Harford Athletic conclude the busiest stretch of games in club history –seven games in 22 days – as they take on Las Vegas Lights at Cashman Field.
The Latics are currently unbeaten in this busy stretch, a run of form that is now actually at nine games in all competitions. Along the way, they’ve advanced to the finals of the USL Cup and have also picked up 17 points in the USL Championship, putting themselves firmly in the hunt for a first home playoff game since 2020.
In their most recent fixture, Hartford eased past Sporting Jacksonville 2- 0, with goals from Jordan Scarlett and Emmanuel Samadia the difference. After Saturday’s high-energy performance against league leaders Tampa Bay, Hartford were a little flat in this one, even if they controlled most of the game.
“I thought it was kind of a muted, professional performance,” said manager Brendan Burke. “We had to get a result. Sometimes when you’re playing a must-win game and it’s against a team you know you should beat, it almost gets harder to get that energy level where it should be.”
The Latics were probably not helped by an unusual 6 PM kickoff time and an extremely sparse crowd, which was reported as one of the lowest attendance figures for a late-season fixture in a very long time. Attendance has overall been poor at Trinity Health Stadium, a combination of the club still trying to dig out from the chaos that emerged under previous front office leadership and broader economic conditions. The Blazing Musket understands that Hartford Athletic is currently interviewing candidates to fill the position vacated by the resignation of Michele Roux, and while it’s unclear who the candidates are, or if a decision is close, whoever that individual is will have a lot of work to do to get the success of the front office to match the success on the pitch.
Hartford will also probably want some help from the league schedulers in future, with Burke calling this current run of games “the busiest period I’ve ever seen a team forced through” adding that he thought the results under the conditions were “amazing". Nonetheless, the schedule remains one of the league’s biggest problems, and more balance will be required in the future. Hartford will finish with five of its last six at home, and while that might make this club happy, the other teams contending for a home playoff game will have reason to grumble about the scheduling advantage the Latics will enjoy through the end of October.
Back to Saturday night’s game, Hartford endured a long journey to Las Vegas, where they will take on a team that is fighting for its playoff life in the crowded Western Conference. The Lights sit in 10th place, but are just five points behind third-placed Colorado Springs, a sign of exactly how much remains to be determined in the closing weeks of the season.
“They’re definitely a playoff contender,” said Burke of the Lights, before contrasting the current freshness of the two sides. “They have a deep roster, they’re fresh and we’re not. We’re going to be rotated, we’re monitoring a couple of soft-tissue injuries, and it took us 14 hours to get here. So this one I would definitely class as a major uphill battle.”
Hartford have had a few uphill battles of late, including against Detroit City, which felt like a real ‘empty the bench’ game. For this game, things might be a little patchwork again, especially with the club monitoring a couple of injuries. Consequently, Burke feels good about certain aspects of his lineup for Saturday night, but still has some uncertainty about how things will play out.
And on the other side of the pitch, Las Vegas have everything to play for, and absolutely have the players to get a result. Johnny Rodriguez, who became the club’s all-time leading scorer recently, has 12 goals in the league and is in the hunt for the Golden Boot, while former NCFC striker Oalex Anderson has chipped in eight. Things are a little less consistent at the other end of the pitch, where the Lights have started four different keepers in the league this season and feature a bottom-half scoring defense, but on balance, this is a much more well-constructed team than in many previous seasons.
“They aren’t viewed as one of the leagues big teams,” said Burke of the club that has just one playoff appearance in eight somewhat-tortured seasons. “But the way they spend now, they should be viewed that way. This isn’t the Vegas of old, where they don’t have big time players at this level. They have multiple big time players. We know we’re walking into.”
Hartford will also be walking into the desert heat, with temperatures climbing to 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and likely to still be in the high 80s by kickoff. It will be draining conditions for a team that is already drained by a congested schedule.
But Hartford has demonstrated multiple times in the last few weeks that it has the ability to get a result in almost any conditions, and will absolutely be chasing one more result on Saturday night.
