HAGERSTOWN, Md. — The result was another loss for Hub City FC, but the performance looked considerably different Sunday afternoon at North Hagerstown High School.
The Black Roses were much more competitive in a 4-1 loss to unbeaten Doradus FC than they were a week earlier, when they opened their United Premier Soccer League season with a 7-1 loss to Arlington SA.
Doradus improved to 3-0, while Hub City fell to 0-2.
Hub City coach Michael Long saw plenty of improvement from a week earlier.
“We got a wakeup call in our very first match against a great opponent,” Long said. “We took a couple punches early, but we learned. We had our second practice of the season. We talked about things, we worked on it, and it was sharper today.”
The Black Roses still found themselves playing from behind early.
David Cole gave Doradus a 1-0 lead in the sixth minute, then struck again in the 27th. Cole, whose speed repeatedly caused problems for the Hub City defense, completed his first-half hat trick in the 39th minute to send Doradus into halftime with a 3-0 lead.
Collins Frimpong extended the Doradus lead to 4-0 in the 53rd minute.
Hub City answered just two minutes later when Wilbur Ricketts scored to make it 4-1 as heavy rain began to fall.
Despite the deficit, Long thought the Black Roses were playing their best soccer of the young season as the second half progressed.
“I still think we started off slow and too timid, but the last part of the first half, and up until the lightning strike, we were by far the better team,” Long said. “We had the better of the play. We were pressing correctly, keeping possession well and creating chances.”
Then the weather intervened.
Thunder and lightning forced the match to be stopped in the 74th minute. Play did not resume for about an hour.
“That was the worst timing for us, because we were sharp,” Long said. “The subs we brought in picked right into the system, and they were doing so well.”
Neither team scored after play resumed.
Long said the lengthy interruption took some of the energy out of the match.
“You could tell the last 17 minutes, it was flat for both teams,” he said. “It’s so hard to come back after that. But I felt we were very good leading up to the lightning.”
Hub City is still trying to find its footing with a largely new roster in its first season in the UPSL’s DMV North Conference. The Black Roses had only one practice together before last week’s opener and held their second training session before facing Doradus.
Long said that additional time together showed Sunday.
Afterward, rather than dwell on an 0-2 start, he asked his players to consider the difference between the two performances.
“There were a lot of down heads, because we lost again, and everyone hates losing,” Long said. “But I told them, ‘Get your heads up. How much better were we today than last week?’”
Long expects the improvement to continue as the new group gets more time together.
“We’ll come back and have another great training session on Monday. We’ll talk more, we’ll learn more about each other,” he said. “We’re still a brand new team.
“If we can improve every game, we’re going to be fine this year. We’ll start to get wins and three points and ties instead of these losses.”
