By Jon Johnson
There were no heroics by Dothan United on Wednesday night, but the Dragons still remained unbeaten after a scoreless tie with Swarm FC of Marietta, Ga., at Rip Hewes Stadium.
“We were lucky to come away with a point tonight if we’re being honest,” Dothan United coach Ricky Davey said of the point earned for a tie. “It’s important that we rack up the points when we’re not at our best. We’ll take the point and we’ll move on quickly.”
Dothan is now 4-0-1 overall in the South Central Division of the USL2 Southern Conference. The Swarm has three ties in three games played.
“I told the guys you’re not going to win every game, that’s the reality of it,” Davey said. “I thought we lost a little discipline. We’ve been so used to winning, and it probably hasn’t been that tough in terms of the game and the physicality. I think that was the disappointing thing – the lack of discipline and we lacked a little structure.
“That was a very good team … some big players, too. I think we really struggled with the physicality tonight, and that’s unlike us. Maybe four or five games in a row has taken its toll a little bit physically. The Columbus one (2-0 win Saturday night) took a lot out of us and it was a quick turnaround, but no excuses.”
In what was a defensive-oriented game throughout, the Swarm had more scoring opportunities, but Dragons’ goalkeeper Yago Darub was up to the task with six saves.
“”We are going to have to rely on him at times,” Davey said. “We would like not to all of the time, but again that back four did a really good job.”
With about eight minutes left in regulation, the Dragons had their best scoring opportunity of the night when Oskar Kaufmann got off a strong shot that was knocked down, then got off another shot from the rebound that was saved again by Swarm goalkeeper Dane Muntane.
“I thought that was Oskar’s moment to put one away,” Davey said. “But it works both ways. I talked about Yago being good, and I thought he (Muntane) was fantastic tonight, too. Both teams had chances, and they had more chances, I think, to win the game than we did.
“I’ve talked about winning in different ways. Ultimately, I think that’s a major part of growth for us – can we be a little bit more direct, and even against the physical teams, create a little bit more. We weren’t able to do that tonight. I think that’s the reflection point.”
Davey is pleased with where his team stands five games into the regular season.
“If you would have told us before we played a game and kicked a ball that we would have had 13 out of 15 points, we would be pretty happy with that,” Davey said. “This team has a lot of expectations from the inside – from the staff and the players themselves.
“At the end of the day, we’re unbeaten through five in the league and we’re almost halfway through.”
Dothan returns to Rip Hewes Stadium on Saturday night at 7 for a non-conference match against Seleccion.
