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Monday, July 21, 2025

Cato's OKC Energy held to USL draw

by

Nigel Simon
1830 days ago
20200718
Cordell Cato

Cordell Cato

Soca Warriors.net/John Todd

Na­tion­al winger Cordell Cato came on as a sec­ond-half sub­sti­tute for Ok­la­homa City En­er­gy FC in their 1-1 'Black Gold Der­by' draw with ri­vals FC Tul­sa in the Unit­ed Soc­cer League (USL) Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion at Taft Sta­di­um, Ok­la­homa City, on Mon­day night.

The vis­it­ing FC Tul­sa cre­at­ed their best chance of the first half in the 39th minute when a quick ball for­ward re­leased Suarez in be­hind on­ly for En­er­gy FC’s Chris­t­ian Ibeagha to re­cov­er and block a chance to shoot.

A minute lat­er, how­ev­er, En­er­gy FC struck as a quick move through mid­field found Zach El­lis-Hay­den in space on the right side.

A low de­liv­ery to the top of the six-yard area was all the in­vi­ta­tion Jaime Chavez need­ed, and the vet­er­an strik­er tucked home a first-time fin­ish.

On the stroke of half­time, how­ev­er, Tul­sa found an an­swer.

Af­ter Lebo Molo­to was re­leased in­to space in the left cor­ner, his float­ed cross found Mar­lon at the back post for a good down­ward head­er that Da Cos­ta re­act­ed first to, and poked home a fin­ish for his sec­ond goal of the sea­son.

The 28-year-old Care­nage-born Cato, for­mer­ly of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's San Jose Earth­quake and Seat­tle Sounders, came on for Owayne Gor­don in the 46th minute.

How­ev­er, Cato, who al­so rep­re­sent­ed the Char­lotte In­de­pen­dence in the USL and his team-mates found the go­ing tough as chances proved hard­er to come by in the sec­ond half. In the end, how­ev­er, ho­n­ours end­ed even as the long­time ri­vals kicked off a new era.

In an­oth­er match, Shan­non Gomez was not in­clud­ed in Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic FC's 18-man squad as they squan­dered a 3-1 lead in an en­ter­tain­ing 3-3 draw with Taco­ma De­fi­ance at Pa­pa Mur­phy’s Park.

On Wednes­day, T&T trio Tris­ton Hodge, Du­ane Muck­ette and Le­ston Paul all saw ac­tion in their Mem­phis 901 FC 3-0 loss to Birm­ing­ham Le­gion FC at BB­VA Com­pass Field.

Muck­ette was sub­sti­tut­ed off for Brazil­ian Rafael Mentzin­gen at half­time, Hodge came off the bench to re­place for Pierre Se­bastien da Sil­va in the 62nd minute, and Paul was in­tro­duced in the 75th minute for Jean-Christo­pher Kof­fi.

On Sat­ur­day, Noah Pow­der and reign­ing cham­pi­ons Re­al Mon­archs will be aim­ing to re­bound from their shock 1-0 loss to San Diego Loy­al on Sat­ur­day last when they bat­tle Col­orado Springs Switch­backs.

Ne­veal Hack­shaw will al­so be keen to add to his win­ning strike ver­sus Saint Louis FC as In­dy Eleven faces Sport­ing Kansas City II, and the trio of Paul, Hodge and Muck­ette and Mem­phis trav­el to At­lanta Unit­ed II.

Le­land Archer and Kier­ron Ma­son will be the last T&T play­ers to see ac­tion in the open­ing week when their Charleston Bat­tery bat­tles Birm­ing­ham Le­gion FC, on Sun­day, while Gomez’ Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic meets Reno 1868 FC.

Over­all, 11 T&T in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ballers will fea­ture in the league’s re­vised sched­ule for the 2020 USL Cham­pi­onship sea­son.


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