ins for Wilson and the 1-0 lead.
Oakland doubled their lead six minutes later when Bertin Jacquesson found Faysal Bettache in the box, and Bettache’s shot landed inside the far side netting.
“Faysal’s goal was spectacular, and we’ve been pushing him to have better final action, final product,” noted Martin. “And you know, that’s a pretty big statement goal.”
In the 58th minute, it looked like the Roots put the game out of reach when Wilson scored his second of the game. Once again, Prentice was the provider, delivering a curling cross that Wilson ran onto perfectly to tap past Mazzola and into the net.
However, Vegas came to life with two goals, from two substitutes, Oalex Anderson in the 69th minute, and the second from former Roots forward Johnny Rodriguez in the 78th minute, to make it only a one-goal deficit.
That just set the table for Wilson to emphatically put his seal on the game. Thomas McCabe, who was a spot starter as a central defender for Oakland, headed a ball down the center of the pitch that left Wilson in a tussle with Nathaniel Jones for possession of the ball. Jones tripped up Wilson in the box, forcing referee Muhammad Hassan to point to the penalty spot.
Wilson stepped up, and his penalty kick was perfectly placed to give the Roots a 4-2 cushion and an important win over a division rival.
“Peter was tremendous, and I’ve told you, guys, for many weeks that he’s putting a lot of work in,” said Martin. “‘It will come. It will come.’ Not sure he fully believed that. I think he was a little hard on himself, but he showed his class tonight, and he was tremendous.”
After the game, Martin was happy with the result but knew there was still room for improvement.
“I think we obviously made it a little bit harder on ourselves by making some decisions late that got it to 3-2, which we’ll revisit, keep learning, keep growing,” said Martin.
Oakland moved up to the fourth spot in the Group B USL Championship standings with 12 points. Next up is their first game in the USL Leagues Cup, an away trip to Monterey Bay FC on Saturday. Their next league match is on May 2nd, on the road against Loundon United, Roots head coach Ryan Martin’s former team.
