Loudoun United’s loss to Oakland at home last week put the team’s coming game in a slightly uncertain way. Coming into Saturday’s game with North Carolina FC they did control their fate in Group 5 of the USL Jagermeister Cup; they controlled head-to-head tiebreakers over the other teams (Louisville, Charlotte) that could catch them, but they remained a team that has not won a 90-minute contest since June 20. That streak continued Saturday night as Loudoun allowed a (very) late equalizer in regular time before losing 5-3 in penalties.

So yeah, the streak continued, but since Loudoun didn’t lose the game in regular time, they managed to win the Group and move to the quarterfinals (more on that in a minute). Was it all good? Was some of it bad? Here’s the highlights:

Sometimes, mother nature takes over. At halftime of Saturday’s game in North Carolina, the temperature was 88 and the heat index was 97. The combination of teams certainly is a factor, but the weather helped turn things into a bit of a rock fight, as Loudoun and NCFC combined for 32 fouls and eight cards; by comparison the teams combined for 21 and five respectively, when they played at First Horizon Stadium in mid-March. When he was making/just made “Do the Right Thing,” Spike Lee talked about how the warm weather backdrop was an influence in the nasty feelings by some of the characters, and Ryan Martin characterized the climate as “brutal” Saturday, no lies detected.

Return of the…Prince? Abdellatif Aboukoura returned to the lineup after missing the last two games due to a injury and did OK, creating two chances in his 15 passes (for what it’s worth, Florian Valot led the team with 4):

The $64,000 question for most is going to be will Loudoun score when Aboukoura doesn’t (they are and he’s kind of not), strangely the larger question is for a team with the third-highest goal scoring total in the USL, what can be done to jumpstart the offense, and if Guatemalan national Arquimedes Ordonez is a potential answer for it.

Dr. Jagermeister and Mr. Hyde. Speaking of the offense, there’s an interesting contrast to the team’s Regular Season performance against this in-season tournament. Sample sizes and all, but they are third best in scoring and fourth best in shots in the Regular Season. In the Jager Cup? They’re eighth in shots but the bottom third (t22nd) in goals, presumably because of shot selection as well, as their fifth best conversion rate (18%) is almost cut in half (11%) in Cup play. Games in this will get tougher from here on out, so if Loudoun can find their mojo then this Cup dearth should get mitigated.

On pesky dismissals and capable efforts. Hugo Fauroux didn’t look happy about being sent off, and Oalex Anderson certainly helped with a little lobbying after the fact, but it doesn’t take away from Loudoun’s fourth red over the last six games, which have gone to its captain (Zach Ryan), vice-captain (Fauroux), modest central defender (Leerman) and coach.

But hey, Ryan Jack was signed at the beginning of the season to back Fauroux up while Dane Jacomen gets oodles of minutes with League One side Westchester. And in his unexpected pro debut, Jack saw NCFC coach John Bradford decide that he wanted to play spoiler, so after Jack came on, Bradford brought on the vets and attackers like Evan Conway, Mikey Maldonado and Rafa Mentzingen, and brought Paco Craig on to keep the backline firm. Jack saved six in the second half, with the only one that got by being a Louis Perez wonderstrike in the 103rd minute. Job done for the lad, who’s got a start guaranteed now.

Random Stat of the Day: 34 (number of minutes of Jack’s debut) #TeamRyan

So, where does this leave us? Loudoun go out west to play an FC Tulsa side that hasn’t lost since the end of May, usin said unbeaten streak to get atop of the Western Conference. Their Jager Cup quarterfinal match is at home against a Sacramento Republic side who is going to have to come across the country to play a midweek game; purely speculating, sometime before or after Sacramento’s game at El Paso on August 23.

Loudoun is kind of playing to their competition over this winless streak so Friday should be an intriguing game that hopefully everyone will come back from it healthy for, as Tulsa play on the always fun baseball diamond converted to soccer field that USL fans and players still see occasionally.

As I try to do, I’ll hand the last word to Martin for his thoughts on the game in the Cackalacky sauna:

“I thought we played well, we probably made a little harder on ourselves with the red, we created enough chances early, and we just gotta be more ruthless. We’ve got to continue to see out games. and we can’t let good teams hang around because they’ll punish you, especially a man up. But I’m proud of the effort, the work rate, (and) to get a tie down here is never easy, so it’s a good result and we’ll keep moving forward.”