San Diego Loyal SC has more work to do, but the club finished the fourth and final regular season in its history with a 2-0 win against Las Vegas Lights FC Saturday.
Tumi Moshobane and Adrien Perez scored in the USL Championship match to clinch a third-place finish in the Western Conference – and the No. 3 seed in the playoffs.
The win, SD Loyal’s second straight, earned the team three more points, on the way to a 16W-9L-9D record and 57 points on the year.
And now on to the playoffs. The Loyal will face sixth-seed Phoenix Rising FC in a first round match at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 at Torero Stadium, and tickets remain on sale.
They secured the home playoff match in a win over Oakland last week. The Western quarterfinal will be SD Loyal’s third-straight postseason appearance.
“We wanted to finish the season on a winning streak,” head coach Nate Miller said. “And we wanted to finish the season strong, because we always want to be playing our best football right now.”
Against Las Vegas, Moshobane opened the scoring after a tightly contested first half. SD Loyal created a handful of scoring chances by Evan Conway and Ronaldo Damus, but the South African finally found the net in the 56th minute.
The striker put back a low-rolling shot by Collin Martin that was blocked by Las Vegas goalkeeper Andre Zuluaga. Moshobane got the rebound and tapped it in with his left foot for his eighth goal of the season.
Perez then found the net for the 10th time this season with a right-footed shot in the 85th minute. The midfielder dripped up the right flank and slotted his shot for the 2-0 lead.
Koke Vegas finished with another shutout, his eighth of the season. The Loyal goalkeeper had several key saves against Las Vegas, including one in which he was forced to dive to block a shot by Tyler Bagley in the 35th minute.
Vegas finished the season with 2790 minutes played, surpassing his own single season minutes record (2712) from last year.
Loyal fans also showed up en masse in Las Vegas, which did not go unnoticed with Miller or his team.
“One of our goals the second half of the season was just giving them special moments,” he said. “We hope we did it again tonight.”
