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Seattle Sounders U.S. Open Cup Campaign Ends With Extra Time Loss to Sacramento Republic

The Seattle Sounders U.S. Open Cup campaign came to an end in the fourth round of the tournament as they fell 2-1 in extra time to Sacramento Republic.
Seattle Sounders U.S. Open Cup

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA (June 6, 2018) — The Seattle Sounders run in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has come to a close.

Seattle’s fourth-round exit came at the hands of Sacramento Republic, a club in the United Soccer League (USL). The USL club took a total of 26 shots against Seattle the entire night in front of 5,619 fans at Papa Murphy’s Park.

Meanwhile, Seattle only took seven shots.

Seattle Sounders U.S. Open Cup Campaign Ends Against Sacramento Republic

Cameron Iwasa, a forward for Sacramento, surprised the Sounders in the second half with a goal in the 60th minute. Elliot Hord, a midfielder, assisted the goal.

At the end of the second half, referee Joseph Dickerson declared four minutes of stoppage time. However, Sounders midfielder Harry Shipp only needed one minute of extra time to tack on the equalizer.

Shipp scored a long-range shot from a few yards outside the box. The goal was listed as unassisted, but sent the match into extra time.

“Right place, right time,” Sounders Head Coach Brian Schmetzer said. “Good things happen when you shoot. Good for Harry.”

After using all of his substitutes — Alex Roldan, David Olsen, and Shipp — in the second half, Schmetzer had to stick with his 11 players on the pitch. However, players began dropping due to injury — or just to waste time.

However, the wasting time technique, meant to send the match into penalty kicks, would fail. Sacramento midfielder Jure Matjasic scored the game-winning goal in the 115th minute.

After the match, Schmetzer said some guys battled extremely hard and some were “deserving of wearing the jersey.”

“What we have to learn from that is that we also need to close games out in the right fashion,” Schmetzer said. “That second goal was something that we’ll look at. But we wanted to close the game out, get to penalties and try to score on ourselves. We need to make sure we’re disciplined and we’ll talk that through.”

“But, I’m extremely, extremely proud of the effort,” Schmetzer continued. “We had a lot of guys cramping up. They really put their heart and soul into the team, into the game.”

In goal, Brian Meredith kept Seattle in the match, recording seven saves. Meredith began his career with Seattle in 2011 but left the club after the 2012 season to feature for the San Jose Earthquakes.

Meredith came back to the Sounders organization in 2017.

“He kept us in it many occasions,” Schmetzer said about Meredith. “He was great.”

What’s Next?

The Sounders will return home to CenturyLink Field on Saturday to host D.C. United. The match is slated to begin at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. EST.

Seattle holds an MLS record of 2-2-7 and currently sits in 11th place in the Western Conference. Meanwhile, D.C. United has compiled a record of 2-3-5, and sit in last place in the Eastern Conference.

Social Media Reaction to Open Cup Loss

https://twitter.com/henry_wingo/status/1004609005312868352

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