skip navigation

Three Things: Rowdies 1 - 0 Swope Park

By Rowdies Communications, 05/26/19, 10:00AM EDT

Share

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (May 26, 2019) — The Tampa Bay Rowdies found a way to win without playing their best Saturday night, edging past the Swope Park Rangers 1-0 on a late Leo Fernandes goal. The win gave the Rowdies a little more breathing room at the top of the Eastern Conference.

Here’s Three Things from the match…

1. Overcoming absences
The Rowdies were without two of their biggest defensive performers Saturday night as center back Pape Diakite and defensive midfielder Dom Oduro both served one-game suspensions. Diakite had played every minute of USL action prior to Saturday night and Oduro had missed only 62 minutes, leaving two big holes for the Rowdies to fill in.

Mohamed Kone earned his third league start in Diakite’s spot and turned in a great performance. Kone recorded five tackles, one clearance and one interception while winning 70 percent of his duels.

18-year-old Jordan Doherty took Oduro’s spot in midfield for his fourth league start of the year. Doherty won 12 of 14 duels, made four tackles, two interceptions and one clearance.

Despite missing two regular defensive starters, the Rowdies allowed only six shots all night, none of which were on target. It was Tampa Bay’s eighth clean sheet in 12 Championship matches this season.

2. Swope sits deep
Swope Park deserves a lot of credit for its performance Saturday night. The Rangers were playing their third match in seven days against the fully-rested Rowdies. Swope Park sits in 17th place out of 18 in the Eastern Conference, so expectations would have been low for their ability to get a result at Al Lang.

The Rangers put in a good performance, sitting very deep against the Rowdies to try and keep the game 0-0 as long as possible. If they could manage a goal on a counter attack, great, but the primary mission was to avoid conceding for as long as possible.

Tampa Bay had two great scoring chances in the first 22 minutes but didn’t convert, allowing Swope Park to grow in confidence. Nearly the entire match was played in the Swope Park end, with six Rowdies average position across the halfway line, plus Jordan Doherty right on the line. Eight Rangers had an average position in their end, plus a ninth on the halfway line. It resulted in a lot of congestion that Tampa Bay struggled to break through at times. Swope Park racked up 25 clearances.

3. Time to change gears
Immediately at the final whistle of last night’s match, the Rowdies needed to start to switch their mindset toward Tuesday night’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tilt against OKC Energy FC in Norman, Oklahoma. The Rowdies will depart Monday and will not return home until after Saturday’s league match in Birmingham, meaning it will be a travel-intensive and long week for the squad.

OKC Energy sits in fifth place in the Western Conference at the moment with a record of 5-4-3, so Tuesday night’s match should be an exciting one. Kickoff is at 8:30 ET on ESPN+.