In the club’s inaugural USL League One match, Texoma FC fell to One Knoxville SC 2-0 with Mark Doyle and Kempes Tekeila scoring for the visitors on Saturday night at Historic Bearcat Stadium in Sherman, Texas.
Texoma’s formational structure was the same 3-5-2 that we have already seen this year. Davey Mason moved into the starting XI, and Lamin Jawneh was moved to the bench from the club’s US Open Cup match. It’s worth noting that it appears Mason McCready is going to be the club’s GK1 for now.
There were moments when it appeared they were in a back 4 with William Perkins sliding in at RB and Kilwein sliding out wide left to left back. Another tactical tweak we saw this week was around the 60th minute, Ajmeer Spengler started dropping deeper to the back line and out wide in order to link play.
The game started out even through the first 20 minutes. Ajmeer Spengler narrowly missed a free-kick in the 5th minute. Then Davey Mason took too big of a touch that the goalkeeper cleaned up after Mason was through on goal.
However, in the 24th minute, One Knoxville SC took the lead when Kempes Tekeila played Mark Doyle through on goal and Doyle put the ball past Mason McCready into the goal to go up 1-0.
The game’s first yellow card was given to Texoma right back William Perkins after a foul on Doyle.
The match stayed back and forth following Knoxville’s first goal and in the 36th minute off of a long throw-in, center back Jordan Chavez, off the turn, struck the ball cleanly on goal but was saved. Shortly after, McCready was called into action and made a huge save to keep Texoma only down 1 and hold the 1-0 scoreline going into halftime.
At halftime, Adrian Forbes brought on wingback Lamin Jawneh to replace debutant Davey Mason.
In the 57th minute, Knoxville’s Doyle would return the favor to Kempes Tekeila and put him through on goal after a failed offside trap and Tekeila would comfortably slot it home to put Knoxville up 2-0.
In the 77th minute, Texoma made a double change which saw Ozzie Ramos off for Solomon Asante and Reid Valentine came on for John Paul Jordan. After this substitution, Angelo Calfo slid up to the 6 similar to what we saw in the USOC.
However, neither sub was able to make much of a difference and the 2-0 scoreline held for the remainder of the game.
Texoma will try again for their first win when they host Westchester SC at home on March 29th at 7 PM.
