Colorado Springs Switchbacks 1 - Las Vegas Lights FC 0 - Three Things from a Disappointment at Altitude

The Lights fell to a one-nil defeat away from home in Colorado Springs this evening. It was a disappointing defeat, and not just because that makes it only 3 points from their last 5 games.

Here are three takeaways from the match:

1. You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don't Take (and 90% of the Shots You Do)

The real disappointment from this evening doesn't just come from the run of bad results - those happen - but from the lack of threat from the attack. At no point this evening did the Lights really trouble the Colorado Springs keeper.

In fact, if Colorado Springs had chosen to play an inanimate carbon rod in goal this evening, they still would have gotten a draw.

That's because despite taking an acceptable (but not great) 9 shots tonight, the Lights could only get 1 of those on target. So in spite of the fact that the Lights more or less matched Colorado Springs for possession, it really never felt like a goal was coming.

2.  Forwards with a Night to Forget

As mentioned above, the Lights attack really didn't have their shooting boots on this evening. One player that will want to forget this evening as soon as possible is Sammy Ochoa, who led the line.

He cut a particularly frustrated figure up front, always trying to get involved, but with nothing ever really coming off for him. He had one or two looks at goal, and wasn't quite able to make them count. Otherwise, his touch let him down a bit, and he was unable to really influence the game (though to be fair to him, he was not given great service by his midfield, and had to more or less feed on scraps).

The moment that will haunt him, however, was late in the second half. The Lights swung in a dangerous corner kick, and Garduno did a beautiful job of getting free and getting a header. It looked like it was going into the far corner, with the keeper beaten.

Unfortunately, that's where Ochoa had gambled and made his run. He was unable to adjust to the ball, and ended up doing Colorado Springs a favor by clearing it off of their line.

Again, to be fair, the ball came in pretty hot, and there wasn't a whole lot of time to react and adjust his body out of the way. But that's not going to stop him from thinking about it for a few days.

3.  Ferriño and the Defense Could Only do So Much

In the end, the winning goal for Colorado Springs came off of a bit of a fortunate bounce inside our box. Their forward tried to dribble our defender (Garduno I think) in the middle of our penalty box, and Garduno was able to get a touch to the ball. Unfortunately, it deflected right back off of the Colorado Springs striker and popped out into the forward's path almost perfectly for him to poke home.

It was unfortunate, but to be honest, the goal had been in the post for a long time. It came not too long after Colorado Springs had a string of about 5 corner kicks in a row. And throughout the night, the defense (and Ferriño in particular) were kept really busy putting out fires. The keeper earned his salary with a few important saves and clearances (and we kind of avoided a goal earlier when Ferriño really sold a "foul" and the referee bought it).

So, despite the unlucky bounce, the fact remains that if you let the opposition spend enough time in your attacking third, and let them get the ball in your box too often, eventually something is going to go against you.

The Lights now get to come home, sort of, as they will be facing Tucson in the Open Cup at UNLV's soccer field on Saturday.

Let's hope we can get back to winning ways.