BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) \u2014 Athletic Club Boise capped USL Cup group play with one of its most complete performances of the season, shutting out Sacramento Republic FC 2-0 behind an early breakthrough, a decisive second-half finish and a composed defensive effort.<\/p>\n
Boise struck first in the seventh minute when Nick Moon finished from the center of the box after Thomas Amang threaded a through ball into his path for a 1-0 lead. Sacramento, a USL Championship side, controlled long stretches of possession after the opening goal and generated multiple quality chances, but goalkeeper Jonathan Kliewer delivered key stops to keep Boise in front. Kliewer denied Kyle Edwards in the 17th minute and reacted quickly to stop a Blake Willey header in the 36th as Boise carried a 1-0 advantage into halftime.<\/p>\n
Sacramento again pushed forward after the break, but Boise stayed compact and organized defensively. Amang nearly doubled the lead with a header just over the crossbar before Boise\u2019s substitutions helped swing the match. Omar Yehya entered in the 62nd minute and quickly created the second goal, driving at defenders and delivering a cross that Tumi Moshobane finished from the center of the box in the 64th minute to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
With a two-goal cushion, Boise closed out the clean sheet with disciplined organization through the final whistle. Kliewer made several important saves down the stretch, while the back line consistently cleared crosses and blocked shots.<\/p>\n
Kliewer finished with six official saves and earned his second consecutive clean sheet. Moshobane\u2019s goal secured a third USL Championship League win in Athletic Club Boise\u2019s inaugural season.<\/p>\n
After the match, head coach Nate Miller said the team\u2019s approach was rooted in setting a standard at home. \u201cWe always want to win. We’re here at home and we want to make sure that we’re always at the top of our game. We wanted to go three for three against USL Championship teams. So it was important for us,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Miller also pointed to the defensive performance against a high-level opponent. \u201cI told the guys before the game; there’s someone coming to an AC Boise game for the first time, what do you want them to see? So I\u2019m just really pleased with how we defended that game in a tough game against a really high level opponent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Moshobane said the team emphasized collective responsibility, especially in its own penalty area. \u201cI would say we spoke a lot about as a team, being dependable with each other. No matter whether you are an attacker or a defender, when it comes to defending the box, you\u2019ve got to do your job and do it correctly. As a team, I think we did a very good job in that sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Moon said the result was a statement. \u201cWe’ve played against a lot of those guys for a lot of years now. We know we can beat those teams and it’s just kind of showing it to everyone. It makes a statement for both leagues that we can do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Boise\u2019s path to the USL Cup knockout stage depends on results elsewhere, but the win added to last week\u2019s 1-0 road victory at Westchester SC, giving the club back-to-back wins and consecutive clean sheets entering an important stretch of USL League One play.<\/p>\n
Next, Athletic Club Boise returns to league action against Portland Hearts of Pine on Friday night, July 17th. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. MT. and will be streamed on ESPN+. Boise has won three of its last four matches across all competitions and will close July with road trips to the New York Cosmos and Greenville Triumph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) \u2014 Athletic Club Boise capped USL Cup group play with one of its most complete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-395879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395879","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=395879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}