Osaze De Rosario scored a goal off an assist from Jackson Khoury in the second half of extra time as the Tacoma Defiance of MLS Next Pro defeated Oakland Roots SC of the USL Championship, 2-1, in the Third Round of the 2025 US Open Cup on Tuesday night at Starfire Stadium.
It was a match that took 120 minutes to decide a winner and was a game filled with momentum swings, fouls, and yellow cards.
It was a perfect evening for soccer in the Pacific Northwest, with partly cloudy skies and a temperature of 60 degrees at kickoff as the sun set over the pitch. Both teams took time to settle into the game, as the first 20 minutes didn’t see either side dominate. Neither team could get much possession, and a slew of fouls in midfield from both teams took away any rhythm the game was searching for.
Tacoma had an early chance in the third minute when De Rosario laced a shot from the middle of the box that took a deflection, wrong-footing Oakland’s goalkeeper Raphael Spiegel. Luckily for Spiegel, the ball bounced off the right post and back out, where Oakland was able to clear away the danger.
Oakland had its own half chance in the eighth minute on a cross to the top of the box, but forward Emmanuel Johnson was unable to get the shot on target, sending the ball well over the goal and onto the train tracks beyond the pitch.
The match’s first goal came in the 28th minute after Tacoma won a free kick on the left side of its attacking half, about five yards outside the corner of the 18-yard box. Defiance midfielder Peter Kingston stepped up to take the shot and sent a right-footed laser over the two-man wall and to the near post, where it found the back of the net past Spiegel. Kingston, who featured on the USL League Two team Ballard FC in recent years, was mobbed by his teammates and did a little shimmy near midfield to celebrate.
Tacoma head coach Hervé Diese didn’t seem surprised by the strike, despite it being Kingston’s first goal of the season.
“Peter Kingston is a quality player and a better human being. We know he can do those things, and that’s why we give him the responsibility in those moments,” Diese said.
Kingston had a second well-taken free kick seven minutes later, this time from dead center, but Spiegel was up to the task and made a diving, acrobatic save to keep his team in the game. The rest of the first half played out much like the start, with fouls preventing much flow from forming. As the teams headed into the locker rooms, three Tacoma players had already received yellow cards.
After Oakland made two substitutions in the 57th minute, the game started to tilt in its favor, as it had much more possession and limited Tacoma’s chances. Tacoma was unable to string together much offensively, and Oakland began to exert more and more pressure on the Defiance’s goal. Defiance goalkeeper Andrew Thomas, already a US Open Cup legend for Seattle Sounders FC, was forced into a scrambling save in the 66th minute after his attempted clearance was blocked toward another Oakland player.
Oakland scored the equalizer in the 75th minute after a ball in the box was kicked off the arm of Defiance defender Kaito Yamada. Referee Dion Coxe awarded the penalty kick, and Oakland’s Neveal Hackshaw stepped to the spot. He put a left-footed shot past Thomas and into the left side of the net to tie the match at 1-1.
The rest of the second half continued to be chippy, with both teams accruing yellow cards. Oakland put in a flurry of corner kicks during stoppage time but were unable to seriously test Thomas, leaving the match in a stalemate at the end of regular time.
The first half of extra time was more of the same. Neither team had a stellar chance but there were willing runners and decent attempts, as neither team seemed to want to go to penalty kicks. Tacoma found the game-winner in the 108th minute when Khoury dispossessed Hackshaw deep in the Oakland half and passed to De Rosario, who took one touch before getting off a shot that deflected off an Oakland defender and past Spiegel into the right side of the net.
From there Oakland threw men forward and took a variety of shots from outside the box, but none significantly troubled Thomas. Tacoma went down to ten men in the 117th minute when Cody Baker earned his second yellow card, but Oakland were unable to make the advantage pay.
Diese explained that Tacoma was well prepared for the challenge that this match offered.
“The whole week leading up to this game, we knew that it was going to be a scrappy one because we analyzed ; we knew that individually, when things are not working out for them, they just make it scrappy… did well,” he said. “They were very, very mature today and they didn’t back down from anything.”
With the win, the Defiance move on to the Round of 32, where it will face an MLS team in a match scheduled for May 6 or 7. As the only MLS Next Pro team remaining in the field, Tacoma looks to keep its dreams alive as the stage grows ever bigger.