The second half began perfectly for Orange County. An early long ball from Chris Hegardt found the charging Bunbury, whose clinical first touch took the ball around a stranded Spiegel. With the keeper caught well out of position, Bunbury calmly slotted home a long-range finish to record his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Trailing, Oakland immediately ramped up the pressure in search of an equalizer. Long-range efforts from Neveal Hackshaw in the 51st minute and Faysal Bettache in the 66th both required spectacular, nearly identical diving saves from Alex Rando to preserve the clean sheet. Later in the half, Oakland found another prime opportunity when a through ball split the back line for an in-stride Jackson Kiil, but he too was unable to beat Rando.<\/p>\n
The nightmare outing for Spiegel reached a dramatic conclusion during what was easily the most bizarre and viral moment of the USL season so far. Joining the attack for a stoppage-time free kick, Spiegel attempted a header but was caught out of position when Orange County launched a counter-attack toward the empty Oakland net. In a desperate attempt to stop the play, Spiegel threw a second ball onto the pitch from behind Orange County\u2019s net to interfere with the game.<\/p>\n
Ousmane Syllas\u2019 ensuing long range effort at the open goal was ultimately chased down and cleared by former OC player Tommy McCabe. Once the play went dead, Referee Corbyn May showed Spiegel a straight red card for his actions. Shortly after, he signaled full-time, confirming a second consecutive 1-0 win for Orange County and the first defeat of the season for Oakland.<\/p>\n
Overview:<\/p>\n
With another three points secured, Orange County exits Week 4 once again unbeaten, a third consecutive clean sheet in all competitions, and with sole possession of 1st place in the western conference (Pending a match up between San Antonio vs Lexington). <\/p>\n
Orange County next plays Wednesday, April 1, in the US Open Cup against Phoenix. The next league match is April 4 against a struggling New Mexico United.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second half began perfectly for Orange County. An early long ball from Chris Hegardt found the charging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-242611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}