Oakland Roots edge Phoenix Rising 4-3 in seven-goal second half thriller

Once Peter Wilson was hauled down in the area, the game turned from cautious to chaotic and never really came back. Oakland Roots SC outlasted Phoenix Rising FC 4-3 at Phoenix Rising Stadium after all seven goals arrived in the second half, with Wilson driving the decisive stretch and Phoenix unable to stop the bleeding once the scoring started.

The Roots struck first in the 49th minute when Wilson converted from the penalty spot, then doubled the lead seven minutes later when Wilson slipped a pass across the box and Danny Trejo finished against his former club. Phoenix answered through Ihsan Sacko’s penalty, his fifth league conversion from the spot and his ninth regular-season goal, then drew level in the 72nd minute when Diego Gómez volleyed home Sacko’s cross. Oakland absorbed the punch and answered immediately. Florian Valot headed in Wolfgang Prentice’s cross in the 74th minute, and two minutes later Prentice set up Wilson for his second goal and a 4-2 lead.

Phoenix kept swinging. Kelvin Arase pulled one back in the 90th minute to make it 4-3, but the late push arrived too late to save a defense that had been stretched and exposed for nearly the entire second half. Oakland even lost Trejo to a stoppage-time red card, yet still closed out the result that the club called a “get-back” game and an “instant classic.”

The result mattered well beyond one wild night in Arizona. Oakland snapped a four-game league winless run and beat Phoenix in the series for the first time since 2022, while Wilson moved into a tie for second in the league scoring chart with nine goals. Prentice’s two-assist night further underlined why his April Player of the Month form was no fluke, and it gave Oakland a road win that said as much about composure as finishing.

Phoenix, meanwhile, finally scored three times for the first time in more than two months and still walked away empty. Arase did not sugarcoat the start, saying, “Sometimes we just start sloppy,” and the numbers backed him up: Phoenix was at the halfway point of its 2026 league season at 4-5-5, sixth in the Western Conference and four points out of second, with another league match set for July 4 at Colorado Springs after the Mental Health break. In a game that became a test of nerve, Oakland held together better when the match broke apart.