Takeaways and Player Grades: Riverhounds’ anemic attack can’t be resuscitated after falling behind early in Colorado

This will be a pretty simple breakdown in this edition of Takeaways and Player Grades following Riverhounds SC 1-0 loss at defending USL Championship title holders — Colorado Springs on Saturday night at Weidner Stadium.

The Riverhounds can’t score goals.

That’s right — for the third straight league match the Hounds were shut out, while they put forth just six total shots in a match where they were battling uphill for most of the way after surrendering an early goal.

With the loss, the Hounds once again failed to pick up a point on the road, and now see themselves still, remarkably, hanging on to the eighth place spot in the Eastern Conference, which keeps them barely above the playoff line.

For match detail and Head Coach Bob Lilley’s reaction, be sure to check out PSN’s coverage from the contest.

FINAL: Colorado Springs Switchbacks 1, Riverhounds SC 0

Riverhounds Reaction: Bob Lilley on loss at Colorado Springs ‘We weren’t ready to play at the start, and they were’

Hounds Personnel, Lineup Selections

Keeping in mind his club does have midweek US Open Cup encounter at Philly (on Wednesday), Bob Lilley went with few surprises in his starting eleven.

Augustine Williams was at the top of the attack, flanked by a pair of attacking wingers/midfielders in Danny Griffin and Robbie Mertz.

Bradley Sample and Jackson Walti played deeper as central, holding mids, while Perrin Barnes and Luke Biasi patrolled the two-way duties as full backs who at times pushed forward out wide.

The Hounds stayed with usual suspects on the back line, with Beto Ydrach, Sean Suber and Guillhaume Vactor as the center backs in front of goalkeeper Eric Dick.

At the start of the second half, Pittsburgh brought on Bertin Jacquesson and Jorge Garcia for a spark, while Junior Etou (58′) and Jason Bourgey (79′) also provided fresh legs in a match played in high altitude.

Takeaways

Hounds concede on set piece

While the club’s lone goal this month came on a set piece — a corner from Robbie Mertz to Beto Ydrach in the US Open Cup win vs NYCFC — this time the Hounds’ lone defensive lapse in the match came on the back post as Matt Mahoney made a pretty straightforward move forward, with a slight push off of Ydrach, to get behind and in position with plenty of space to get a clean header redirected past Dick.  If you watch the replay, the last Switchbacks player on the line — Garven Michee-Metusala, made a quick overlap move inside Mahoney, which twisted up the Hounds who were man-marking.   Luke Biasi was marking Michee-Metusala, and stayed with him, but Ydrach was caught watching the ball and didn’t close down the space quickly enough.

Leading like a captain should 🫡@Matt_mahoney18 opens the scoring for @SwitchbacksFC at Weidner Field! pic.twitter.com/6OYyRFNppC

— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) May 18, 2025

Quite frankly, while Dick did make an outstanding save late in the first half — this was going to be the best chance for either side — and it was preventable especially by Hounds’ and Bob Lilley’s standards.

Neither team threatened often in the second half — the Switchbacks’ only shot on goal after the break was a mis-hit effort by Justin Dhillon that was saved by Dick — and total shots for the game finished at 9-6.

In a match where there wasn’t a lot of danger on either side — one defensive lapse proved to be the difference.

Hounds’ Anemic Attack Can’t Find Spark When Running Uphill in High Altitude

In every match this season, I could count the number of shots taken by Hounds on my hands.

And for shots on frame, I could use one hand for each game. Having played only three matches at home (out of nine) isn’t ideal, but scoring shouldn’t be this hard, right?

A quick glace at FBRF.com bails out this issue — as the only time this season Pittsburgh has generated double-digit shots have been in their two US Open Cup matches.

The Hounds are 23rd (out of 24 teams) in generating Shots on Target per match (with just 2.4).

Even after the goal, the Hounds sort of sprung to life after conceding

There was a dangerous moment when Robbie Mertz crossed the ball from the left across goal. Perrin Barnes headed the ball back across the face of goal, but his return pass was just behind a pair of Hounds runners and the Switchbacks cleared.

In the thin air though, Pittsburgh spent most of the first half chasing the match — which is not ideal on the road and for the most part — while Williams, Griffin and Mertz were covering a lot of ground, they weren’t generating much friction.

“We started slow, and they were playing at a whole other intensity level,” Lilley said after the match.

“Their forwards were pressing, and our midfielders, Jackson (Walti) and Brad (Sample) are so deep, and our defenders were 30 yards deeper than them. We were so stretched right from the beginning of the game.”

Pittsburgh were outshot 5-1 (1-1 on frame in the first half, with its only chance coming when Robbie Mertz’s corner attempt in 45th minute connected with midfielder Danny Griffin.   The Hounds’ captain pushed his header chance sharply, but it was saved by Colorado Springs’ goalkeeper, Christian Herrera.

“We need to get that from whoever the target is, and Danny (Griffin) was too cautious, sometimes he just needed to go, even if Augi (Williams) couldn’t get across with him,” Lilley explained about his forward line’s inability to come forward collectively and fill in the spaces in transition.

“Every time Danny was in a half space, they’d play it wide of him. We were late all over the field, and part of that is because we don’t close the field down when we did get forward.”

The Hounds appear to have disbanded a lot of their effort to play through the middle and possess the ball the way they attempted to at the outset of the season, instead, settling for longer passes and bringing the most pressure in the final third from the edges with crosses.  Still they only ended up earning three corner kicks.

Playing with a sense of urgency, the Hounds caught up to the hosts in terms of possession in the second half, bringing more pressure to the tune of five more shots — with only one more on frame — a Jason Bourgey attempt from center of the box in the 85th minute.

This was the kind of sequence that the Hounds need to do more persistently — sending balls in to create chaos.  Bourgey’s effort came when chaos ensued in the Switchbacks’ box as Griffin redirected a ball high toward goal with his head. Herrera came off his line but got caught in no-man’s land, leading the Hounds to frantically try to find an open shooting line. The ball eventually came to Bouregy at the top of the box, but Herrera was able to get a hand to the shot standing 15 yards from his goal.

A minute later, Jorge Garcia turned the corner along the goal line and picked out Mertz with a low pass across goal, but Mertz’s shot rose over the goal.

The Hounds have to find answers soon as it would seem that generating more shots would help.

However, it doesn’t appear that it’s going to get any easier.

They remain on the road for a couple more matches in the coming week, with a trip to Chester, PA, on tap for Wednesday, when they face Philadelphia Union for the first time ever in the US Open Cup Round of 16.  For all intents and purposes — they’ll take the same approach to facing the Union as they did vs NYCFC, and try to grind out a result.

Player Grades

Starting Eleven 

Eric Dick   GK — 6 — made two saves — another tremendous diving effort.

Sean Suber  DF – 6.5 – Sent 15 long passes forward — eight of his passes made their way into attacking third.  Defensively solid throughout contest.

Perrin Barnes DF – 6 –  has been getting the starting nod on the wing opposite Biasi in most league matches.  Created a chance and was busy on his side, winning 11/21 duels.

Jackson Walti  MF – 5 –  nine defensive actions, passing was a bit down (70% on 36 attempts) and won 2/8 duels.

Danny Griffin (C) MF – 4.5 – To add to Lilley’s point, Griffin had the least touches (27) of any outfield player to play 90 minutes.  This is a player the Hounds need to have on the ball a heck of a lot more.

Robbie Mertz – MF – 7 – team-high six crosses, a chance created and a 10-for-11 passing rate in the final third, and he topped that off winning 4 of 6 duels.

Bradley Sample MF – 4.5 — two fouls committed and one proved to be costly — setting up the set piece for game-winner.  Was subbed out at half.

Beto Ydrach DF – 5.5 – overall — good defensive performance and played a lot out of the back (77 touches) — but lost Mahoney there for a half-second which led to goal.

Luke Biasi – MF – 5 – won 7/8 duels and five defensive actions but not doing much to generate much in getting things forward

Guillaume Vactor – D – 6 – had 63 touches, 10 defensive actions and won 11/13 duels.  Might be finding his way into lineup a regular starter back there.

Augustine Williams – F – 4 – only had six touches in 45 minutes, no shots and just two passes. There are instances where you can see Augi’s getting a lot of attention in those instances when the Hounds get forward and why Lilley was talking about other players need to get into spaces behind and around defenders when making runs into the box.

Bench / Subs 

Bertin Jacquesson (46′) FW – 5-  energy seemed good, created a chance, but ultimately needs more touches in opposition box (only had two).

Jorge Garcia (46′) – MF – 5 – his fearlessness in looking to shoot when he has space is a positive — both shots were not on target and had another one blocked. Won 1/8 duels.

Junior Etou (58′)- MF – 4.5 – four passes into final third and four defensive actions but really didn’t make big impact

Jason Bourgey (79′) – MF – N/R – did have the lone shot on target in the second half