Monterey Bay Comeback Falls Short at Home
USL Monterey Bay FC

Monterey Bay Comeback Falls Short at Home

Published on August 7, 2025 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Monterey Bay FC News Release


SEASIDE, California - Monterey Bay FC (6-9-4, 22 points) came back from one goal down just to fall 3-2 to the current Western Conference leaders FC Tulsa (10-3-5, 35 points) on Hospitality Night at Cardinale Stadium, presented by Monterey Marriott. Johnny Klein scored in his Crisp-and-Kelp debut and Luke Ivanovic added his fourth goal of the season to give Monterey Bay the edge in the second half, but a familiar tale of two late goals from FC Tulsa flipped the match on its head once again.

Monterey Bay took just three minutes to create its first opportunity of the night. Xavi Gnaulati drew a foul just outside the box to the right of the half circle. Ivanovic stood over the ball to take and went for goal with his right foot, but the attempt missed over the crossbar. In the 12th minute, FC Tulsa added the first score of the game after Monterey Bay botched a clearance in their own end. The first shot was saved by Nico Campuzano, but Alexander Dalou cleaned up the rebound and buried it into the back of the net to give the visitors the early 1-0 lead. Monterey Bay responded with dangerous possession deep in FC Tulsa's half in the 17th minute. The shot by Wes Fonguck was blocked by a defender's hand, but the arm was ruled to be by the defender's side and a penalty was not given. Four minutes later, Gnaulati created space for himself to fire off a left-footed shot from outside the box, but it missed just wide of the near post.

Monterey Bay came out with renewed energy in the second half and took all of six minutes to construct an incredible attack on the counter. After the team did well to defend a long throw-in, Gnaulati neatly flicked the ball over a Tulsa defender en route to leading a brilliant counter. Gnaulati played a perfectly weighted ball to Adrian Rebollar on his right side, who then played it on again to Ivanovic on the right side of the box. With his first touch, Ivanovic whipped a grassburner across the six yard box and in his Crisp-and-Kelp debut, Klein made a fantastic run to slot it home at the far post. Eight minutes after recording an assist, Ivanovic added a goal of his own to give Monterey Bay the 2-1 lead. Gnaulati and Sami Guediri executed a give-and-go to play Guediri down the left sideline. As he neared the edge of the box, Guediri crossed the ball into the box towards Ivanovic who then fired it inside the far post with his first touch to cue the light display at Cardinale Stadium for a second time in the span of 10 minutes.

FC Tulsa answered in the 71st minute with a left-footed goal from Stefan Lukic to level the match at 2-2. Then in an ironic and unfortunate twist of fate in the 86th minute, FC Tulsa was awarded a penalty for a hand ball in the box and Arthur Rogers had no trouble converting to put the visitors in front by a final score of 3-2.

Up Next

Monterey Bay heads up to Sacramento for a derby with Republic FC at Heart Health Park in the state's capital on Saturday, August 9. Kickoff is set for 8:00 p.m. PT, with live streaming available on CBS Sports Golazo Network via Paramount+, the CBS Sports app, CBSSports.com, and Pluto TV.

Additional Notes

Missing the match due to injury were goalkeeper Sam Gomez (lower body) and defender Jacob Muir (lower body).

Information

Date: August 6, 2025

Venue: Cardinale Stadium; Seaside, California

Weather: Clear and 63°F

Attendance: 2,722

Scoring Summary: 1 2 F

Monterey Bay FC 0 2 2

FC Tulsa 1 2 3

TUL: Alex Dalou 12'

MB: Johnny Klein (Luke Ivanovic) 51'

MB: Luke Ivanovic (Sami Guediri) 59'

TUL: Stefan Lukic (Owen Damm) 71'

TUL: Arthur Rogers (penalty) 86'

Lineups

Monterey Bay FC (4-3-3): Nico Campuzano; Sam Guediri, Nico Gordon, Alex Lara, Joel Garcia Jr.; Pierce Gallaway, Wesley Fonguck (Anton Søjberg, 64'), Xavi Gnaulati (Ethan Bryant, 90'); Adrian Rebollar, Johnny Klein (Mayele Malango, 76'), Luke Ivanovic (Ilijah Paul, 76')

Subs not used: Dallas Odle, Carlos Guzmán, Miles Lyons

FC Tulsa (5-2-3): Johan Peñaranda; Lucas Stauffer, Lamar Batista, Abdoulaye Cissoko, Arthur Rogers, Harvey St Clair (Owen Damm, 63'); Boubacar Diallo, Marcos Cerato; Giordano Colli (Stefan Lukic, 63') (Eliot Goldthorp, 90+6'), Alex Dalou (Jamie Webber, 63'), Taylor Calheira (Trevor Amann, 75')

Subs not used: Michael Creek, Patrick Seagrist

Stats Summary: MB / TUL

Shots: 10 / 8

Shots on Goal: 4 / 5

Saves: 2 / 2

Corner Kicks: 3 / 5

Fouls: 23 / 24

Possession: 59.1% / 40.9%

Misconduct Summary

TUL: Harvey St. Clair (caution) 24'

TUL: Alexander Dalou (caution) 27'

MB: Joel Garcia Jr. (caution) 73'

TUL: Trevor Amann (caution) 80'

MB: Ilijah Paul (caution) 83'

TUL: Boubacar Diallo (caution) 83'

TUL: Johan Peñaranda (caution) 90+6'

Officials

Referee: Edson Carvajal

Assistant Referee: Matt Trotter

Assistant Referee: Ricardo Ocampo

Fourth Official: Tim Wagner

Cardinale Stadium; Seaside, California

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Head Coach Jordan Stewart

On the match:

"I thought we started well. Obviously conceded a sloppy goal, an individual mistake. Then going into half we kind of spoke to the boys that we're still in it and if we score early then we can gain momentum. And going into the second half we were able to do that and then get the second. It's disappointing because when you look back, all three goals could have been prevented. It's just individual mistakes that for some reason we keep persisting on doing throughout the season. I don't think they broke us down, they're good at winning second balls. Overall, bitterly disappointed to lose, but we have 11 games left so we have to just keep on trying to compete."

On Johnny Klein's debut:

"I knew Johnny from his time in MLS NEXT Pro and knew he is a guy that, one, is hard-working. He's got a good work rate and he's a good character, so that's someone that you always want to get in the building, And then obviously his quality on the field. You can see he's always hungry and he's always looking to either get goals or get assists. He gets forward and creates opportunities in the box. Super happy for him to get his first goal on his debut. It kind of put a shadow on his goal because we ended up losing the game. But for him personally, I'm super happy with the way he played."

Midfielder Johnny Klein

On his club debut:

"It was an excellent atmosphere tonight with the home supporters, I knew they would show up for us. To grab a goal on my debut, that's what I'm looking to do when I come in. That's kind of the dream start, but it's tough to drop points against the conference leaders there, but it shows that we can play with anyone. We are competitive with them, we played them really hard. It was just some of those key moments late in the game that we're looking to clean up."

On the intensity shift going into the second half:

"Coach said it at halftime - the first half was really positive, though we found ourselves down a goal. We wanted to come out and start the second half strong. He said if we get a goal in the first ten, another one's going to come and then the snowball effect will start. Luckily I got the first one, and then Luke [Ivanovic] had a good finish off Sami [Guediri]'s cross, so we thought things were going really well. But Tulsa's a good opponent and they kind of hit us back a little bit. Overall, I'm happy with how the boys performed and we've just got to look to the next one because it's a quick turnaround."

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United Soccer League Championship Stories from August 7, 2025


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