I’m still not sure how I feel about this result. The Steel were gifted Cory Burke’s 21st minute penalty kick on a bad, bad refereeing decision. That goes double in light of his failure to call a more egregious foul that had taken place about ten minutes before in Bethlehem’s box. The Steel’s second goal was perfectly fair, though. City had plenty of chances to score, but only managed to put away a penalty and a free kick.

This post is ostensibly about stats, so let’s talk about them. LouCity had 21 shots, 9 on target. The Steel had ten shots, three on target. Two of those three combined for the same goal, Santi Moar’s in the second half, which came off a Ranjitsingh punch save from a dangerous shot by Corey Burke. Moar was totally unmarked on the far post as City’s defense was totally focused on Burke and his score was an easy one.

The shot chart:

City’s passing stats were not up to their usual par in this match, just 58% in the Steel’s half of the field. They shot the ball accurately, over 40%, but often right at the keeper. Kyle Smith had two near misses that might have kept him awake after the game on Friday. Oscar had six scoring chances of his own, and I still don’t know how his free kick in the 75′ went in. I’m obviously glad it did.

City looked…not great in the first half. I’m not sure if that explains the halftime subs from Davis and Kaye or if that was more a product of squad rotation, though neither turned in great performances in the first frame. Both were pretty busy when they had the ball, but Davis lost seven of his eleven duels on the ground, and all six in the air.

Bethlehem was pretty well organized and frustrated a lot of what City tried to do on offense. Offensively, they only really troubled Ranjitsingh once all match outside of the penalty. Of course, that one instance was Santi Moar’s goal. Luke Spencer worked his ass off but only had four shots to show for it. Ilic didn’t do much in his substitute appearance, though he shouldn’t be expected to replace Spencer like-for-like.

This result was probably fair, which is disappointing. Rochester will certainly not make things any easier on Wednesday. Let’s get three anyway.