Oluwaseyi Tallies First Four-Goal Match in SAFC History and Moves into League Lead with 13 Goals
SAN ANTONIO (July 29, 2023) – San Antonio FC came from behind to defeat Hartford Athletic 5-2 tonight, behind a club-record four-goal match from Tani Oluwaseyi. The win moves SAFC to 10-4-7 on the season with 37 points, good for second in the USL Championship Western Conference.
Hartford opened the scoring in the 10th minute, marking the third-straight match with SAFC failing to score first.
San Antonio answered quickly, with Oluwaseyi scoring his 10th and 11th goals of the season in the 15th and 30th minutes to take the 2-1 lead.
Jorge Hernandez assisted on both goals to tie Oluwaseyi for the team lead with five, four of which have gone to Oluwaseyi. The total is good to tie both players for second-most in the league.
Hartford would answer back in the 34th, scoring to make it a 2-2 match heading into halftime.
The scoreline would hold until the 74th minute, when Justin Dhillon headed in a goal to put San Antonio ahead 3-2. Then within five minutes, Oluwaseyi added another to make it a 4-2 lead.
The goal came on an assist from Dhillon, and gave Oluwaseyi his third hat trick of the year and second in the month of July. Oluwaseyi joins Matt Fondy in 2015 as the only players in USL Championsip history to record three hat tricks in a single season.
Then in stoppage time, the Minnesota United loanee added a fourth. Oluwaseyi stepped in front of a Hartford pass and buried the shot to make it a 5-2 final, and bring his season goal total to 13.
Oluwaseyi’s 13 scores lead the league and are the most in a single regular season in SAFC history, coming in just 12 matches. The St. John’s product has averaged a goal every 77.7 minutes since joining San Antonio on loan in May.
Next Up
San Antonio FC plays the next two on the road, starting Saturday at Phoenix Rising FC. Kickoff is set for 9:00 p.m. CT, and can be streamed on ESPN+.
Postgame Notes:
- San Antonio FC moves to 10-4-7 (37 points) on the season to remain second in the USL Championship Western Conference.
- Midfielder PC started his first match since April 15 at Louisville City FC.
- Forward Tani Oluwaseyi’s four goals in one match are a new club best, and his 13 goals on the season are the most in a single regular season in SAFC history.
- Oluwaseyi’s 13 goals this season lead the league, despite appearing in only 12 matches.
- Oluwaseyi has scored a goal for every 77.7 minutes played in his 12 matches this season.
- Oluwaseyi’s four goals make three matches this season with three or more goals, becoming the second player in USL Championship history to record three hat tricks in a single season.
- Oluwaseyi finishes the month of July with two hat tricks, eight goals and two assists.
- Midfielder Jorge Hernandez’s assists were his fourth and fifth of the season, tied for the team lead with Oluwaseyi. Additionally, four of Hernandez’s assists this year have gone to Oluwaseyi.
- Forward Justin Dhillon scored and assisted tonight, bringing his career total to 15 goals and 15 assists with SAFC.
- Midfielder Rida Zouhir assisted on Dhillon’s goal, his third of the year.
- San Antonio finished the match with a club-record 32 shots, including 12 on target.
- After allowing eight shots from Hartford in the first half, SAFC held the visitors without a shot after halftime.
Attendance: 6,510
Quotes:
Head Coach Alen Marcina
(On the win…)
“Domination from start to finish. We came out the aggressors, with and without the ball, pressing actions were fantastic. The commitment to move the ball fast, getting behind and then get numbers in the box was fantastic. Proud of the players response from last week. Last week, we said I think Monday or Tuesday was we were just waiting for things to happen, where tonight we made things happen. And true story we said at that means a 5-4 game, a 6-4 game and it doesn’t matter. I’m glad we said it because they scored first but we were dominating. Error on our end, have to learn, have to be better for it. But we were dominating, the intensity did not shift. For that reason, I’m incredibly proud of the guys and it was a well-earned, well deserved three points.”
(On responding after last week’s loss…)
“Mentality monsters, right? Every game we play like it’s our last game. Like it’s a final. Play each half like it’s our last half. That’s what we’ve been doing since 2020 now that doesn’t always mean that you’re going to get the result, but that has been the mentality and like I said last game, don’t want to keep bringing that up but there was a slight shift, it wasn’t bad like if you look at objectively we did have 20 shots so it wasn’t all too bad, but the mentality wasn’t there from start to finish and we learn from that that was the biggest challenge tonight, can we demonstrate those behaviors from start to finish and the guys definitely did and they got rewarded for it.”
(On if he was nervous after the early goal from Hartford…)
“No and here’s the reason why, I waited for the first minute [after allowing the goal] to see what we were going to do the first minute. Were the heads gonna drop? We were dominating before that, they didn’t hurt us, and it’s a mistake it happens. Don’t like it, believe me. I don’t like conceding goals, neither do the players down there. But right away that first minute says nope, we had a chance you don’t know in that moment if we’re coming back or we’re going to win the game, we’ve got a chance because the mentality stayed as it was from the first whistle of the game.”
Forward Justin Dhillon
(On scoring off the bench…)
“I think you know at that point in the game I was coming in as an attacker trying to make a difference. Alen was pretty clear with us that he felt that guys off the bench didn’t contribute enough so this week going into it I had it in the back of my mind that I needed to make a difference for the team and thankfully a great ball came in from Rida and got on the end of it and from that point on I think the guys got better confidence and we closed out the game pretty well.”
(On if the team needed last week’s loss…)
“I don’t know if I’d say it needed to happen, I think that the fact that it did and the fact that we were able to just address everything, have a really difficult week of training and kind of get a kick in the butt, I mean it’s a championship team. We compete every year for that, that’s what our goals are and at the end of the day performances like that are not gonna get us there. It happened last week, we learned from it, we responded, and now it’s about taking that response and moving forward to the next game and the one afterwards.”
Forward Tani Oluwaseyi
(On if he feels like he’s going to score more once he sees one go in…)
“To be honest, every game when that first one goes in – I always expect to score whenever I play. But when that first one there’s kind of like a ‘ok, now we can kind of relax and keep playing.’ So usually for me when I see the first one go in I just get hungry to try to get one more. And I was able to get three more today so, pretty good.”
(On whether last week’s loss contributed to tonight’s performance…)
“I think all around the board it was a tough week of training for every single player, we all had to do some self reflection, look ourselves in the mirror, and just say to ourselves that that just wasn’t good enough. That’s not SAFC standards, that’s not the standard that we set this season and not the standard that Alen and the rest of the staff have set since they got here. So it’s a matter of doing that self reflection and saying to each other ‘hey, can’t happen again. That was just a blip and it’ll never happen again.’ I think everybody came here to give 110 percent, they played really hard. Every guy who came on played just as hard as the guy that went off so it was kind of a collective effort.”