Saturday’s match takes the Quails to South Texas to face off the Rio Grande Valley FC for the final time in the regular season. It’s the club’s last of 17 road contests before the postseason begins. Sacramento sits atop the West standings on 58 points, and RGV is only 2 points below the playoff line.
H-E-B Park is seldom an easy place to play with long travel days and adverse conditions constantly impacting the match. The Toros enter the match on four consecutive unbeaten results, with a loss likely putting an end to their playoff hopes.
“A really difficult place to go and against a very good team,” Head Coach Mark Briggs of RGV. “They still have a real good chance of making [the] playoffs. We’ve got to go there and focus on ourselves. And we’ve got to build from our performance this past weekend and keep momentum.”
Last week’s win vs. Las Vegas has set the stage for a strong finish to the season. Scores from Luther Archimède and Keko, and the debut of young Da’vian Kimbrough furthered the club’s goals.. At the end of a long season, strong form at the right time can take any club a long way.
“Carrying momentum into the playoffs is huge,” Timmer said of the club’s form late in the season. “We’re going to just keep working on the process and listen to what coach wants us to do. It’s all just about us right now and focusing on what we can control and how we’re playing.”
“To be in a confident frame of mind, a confident form, is huge,” said Briggs. “We got a great performance last Sunday against Vegas. And now we have to continue to get those building blocks up to the level we want them to be come playoff time.”
Through 32 games, the club remains the league’s best defensively, with 13 clean sheets and just 24 goals conceded.
“It’s critical,” Timmer said of the importance of good team chemistry. “If you’re all scattered and gone different ways, the group is not going to be firing on all cylinders come game time. So I think just having that chemistry on and off the field has really helped us.”
“I think that the togetherness of our group has got us to this point,” said Briggs. “We have to stick together, and we have to regroup and reset for the for the next competition. Togetherness just got us to this point and togetherness will get us where we want to be.”
