Hartford Athletic are back in action on Saturday night as they welcome Westchester SC in the final group stage game of the USL Cup. It’s the most important game of the season so far for the Latics as they look to move on to the next phase of the Cup and defend the title they won in 2025.

The math for Hartford at this point is simple: win and they’re through to the knockout round. Either three points from a win in regulation, or two points from a draw and a victory on penalties, and they advance as group leaders.

If they don’t take care of business, things would get very complicated but there is even a scenario that would see them advance as group winners even if they lose to Westchester, provided other results go their way.

Brendan Burke and his side aren’t thinking about the edge cases, though. They’re focused on winning.

After a week of heavy rotation, Hartford will field something close to their best 11 on Saturday night. Sebastian Anderson, who has missed two games with a minor injury, should be available again, and players who came off the bench on Wednesday, including Barry Coffey, Michee Ngalina, Arturo Diz Pe and Emmanuel Samadia should be back in the starting eleven as well.

Samuel Careaga, who was wearing a boot at Trinity Health Stadium on Wednesday, is likely to be unavailable for a few more weeks, but otherwise, Burke has much of his firepower available, and it will be on display.

Still he expects a lot of fight from Westchester.

“I expect this stiff fight because they're auditioning to play at this level. So there will be no, I think putting your hand on the brake for them either. I think they'll attack the game the way they have all the group games. They have guys like Jonathan Jimenez, who was awesome for us last year, who's been really good for them so far this year. So we know they can be a dangerous team.They took Rhode Island pretty deep into that game before Rhode Island broke them.”

Westchester continue to be League One strugglers, currently sitting 14th of 17 teams after finishing last a season ago. One of their big problems has been, much like Hartford, scoring goals.

While they have 23 league goals, 14 of those have come in just three games: a pair of 5-1 wins over Corpus Christi and Portland, and a 4-0 win over Greenville. Outside of that, they have just nine goals in 12 games.

And in their only matchup against Championship opposition so far this season, they failed to score, losing 3-0 to RIFC while recording just one shot on target.

While Hartford will like their chances against a team that struggles to score, given their generally excellent defensive record, the bigger question is whether they can harness the sudden attacking burst that saw them come back from 2-nil down to claim a point against Orange County midweek.

The Latics have failed to score in an astonishing ten of their 17 games in all competitions so far this season, and have regularly failed to capitalize on excellent defensive performances by being wasteful in attack.

The last half hour on Wednesday was different. Orange County could simply do nothing to stop Hartford as they poured forward, with the Latics outshooting their opponents 14-5 and keeper Alexander Rando regularly having to be alert to punch away a teasing cross. There was imply an intentionality to the attack that has so often been missing this season, and Hartford’s season really will hinge on whether or not they can find that with more regularity.

A great defense might be the foundation of success, but winning ultimately requires the ability to score some goals, and Hartford will need to show that it wasn’t just a blip.

And make no mistake, winning this game, and advancing in the cup, is a high priority for this team. In 2025, Burke was clear from the beginning, pointing out that the USL Cup provided the shortest path to silverware for any time in either the Championship or League One. After squeaking out of the group stage as one of the two best runners-up, Hartford did the rest, outscoring their opposition 6-1 as they brought home the first piece of silverware in club history.

Hartford’s season so far has been something of a struggle, and a good half hour in a midweek game does not mean the team is even peeking around the corner, much less turning it. But in 2025, advancement in the USL Cup was one of the things that spurred their second half tear, and on Saturday night, the Latics have the chance to kickstart their 2026 campaign in exactly the same way.