Last week Loudoun’s last moment loss to Charleston in USL Cup play was a bit of a gutter, but with Oakland and Loudoun West coming to town, it had the potential to be a rallying moment of sorts for a winless Loudoun side. And for long moments it appeared they would finally give Anthony Limbrick his first win in American League play. But a 92nd minute header by 2025 Golden Boot winner Peter Wilson ensured the points were shared, a generally fair result for competitive and narrative reasons, which we’ll get into now!

Pacifique Heights. Pacifique Nyongabire was a late emergence to the right fullback spot and his games so far have been OK, but he kind of broke out in some sort of way. Limbrick said after the game:

“We sat down with a few clips and challenged him in the week to get forward more and have a bit better end product, (and) he certainly did that today for the first goal, setting Richie (Aman) up and I was really pleased with his performance.”

The clip here doesn’t do it enough justice, largely because Pedro Santos’ ball to spring him forward in this was great, but you get the idea:

And the chalkboard supports it:

Speaking of… Aman got his first pro goal which was Loudoun’s first on the day, and was rewarded for another solid effort:

Aman continues to impress in working with Kwame Awuah, and all he’s done is lead the team with created chances (13), largely from in field contributions, and almost double the next Loudoun player, and led the team with 5 Saturday. I know they’re on a heater by their recent standards, but D.C. United should give a thought to seeing how the kid does with an MLS look.

About the journey. Former Loudoun coach Ryan Martin is fond of saying that the journey is about the people. And it was a mini reunion! Along with Martin, Tommy McCabe, Keegan Tingey and Florian Valot returned to Segra Field. Alex Nagy, Ryan Jack and Zach Ryan all retired after the season, and all returned as well, along with Loudoun 2’s Ethan Pendleton. Drew Skundrich, about to download player performance data as Loudoun Performance Coach, was there as well. McCabe was spotted chatting with Abdellatif Aboukoura, Quimi Ordonez and Erlandson said their hellos as well.

Following a season where Loudoun limped into the 2025 postseason under a cloud of uncertainty, and found themselves losing to a team that ceased operations (North Carolina FC), one couldn’t have blamed them for thinking it hardly counted, particularly as a road game they didn’t get a chance to properly say goodbye to people around Segra. I left almost an hour after the game ended, and there wasn’t any sign of it dissipating that I saw. I wouldn’t have blamed them if they stayed until the late hours and until the Roots quartet had to chase their Sunday morning flight back to Oakland.

The journey is about the people.

Random Stat of the Day: 2.52, the xG Loudoun logged against Oakland, a season high, and cracked the Top 25 for games this season.

So, where do we go from here? Loudoun goes on the road to play a Brooklyn side that has gotten 4 points from Charleston and Sacramento, so they shouldn’t be dismissed and are a tough expansion side.

Loudoun is not without its warts; the late goal saw some defender arguments that lasted after the game. They are aware of the manner of how and where those goals came so this week of training should be interesting. Sal Mazzaferro got his first minutes back onfield in almost two months, Sean Young and Jacob Erlandson are expected to return Loudoun’s lineup in the next game or two, so defensive reinforcements are coming. Jack Panyotou made his return as a second half substitute, so things are gently moving towards some normalcy.

After the May break, Loudoun may finally have some sort of tactical stew going to create a new journey with new people.