Roots Shine in 2025 Season Finale, Defeat Lexington SC, 3-0, at Home
USL Oakland Roots

Roots Shine in 2025 Season Finale, Defeat Lexington SC, 3-0, at Home

Published on October 26, 2025 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Oakland Roots News Release


Oakland Roots on game night
Oakland Roots on game night
(Oakland Roots)

It was a golden finish for Roots in 2025, who despite coming into the match having already been eliminated from playoff contention put together one of their most complete performances of the entire season, defeating visiting Lexington SC by a final score of 3-0 at the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday night.

Lexington needed this game. With a win they would have punched their ticket to the 2025 USL Championship playoffs. But Oakland had other plans for the visitors.

Roots weathered an early storm from Lexington, as the early portion of the match saw them deploy an aggressive high press that hemmed Oakland into their own defensive third. But Roots defenders did a good job of disallowing Lexington the ability to turn this pressure into real scoring threats.

In the 19th minute of the match, Oakland opened the scoring in historic fashion when Bobosi Byaruhanga made a furious run up the right wing to keep a play alive before sending a cross to Wolfgang Prentice just outside the top of the box. Prentice chipped the ball past a defender finding Peter Wilson, who made an incredible move to shake a defender before depositing the ball just inside the right post to give Roots a 1-0 lead.

The goal represented Wilson's 18th of the regular season, and earned him the 2025 USL Championship Golden Boot award. It was also his 8th consecutive match with a goal, tying him with Hadji Barry for the all-time league record. As if that weren't enough, the goal also pushed Wilson to 22 goal contributions in 2025, passing Óttar Magnús Karlsson to become the all-time single-season club leader.

Despite the desperation from Lexington following the goal, Roots kept their foot on the gas, limiting opposition scoring opportunities, and continuing to find attacking pressure of their own.

Wolfgang Prentice scored one of his own to push Lexington's season to the brink with only moments remaining in the match when Camden Riley played a cross into the box, finding Prentice all alone with time to take a touch before putting a shot off the keepers gloves and into the twine to make it 2-0 Oakland in the 82nd minute.

Roots put the game to bed in the 89th minute, scoring their third of the match when Peter Wilson capped off an otherworldly season by earning an assist on what turned out to be his very last play of 2025, teeing up Faysal Bettache for his first goal of the year at the death to bring the score to 3-0.

While Oakland's season is over, the club delivered one of the most exciting matches in club history to send 2025 out with a bang.

Talking With Head Coach Benny Feilhaber

What are your thoughts following that match?

Yeah, I'll start by, I'm not gonna talk about the game as much. You guys can ask questions if you'd like, but I'll just say this season's been an honor for me.

I've told you guys this before. It's the first time that I've had the opportunity to coach a first team. I coached with Sporting's second team, which is nothing like this. And I'm very appreciative of the opportunity that I was given. I'm extremely appreciative of the effort that the boys put in. I think we have a lot of top quality people, top quality professionals. I want to also thank the staff that came and worked tirelessly every single day. Both the coaching staff and the support staff. It's been, like I said, an honor being here. It's been an honor getting to know you guys as well, which is part of that. I see you guys as part of the staff, you guys, you know, push the product out there, to the rest of the fans through the media.

And then last, but definitely not least, I feel connected to the fans in Oakland. I never lived in NorCal, I'm a SoCal guy, but I can honestly say that it's a part of me now. And so it's been a great experience for me. I can relate to the fans. I think you guys probably know that from a lot of my press conferences and teams that I've rooted for and the highs and lows. And these fans deserve a winning team, and I obviously hope that they get that. I think they will. And I'll be, regardless of what happens this offseason or into next, I'll forever be a fan and follow Oakland Roots.

So as much as it's not the end that we necessarily wanted in terms of the season, I think it's been an incredible ride with a lot of optimism for the future.

Oakland Roots SC vs Lexington SC

USL Championship | October 25, 2025

Venue: Oakland Coliseum

Kickoff: 7:00 PM PT

Weather: 61 degrees, Cloudy Skies

SCORELINE:

OAK: 3

LEX: 0

SCORING SUMMARY:

OAK: Peter Wilson 19'

OAK: Wolfgang Prentice 82'

OAK: Faysal Bettache 89'

DISCIPLINE SUMMARY:

OAK: Peter Wilson 67' (yellow card)

OAK: Daniel Gomez 73' (yellow card)

LEX: Latif Blessing 75' (yellow card)

LEX: Joseph Hafferty 87' (yellow card)

OAKLAND ROOTS LINEUP: Gagi Margvelashvili, Camden Riley, Daniel Gomez, Wolfgang Prentice (Morey Doner), Peter Wilson (EJ Johnson), Tyler Gibson, Neveal Hackshaw, Bobosi Byaruhanga, Kai Greene (Jürgen Damm), Raphael Spiegel, Faysal Bettache

Unused subs: Kendall McIntosh, Julian Bravo, Ali Elmasnaouy, Thomas Camier, Alejandro Caracheo Luna, Ilya Alekseev

Shots: 12 | Shots On Goal: 4 | Corner Kicks: 3 | Fouls: 15 | Offside: 2 |

LEXINGTON LINEUP: Logan Ketterer, Kendall Burks, Joseph Hafferty, Elio Firmino (Michael Adedokun), Roderick Epps, Blaine Ferri, Jacob Greene, Alfredo Midence (Braudilio Rodrigues), Latif Blessing, Forster Ajago, Cory Burke

Unused subs: Xavier Zengue, Daniel Wu, Malik Henry-Scott, Brooks Thompson, Devon Williams

Shots: 15 | Shots On Goal: 3 | Corner Kicks: 5 | Fouls: 15 | Offside: 2

Check out the Oakland Roots Statistics

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Images from this story

Oakland Roots on game night
Oakland Roots on game night
   



United Soccer League Championship Stories from October 26, 2025


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