Indy Eleven vs Monterey Bay FC - 09.29

Summary

- Opponent: Monterey Bay FC
- Location: Cardinale Stadium
- Attendance: 3,804
- Final Score: 5-0 L

- Starting XI: Trilk, Dambrot, Vazquez, Jerome, Timmer, Brown, Hackshaw (C), Ingram, Aguilera, Asante, Pinho

- Substitution: Ayoze 56’ (Ingram); Rebellon 56' (Hackshaw); Tejada 56' (Aguilera) 

- Unused: Lewis, Michael, Rivera

- Scoring Summary:
MB – Boone 31’ (unassisted)
MB - Own Goal 43' (Dambrot)
MB - Murphy 49' 
MB - Gleadle 50' (assist Dawkins)
MB - Volesky 66' (assist Gleadle)

- Bookings:

MB – Boone 28’ (Yellow)
IND - Timmer 40' (Yellow)
IND - Dambrot 55' (Yellow)
IND - Tejada 62' (Yellow)
MB - Gorskie 74' (Yellow)
IND - McQueen 79' (Yellow)

- Referee: Gerald Flores
- Adage goals: Three

Thoughts and Opinions

As the game started in Monterey Bay, the team that was sitting in front of Indy in the table, Hartford Athletic, had already been eliminated from the playoffs despite winning their game tonight against their own Western Conference opponent in Las Vegas. Proof of the razor-thin margin that kept Indy mathematically alive for the playoffs. Indy's loss solved the math.

Indy came out on the front foot and really put Monterey Bay under pressure in the opening minutes. That was a different team than we saw in the middle of the season. The effort was greater, the press started higher, and the touches were fewer with one and two-touches being the norm. The play out of Indy in the first 20 minutes is getting much closer to what Indy fans had hoped to see this year, and that seems more like a Mark Lowry coached team. Then Hack got hacked down resulting in a yellow card for Boone in the 28th minute, and then the mistakes started happening in the backline of Indy. Vazquez and Jerome were on different pages multiple times, leading to chances and goals. Boone picked up a goal minutes after his yellow card, and would have finished the half with a brace if the goal in the 43rd minute hadn't been deemed to be an Own Goal conceded by Dambrot. As the halftime whistle blew, Indy found themselves down 2-nil and looking like a completely different team than the one that had started the game. 

Then the wheels fell off. 

Monterey Bay scored twice within minutes of coming out of the halftime locker, and Indy's season went down in a whimper. By the end of the game, Monterey Bay had scored a total of 5 goals, kept Indy off the board, and Indy tied the second worst loss in their history. One of those happened earlier this year against San Diego. Yeah, Indy has lost twice this season by a 5 goal differential, 5-nil. The progress that was felt in the previous four games went out of the window tonight in an absolute poor showing. You can try to find some positives, but you're going to likely only find them in that first 20 minutes of action. After that, Indy didn't stand a chance in this game. Monterey Bay had 8 shots on target and put 5 of them past Trilk. His teammates put him into bad situations, and his goals against average took a serious hit tonight.

Indy come home from their west coast debacle to play Loudoun next Sunday, then have their next three games against other non-playoff teams before finishing with Birmingham. At this point, Indy is playing for pride and for next season. There are going to be some changes next season. I could probably pencil in a few names, maybe a couple in pen, but there are going to be some changes. A season like this will do that. I'm sure that Lowry and Co. already have a list of players they want to pursue at year's end, and a result like tonight makes those potential changes seem even more important, and even more obvious.

At the conclusion of Indy's game with Monterey Bay, the Eastern Conference playoff schedule is entirely confirmed; with 3 to 5 games remaining for each team. Conversely, the Western Conference has only confirmed San Antonio and San Diego as playoff bound, but everybody else is still mathematically alive. That's quite a difference, and shows how top heavy the Eastern Conference was this year. Lowry has stated a couple times recently that their run of form was going to show the other Eastern Conference teams that they won't be looking down at Indy after this year. A 5-nil drubbing from the middle-of-the-pack expansion side Monterey shows that there is still a lot of work to be done between now and next season before the top teams in the East this year need to work.

The Game Beckons Game Ball

Not tonight.