{"id":336551,"date":"2026-06-15T01:48:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T01:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/336551\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T01:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T01:48:34","slug":"phoenix-rising-rescues-road-point-in-el-paso-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/336551\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising rescues road point in El Paso"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas \u2014 Phoenix Rising<\/a> fought back to rescue a point on the road against a Locomotive side trying to keep pace with them in the standings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alex Mendez put the hosts ahead just a minute into the second half of play following a rough first half in which neither side managed to create much of anything. JP Scearce<\/a> equalized with his head off a Damian Rivera<\/a> cross, with the latter being subbed on in the minute prior to the goal.<\/p>\n

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Phoenix Rising lineup notes<\/p>\n

Just days after a home loss to Louisville City, Phoenix Rising made just two changes to its starting lineup. Daniel Flores came in as a winger, while Gunnar Studenhofft<\/a> led the line. Damian Rivera and Alexander Vukovic were relegated to the bench, with Ihsan Sacko<\/a> starting out wide and JP Scearce dropping into the back line.<\/p>\n

However, the biggest surprises were the inclusion of Kelvin Arase<\/a> and Dominique Badji<\/a> on the substitutes bench. Both players had missed a lengthy spell due to injury, with their last appearances coming in April. Both were substituted into the match in the final ten minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great for us to get them those minutes together to play, and I\u2019m very happy with what I saw from them,\u201d Phoenix Rising coach Pa-Modou Kah<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

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Slow second half start<\/p>\n

Phoenix Rising was slow off the mark in the second half, and El Paso made them pay for that.<\/p>\n

Just a minute after the break, Rubio Rubin<\/a> on the edge of the Rising penalty area managed to cut back and run across JP Scearce and Pape Mar Boye<\/a>, before finding an unmarked Alex Mendez running into the box. Mendez made no mistake with his finish, putting the hosts on top.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, El Paso had another big opportunity. Eric Avila<\/a> was fed the ball behind the back line to set up a one-on-one with Phoenix keeper Patrick Rakovsky<\/a>, but a poor first touch ultimately squandered the chance.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it was just miscommunication, misdirection, us not being sharp in the head,\u201d Kah said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A poor crossing performance\u2026 until it wasn\u2019t<\/p>\n

Phoenix Rising\u2019s crossing was poor throughout the first half, as well as through the start of the second half. Through a collective 19 cross attempts, Rising had succeeded just once, and that came from a set piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think something was wrong with the crosses,\u201d Kah said. \u201cMaybe the question is did we have enough runners. That\u2019s what I would look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 69th minute, Phoenix brought in Damian Rivera. Less than a minute later, his cross found the head of JP Scearce on the back post, who duly tucked away his chance.<\/p>\n

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Scearce himself was moved around on the field as part of that substitution, pushing up into the midfield, and Kah said that that change could have played a role in finally capitalizing from a cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that [Scearce] can be that guy to give us that, so I\u2019m very happy for him to score<\/a> a goal,\u201d the coach said.<\/p>\n

Owain\u2019s Take<\/p>\n

Phoenix Rising and El Paso Locomotive ending in a draw. Feels pretty familiar, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

This was the fifth clash between the two sides under Pa-Modou Kah, and four of them have ended with the spoils shared. The other was a playoff matchup in which Rising progressed through a late spot kick converted by Charlie Dennis<\/a>, so was hardly the most convincing of victories either.<\/p>\n

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After a bit of a stinker of a first half for both sides in which neither really found a way to create much of anything, I honestly thought that Rising had thrown it away after conceding early after the break, with how little they\u2019d been able to do up until that point.<\/p>\n

Instead, Phoenix Rising again reminded us: never, ever count this team out.<\/p>\n

There are still going to be questions. How does this team actually work with a player like Gunnar Studenhofft up top? Can they stay switched on for a whole match, or will they still be error prone in moments as we\u2019ve seen so many times?<\/p>\n

Still, a point on the road is a point on the road, especially when trailing previously and on a short week\u2019s rest.<\/p>\n

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But coming off of a loss in midweek, a cup loss last weekend, and only picking up a point now, all eyes are turning to that Oakland game next weekend. Pick up a win in that one, and you\u2019ve halted the skid. Fail to do so, and you\u2019re not going to be carrying the momentum that you want to into the extended break.<\/p>\n

Top image: El Paso Locomotive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas \u2014 Phoenix Rising fought back to rescue a point on the road against a Locomotive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[81442,120126,120129,138,140,139,120132,120127,120133,120125,120130,120128,120131,16208,81444],"class_list":["post-336551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-alex-mendez","tag-damian-rivera","tag-dominique-badji","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-eric-avila","tag-gunnar-studenhofft","tag-ihsan-sacko","tag-jp-scearce","tag-kelvin-arase","tag-pa-modou-kah","tag-patrick-rakovsky","tag-phoenix-rising","tag-rubio-rubin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}