On a night when San Antonio FC debuted their new Third Kit, San Antonio FC (4-5-8) and El Paso Locomotive (7-6-3) played to a draw on Wednesday night in front of 6,081 fans at Toyota Field. SAFC's best player, Midfielder Jack Barmby, featured in this match for all the wrong reasons.
First Barmby would miss a penalty kick in the 16'. In the second half he would earn two yellow cards in a span of five minutes, the second for simulation in the El Paso box. That would add up to a red card, ending his night and leaving San Antonio to finish the match with ten men.
To SAFC's credit, they were very aggressive once they were down a man right until the final whistle, but could not find the match winner.
Darren Powell spoke after the match, saying “We want to earn points every week and felt like tonight we had more points on the table for us, but unfortunately we played with 10 men and you can’t fault our guys for that. We’re proud of them for being resilient, tough, and creating chances against a very good El Paso team who are very well coached.”
The game was played on very choppy field conditions that frequently resembled a dirt pitch more than a grass one. After the early penalty chance that was saved by El Paso Keeper Logan Ketterer, El Paso would get the next best chance of the match ten minutes later when Forward Jerome Kiesewetter would hit the right post of SAFC's goal.
Just before haftime, SAFC Defender Eby Ackon and Ketterer had a dust up after both players were challenging for a loose ball. It looked like a large fight was about to break out, but luckily cooler heads prevailed. Both players were shown yellow cards after the fray. Ketterer had to have El Paso field players take his goal kicks for him after that, obviously picking up a knock of some kind.
In the 56' SAFC Midfielder Jose Gallegos got loose in El Paso's box but could not control the bouncing ball in time to get off a shot.
In the waning moments of the match Matt Cardone would come up with his biggest save of the night, coming up clutch to salvage the point for SAFC.
It is San Aantonio FC's first point in the all-Texas Copa Tejas chase, but they are 6 points behind Austin with only three games to play. Austin can eliminate San Antonio from Copa Tejas contention if they beat them for the third time this season next week.
SAFC will host Austin at Toyota Field on Wednesday night. Kickoff is at 7:30pm.
Disciplinary Summary:
El Paso: Yellow Card (Drew Beckie) 16’
El Paso: Yellow Card (Logan Ketterer) 45’
SAFC: Yellow Card (Eby Ackon) 45’
SAFC: Yellow Card (Jack Barmby) 59’
SAFC: Yellow Card (Jack Barmby) 64’
SAFC Red Card (Jack Barmby 64’)
El Paso: Yellow Card (Derek Gebhard) 87’
El Paso: Yellow Card (Aaron Gomez) 90’
Attendance:
6,081
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS:
PHOTOS: DARREN ABATE / INSTAGRAM @PEAKACTION
IMAGES: SAN ANTONIO FC TWITTER