Visiting Oakland blanks a depleted Monterey Bay F.C. squad, 2-0.

If the young season has shown anything, it’s that Monterey Bay F.C. struggles without its key components.

At near full strength the Union toppled Louisville and Colorado Springs—top teams in the Eastern and Western conference, respectively—on back to back weekends. On Saturday night at Cardinale Stadium, the club was missing four regulars and was blanked by Oakland 2-0.

Grant Robinson, who plays a key defensive role in tandem with Roberts, missed the match with an ankle injury. Adding to Monterey Bay’s woes, Sam Gleadle—a creative force on the counter—and attack minded forwards Chase Boone and Christian Volesky were also unavailable. Gleadle came down with a non-Covid illness while Boone and Volesky were forced to hole up due to health protocols.

“It’s a frustrating one, mainly because we just weren’t ourselves tonight,” explains Union goalkeeper Dallas Jaye. “Guys were ready to step up to the plate tonight, but it just wasn’t clicking. And credit to a good Oakland team.”

Back in March, Monterey Bay traveled to Oakland and came away with the club’s first ever win. Saturday, however, it was the Bay Area side in the driver’s seat most of the match.

The visitors put four shots on target to one for Monterey Bay and their defense repeatedly broke up the host’s usually potent counterattack.

“They stayed composed, they stayed tight, and it was hard to break through them,” says Jesse Maldonado, who substituted in at midfield midway through the second half and gave the offense a little jolt. “We tried to do what we could.”

Monterey Bay squandered an early opportunity when a Chris Cortez header sailed harmlessly over the crossbar. In the 51st minute, Morey Doner and Walmer Martinez combined to feed the ball to James Murphy. He rocketed a shot toward goal, but it deflected off a wall of Oakland bodies.

A second chance by Murphy as time ran down was also blocked.

Oakland opened the scoring in the 21st minute, Edgardo Rito zipping one past Jaye. The second goal came in stoppage time, after Monterey Bay lost possession during a desperate counterattack.

In between, two spectacular stops by Jaye kept the contest close.

At the start of the second half, Mikael Johnson targeted the right corner, but the sprawling Union keeper snatched it on the line. In the final minute of regulation, Jaye beat Oakland’s Ottar Karlsson, again flying to the corner.

Central defender Hugh Roberts blunted a number of attacks. He also made a contorted save on the line that was then corralled by Jaye.

“My job is to have these guys’ backs,” the Monterey Bay goalkeeper says. “They got my back, as well. How he doesn’t manage an own goal there was impressive in itself.”

Monterey Bay is now 4-0-8 on the season. They host San Antonio on Saturday afternoon before traveling to Los Angeles for a midweek match.

“It was obviously disappointing,” Maldonado says. “Every game we lose and every game we win, we can learn from it all. Now we’ll move on to the next one.”

Kickoff on Saturday is 3pm at Cardinale Stadium.