SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio FC’s rise to the top of the USL Western Conference in the club’s second season has been one of the biggest stories in the 2017 season, and according to mainstay defender Greg Cochrane it was the conclusion to the end of the club’s first year that helped provide the impetus for the side that enters the USL Game of the Week on ESPNU on Friday night against OKC Energy FC sitting with the second-best record in the league.

After an up-and down first half of the season, as would certainly be expected from an expansion side, SAFC made its way into the top eight in the Western Conference as it won four games and drew two in the middle of its slate. Another three-game winning streak after a brief downturn bolstered those hopes, but the side won only once in its final six games, and fell to Rio Grande Valley FC in its final game of the season to come up two points back of the final berth in the postseason.

“In the middle part of the year we went on a nice run, I think it was six games unbeaten, and then the injury bug hit, just one after another right up the spine of our team,” Cochrane told Mike Watts on Monday in USL Coast 2 Coast on SiriusXM FC. “We don’t make excuses, it’s part of the game and you’ve just got to deal with it, and it was a next man up mentality, and unfortunately we got to the last game needing a win, and we couldn’t pull it off. It was a good learning experience, being an expansion team, but I think all of that is what really pushed us on to this year so far.”

This year there are few concerns about San Antonio’s place in the USL Cup Playoffs as the club starts the second half of its season on Friday night. With the likes of Cochrane, center back Sebastian Ibeagha and goalkeeper Diego Restrepo leading a defense that has conceded the fewest goals in the league this season, the question now is whether SAFC will claim its first piece of silverware at the end of the season.