An early breakthrough wasn’t enough for Phoenix Rising to walk away from Weidner Field with a result, as the Colorado Springs Switchbacks came back to win 3-1 in dominating fashion.

That result leaves Rising sitting in 9th place in the Western Conference standings after playing half of their matches for 2026, while most of their rivals in the table have games in hand.

An early Phoenix Rising lead

It took just four minutes for Gunnar Studenhofft to put Phoenix Rising on top.

Daniel Flores’ long ball forward found Studenhofft just outside the penalty area. Switchbacks goalkeeper Christian Herrera was off his line, opening up an opportunity for the Cayman forward to chip it over his head.

That goal, just 3 minutes and 39 seconds into the match, is Rising’s quickest goal of the season.

Under siege

Since taking the lead, though, Phoenix Rising had very little to offer.

In the first half, Colorado Springs enjoyed 72 percent of possession, and over 47 percent of gameplay took place in Rising’s half. Aided by poor distribution at the back — Rising gave up possession eight times in their own third before the break — Colorado Springs took 15 shots in the first half, eventually finding their breakthrough in the 34th minute off the boot of Adrien Perez.

While the second half may have been played in a more balanced manner, the hosts took the lead off a corner just minutes after play resumed, reducing their need to pressure Rising in the same way.

Phoenix still lacked in creativity, though. Of the six shots Rising took in the second half, three came in stoppage time despite the team chasing the game for most of the second half. None of the squad’s efforts other than Gunnar Studenhofft’s opener were on target, and when Perez found the net for a second time in the 79th minute, the game felt out of reach for Phoenix.

Injury updates

Phoenix Rising entered this match off an extended break, and would have hoped to use that spell to get injured players back into the fold.

One player, Rafael Czichos, did return to the pitch, making a substitute appearance in the second half to mark his first league appearance since March.

However, several players joined the injury list ahead of this match. Damian Rivera, Collin Smith and Aleksandar Vukovic were all listed as injured prior to Saturday’s match against Colorado Springs, joining Hope Avayevu, Charlie Dennis and Juan Carvajal. Luke Biasi also missed the match through suspension after receiving a red card against Oakland.

Owain’s take

Mention the Fourth of July, and fireworks immediately come to mind. There were no fireworks in Phoenix Rising’s performance, however, as the squad offered up potentially one of its worst showings of the season.

The first half in Weidner Field could have gone so, so differently. Just minutes in, Gunnar Studenhofft found the breakthrough and you start to wonder: could they pull this one off on the road?

Alas, it wasn’t to be. If you look at the shots, and the possession numbers, you’d almost wonder if Rising was simply sitting back and trying to defend their lead. I’m not sure that was exactly the plan, though. It had a lot more to do with the fact that Phoenix Rising simply couldn’t find a way to hold onto the ball at all. The result was wave after wave after wave of Switchbacks pressure, and so it was no surprise at all when they finally found their equalizer. Honestly, the surprise was that they’d only found the one goal.

The second half may not have been as bad, but Colorado Springs had no need to make it be that way. They took the lead early, doubled their advantage halfway through, and got to enjoy just how impotent Phoenix Rising looked on the night.

Perhaps this is a bit harsh on the team out on the field. They were heavily reduced in number, with Eziah Ramirez the starter at right-back and only four non-academy products on the bench. Of those, Chituru Odunze is a goalkeeper, Dominique Badji and Kelvin Arase have been working their way back in from injury, and Rafael Czichos was making his first appearance back after a lengthy bout of illness. There wasn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre, and as the game progressed, the squad wasn’t left with a lot of choice in how it made changes.

But that injury list, expanding as it always seems to do, is causing me real concern once again. We’re now 17 months into this seemingly perpetual crisis of missing large numbers of players through injury at the same time. There isn’t any explanation for quite why, of all teams, it’s Phoenix Rising that suffers through this.

For some of those players, it is genuinely bad luck that has caused them to be sidelined, and at any given point in time, having a bit of an injury crisis can simply be a case of misfortune. But after 17 months, we’re expected to believe there isn’t any particular reason why it’s happening.

Unless somehow, some way this club has done something to truly wind up the Lord above, I’m afraid that with a sample size this large, it’s simply not coming off as credible any more.

Just because the club may not know why it is suffering constantly with injuries doesn’t mean that there isn’t an underlying reason. And the longer they go without working out what exactly that reason is, the more concerning it is for the results on field in the long term. There is talent in this team, even if we can still have questions about parts of it. But if you’re permanently fielding a weakened side and hamstringing your ability to make changes mid-game because there aren’t enough players to go around, you are going to artificially limit your own ceiling.

The USL Championship Western Conference is tight. There are very few points separating most of the teams in this division, and that’s going to play a big factor in the end of this season. For now, exactly halfway through their year, Phoenix Rising does not occupy a playoff spot, though the upper part of the table remains in relative reach.

But if this club can’t find out a way to get its best players out on the field at the same time with any consistency, I fear that we will, like last year, be going into the final day and asking the question of if results could see them miss out on the postseason.

Top image: Isaiah J. Downing/Switchbacks FC