Opening night

Roughnecks hope to build on success in second season

Following a highly successful first season in the United Soccer League in 2015, the Tulsa Roughnecks FC have started their second year in fine fashion.

With six returning players from last season’s team, including their three top goal-scorers and starting goalkeeper, the Roughnecks have added several key pieces with hopes of improving on last year’s 11-11-6 effort that saw them finish seventh in the Western Conference, missing the playoffs by one win on the last weekend of the season.

And despite a somewhat sloppy performance, a large crowd of 5,328 went home happy after the Roughnecks held on to defeat the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros, a USL expansion team playing their first league game, 2-0, in the season opener on March 26 at ONEOK Field.

“A win, three points, a clean sheet – it wasn’t easy,” said Roughnecks coach David Irving. “We battled. It wasn’t pretty, I know that we can play a lot better than that, but we still got the three points, and that’s all that matters in the end. All in all, a great night for the fans.”

Newcomer David Abidor, a midfielder who played last season in Sweden, scored the Roughnecks’ first goal of the season, a 20-yard blast that deflected off a Rio Grande Valley defender about 10 yards out and past the goalkeeper in the 32nd minute.

Carlos Martinez, another newcomer who spent last season with the USL’s Sacramento Republic, made it 2-0 just 10 seconds into the second half, drilling a perfectly-placed 25-yard shot into the upper left corner.

Perhaps the biggest star of the night, though, was rookie goalkeeper Alex Mangels, who won the starting spot from last year’s starter, Jake Feener, during the pre-season, and solidified his hold on the job with 12 saves for the shutout in his professional debut.

Among his impressive plays were two big saves in the final minute of the first half – a diving stop on T.J. Casner’s 20-yard shot, and then a nice save on Memo Rodriguez’s rebound attempt.

Mangels, who played for the University of California, Berkeley last season, also denied Dzenan Catic’s breakaway shot in the 84th minute, made a diving stop on Charlie Ward seconds after that, and then made another lunging save on Rodriguez’s 20-yard kick in the 88th minute to preserve the victory.

“Alex had a great game,” said forward Sammy Ochoa, who led the squad with nine goals last year. “That’s good for Alex. Feener’s there too, so there’s good competition there, it keeps everybody on their toes. We don’t know who’s going to play, so that’s good for the team.”

With home games on Sat., Apr. 2 against another expansion team, the Swope Park Rangers, and Sat., Apr. 9 against Real Salt Lake Monarchs, Tulsa hopes to capitalize on a favorable early-season schedule.

“It’s key that you get off to a good start, you can’t play catch-up in this league,” said Irving, whose team sputtered to a 1-4-2 mark through the first seven games last year. “There are no easy games, so it’s important. We have three home games to start, it would be nice to win three home games right out of the gate.”

The Roughnecks also hope to continue building on their success off the field, after ranking fifth in the USL in average attendance last season with 4,714 per game.

With a lively pre-match celebration that always takes place two hours before kickoff over at Guthrie Green, two blocks from the stadium, followed by the orderly march to ONEOK Field led by the Roustabouts fan group, capped off by an exciting game presentation, the Roughnecks made such an impression on the league that the USL chose to hold off-season meetings here last winter, praising the club’s overall game-day atmosphere.

“I’m so impressed with this place and how it’s adapted to soccer,” said USL president Jake Edwards during the meetings in November. “The feedback has been tremendous.”

Ochoa hopes the team can take another step forward this season and give all those raucous fans something to really cheer about.

“It’s great,” Ochoa said of the fan support. “Personally, I feel pressure, as a player, that we’ve got to come out and give the fans what they want, and get good results throughout the season. Last year, we didn’t start out well, and this year, I think we’re on the right foot. We won the first game, so we can go on from there.”