The Richmond Kickers appear to have adopted a zero tolerance policy as they turn toward the do-or-die portion of the USL-2 soccer season.
The Kickers, who play host to the Wilmington Hammerheads tonight in a game that will identify the USL-2 regular-season champion, haven't surrendered a goal in their past four matches. Three of those matches, including last Saturday's 1-0 victory at Wilmington, were played against league opponents.
"[Forward Matthew Delicate] and I were talking about it a few weeks ago," said Kickers goalkeeper Ronnie Pascale. "I said something along the lines of, 'We've got four league games left. If we win them all, we'll win the championship.'
"Deli said, 'Well, if you give us four shutouts, we should win them all.' I said, 'I'll see what I can do about that.'"
Pascale was joking. The veteran of 11 professional seasons leads USL-2 in goalkeeper victories (11) and is tied for the lead in shutouts (8). But he is quick to insist that Richmond's defensive surge has been an 11-man effort. Vital, he said, has been the steady development of central defenders Yomby William and Henry Kalungi, both of whom were new to the club when the season began.
He said William, from Cameroon, and Kalungi, from Uganda, "were unbelievable" in last week's victory over the Hammerheads.
Kickers coach Leigh Cowlishaw said he was confident from the beginning that his club, now 11-3-5, had the weapons to dominate defensively. His faith didn't waver when the Kickers struggled in April and early May, tying their first four home matches and enduring a bitter early defeat on the road at Bermuda. With familiarity has come consistency, he said. And with consistency has come success.
"This is who we are; this is the way we're capable of playing," Cowlishaw said. "When we're at our best - when we're not giving up foolish goals or making errors that create opportunities [for an opponent] - this is what can happen."
That is the good news. The bad news: The last team to crack the Kickers' defense was Wilmington. The Hammerheads scored three second-half goals in a 3-2 home-field conquest of Richmond on July 22.
Cowlishaw said that outcome, Richmond's only loss since mid-June, was disappointing but not discouraging.
"The ironic thing is, we probably played better that night than we have in any of our last 10 games," Cowlishaw said. "When I look at our last 10 games, frankly, I'd say we deserved to win that one the most."
Two of Wilmington's goals, he said, were created by magnificent individual efforts: 19and 20-yard shots that hit all-but-inaccessible targets.
"That's soccer," Cowlishaw said. "It's not a perfect science. It never will be. Sometimes [an opponent] is going to produce moments like that - moments of brilliance that you simply have no answer for."
Contact Vic Dorr Jr. at (804) 649-6442 or vdorr@timesdispatch.com.
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