FC Tulsa – Sports Radio Service

Oakland Roots forward Wolfgang Prentice heads the ball for a goal against FC Tulsa during the first half of a USL Championship match, Saturday, April 18, 2026, at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, Calif. (Bridget Whitaker – Sports Radio Service).

By Bridget Whitaker (Sports Radio Service staff writer)

OAKLAND– Coming off the strongest start in the Roots history, Oakland tied FC Tulsa in their game on Saturday night. They earned a hard fought draw at the Coliseum, overcoming adversity after being down a man in the first half.

The Roots are in sixth place in the Western Conference with a 2-3-1 record. On the contrary, Tulsa, the defending Conference Champions, sit in ninth place. In the first few minutes, the Roots opened the scoring with Wolfgang Prentice’s header.

This marked Prentice’s fouth goal of the season, just six matches in. Midway through the first half, Neveal Hackshaw cost the Roots an 11th player, being awarded a red card. From this point on FC Tulsa controlled the momentum and applied constant pressure to the Roots defensemen, forcing their keeper Raphael Spiegel to make several crucial saves to preserve the lead heading into half time.

Starting the second half, Tulsa continued to push, creating several chances as they took advantage of an extra player. Their persistence paid off with Bailey Sparks, the newest substitution for Tulsa, scored in the 65th minute to level the game.

Despite relentless pressure late in the game, Spiegel had a standout performance from goal to secure the draw for Oakland. Ryan Martin said a lack of composure made the difference in not being able to capitalize. “Composure is the biggest issue,” Martin said. “We are getting into good places…the good news is that we’re getting to those spots. Now it’s about taking the next step forward.”

The Roots will look to start fresh in their next game vs the Las Vegas Lights FC on Wednesday Apr 22 a 7:00pm PDT kick off at the Oakland Coliseum.

Oakland Roots pose for a pre game team photo before their match against FC Tulsa on Sat Sep 16, 2023 (@oaklandrootssc photo)

Saturday, September 16th, 2023

By Troy Ewers

Hayward, CA – The Oakland Roots face off against FC Tulsa to start a three game homestand with six games left in the season, four out of those six will be home games for Oakland. The Roots find themselves in 7th place of the West, three points clear of the playoff line.

Tulsa got on the board first 10 minutes into the game when Phillip Goodrum knocked a header in the net after receiving a short cross pass into the box and this header made it past Blanchette to put Tulsa up 1-0. The game plan for Oakland seemed more scattered than usual and Tulsa’s whole system was to take advantage of this scattered style of play.

The course of the first half was predominantly focused on setting up possible opportunities, but Oakland made the biggest mistake of the half right before stoppage time when Lindo Mfeka delivered a hard tackle that wasn’t just a clear foul, but resulted in a red card and the Roots had to play with ten men for the remainder of the game.

With only two minutes of stoppage time, the halftime whistle blew before anything could develop and Tulsa held the lead at 1-0, but with that red card on Oakland, Tulsa had the advantage.

The second half was a complete battle of possession, but the odds were evened out when Tulsa got a red card and now both teams were playing with ten guys. From there the rest of the second half played out and Tulsa never conceded.

As the final whistle blew, the game was just like how it started, 1-0 Tulsa and three points secured for Tulsa, which isn’t good for Oakland as they go into these final five games with a huge mountain to climb. The next game will be a home match for Oakland and it will be against Monterey Bay FC and the Roots need a win to secure them in the playoff picture.