Las Vegas Lights FC Head Coach Dennis Sanchez
Thoughts on the match and clinching playoffs for the first time in club history…
Orange County is a good side. They’ve seen a lot of growth under Danny Stone and just what he’s brought to them in a short period of time.
We knew it was going to be a difficult test. I think that there are moments where we could have played with a little bit more tempo. I felt like we had enough chances to win, but look, this is a difficult league and you have a team on the other side that’s fighting for their lives to make the playoffs.
And I think that we’re now 22 games in and where we’ve lost once in the last 22? The guys are rolling. When you get into playoffs, anything can happen. We’re gonna continue to take it one game at a time, but really proud of the guys and achieving the first objective of the year.
The club has been around for eight years now. It’s the first time this city has had professional soccer playoffs for Las Vegas…
Yeah, it’s a proud moment. The message at the beginning of the year was to begin a new era here.
We talked with players from day one and my message to the guys tonight, I showed him pictures of all the times that they had been in and around the fans. And there’s fans that have been here since day one. So to give them joy, to celebrate that tonight in front of the home crowd you can’t ask for much more.
Quick thoughts on Khori Bennett’s goal from the first half, assisted by Solomon Asante…
It’s everything that we work on. I think that we want to put our dangerous players in good positions. Khori has had a chip on his shoulder all year and continues to find his goals.
It was a really good team goal and we’ll continue to build off that.
Three games left. The team currently sits in second place in the Western Conference. What are the goals for the rest of the regular season as you create a good run into the playoffs?
I think we want to continue to take it one game at a time. Obviously we can earn a position now where maybe we can rotate some players and get some guys back fully healthy. But at the same time, the most important thing is that we continue to build momentum and go into the playoffs as strong as possible.
Charlie Adams club captain back from a bit of an injury layoff. What does it mean for him to get back in the match tonight in the second half?
Charlie has been a leader for us on and off the field all year. Even when he was out with injuries, he continued to have top professionalism helping the guys around him. We preach collective process all the time. And I can wholeheartedly say that every player in the locker room and the guy that’s played the most minutes, the least amount of minutes has helped us get to where we are.
