For the third time this season, Rising is set set to face San Diego Loyal.

So far, both teams have split one win apiece. Rising took the first with relative ease, keeping a clean sheet in the process. The second fixture couldn’t have gone more differently, with a first half Rubio Rubin hat-trick lifting the visitors to a 3-2 victory.

“I think they caught us a little by surprise,” Rising goalkeeper Zac Lubin said. “They obviously have always been a very good defensive team. This whole season, they’ve given up very few goals. John Kempin has quite a few clean sheets. So now they’ve added those attacking players, they’re a whole different beast, and you see that in the run of form they’re on.”

Those new additions had helped Loyal remain unbeaten in the four matches prior, but Rising’s coach Rick Schantz thinks that everything clicked for the clash at Casino Arizona Field.

“That was probably their best game of the year,” Schantz said. “Their movement, their spacing, their aggressiveness. I thought, top-to-bottom, it was one of their best performances.”

Hat-trick hero Rubin was one of those new additions. He recently joined from Tijuana after a loan spell with Dorados de Sinaloa, and has appeared for the U.S. national team in the past.

Attacking up the right wing, Rubin was often in the perfect spot to take advantage of San Diego’s attacks.

“The biggest problem we had is their overload on the right hand side,” Schantz said. “So they push [Jack] Metcalf high, and they let Rubin have some freedom. He comes in the pocket, but they still keep two on your center-backs. So we really struggled on our left-hand side dealing with the three-v-two.”

While Lubin admits that the first half hat-trick is something he’d rather forget, he couldn’t help but recognize the talent that Rubin brought to the match.

“They’re so dynamic going forward,” Lubin said. “You see Rubin is so composed on the ball, picks his spot, and he finished really well.”

Don’t just look to the one Loyal player to cause trouble, though. Although he is an injury doubt after hurting himself in the reverse fixture, Alejandro Guido, who recently joined on loan from LAFC, could also be a problem for Rising.

“He plays as a 10, but he gets high on the line, and they rotate their midfielders through that front line,” Schantz said. “If he gets through that pocket between our midfield and our centre-backs, and can turn, he’s very good. He’s able to turn a player one-v-one quite easily. If that happens, then he’s running at your back four, and they still have Rubin, Miguel Berry, [Morgan] Hackworth out wide and usually Metcalf, so it creates a front line of four.

“When you have five running at four, things usually don’t turn out very well. So we have to adjust for that, and make sure that we keep the ball in front of us and don’t be so cavalier thinking that we can solve every problem numbers down.”

San Diego may have caught Rising by surprise once, but Phoenix is keen to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

“I think now that we’ve seen them, and played against it, and had an opportunity to scout them, we’ve come up with a really good gameplan to counter them,” Lubin said.

So what exactly do Rising need to look at changing for the Wednesday fixture?

“Playing in our 4-3-3 system, when we go out to press with our 10s, it opens up a lot of space behind them at times,” Schantz said. “I think we have to be a little bit better about getting the whole team across the field when we want to pressure the ball, and not being so expansive in our defensive pressure. At the same time, later in the game, when we went to a man-to-man system, I think you saw how talented our group was. We can deal with their players when we’re man-to-man, so it’ll be a good matchup. I’m excited.”

Now in the middle of a stretch of three matches in eight days, the spotlight is also turning on Schantz to make sure his squad is fit heading into the playoffs.

“[We’re] going to have to rotate some of the players, and be able to evaluate the team and get another rotation in on Saturday,” he said. “We trust all the players that are here, so we’ve talked about our depth all year long and now’s the chance for some of those guys to come through.”

Those tweaks may not be restricted to the players. Rising’s coach, who by his own admission has a fairly set playing style, is contemplating a few surprises in tomorrow’s match.

“We’ll do some things a little bit differently, because we’re on the road,” Schantz said. “Just to kind of test it out a little bit, we might change the system. But it gives us an opportunity just to look at some things differently this match.”

Yet while tactical and personnel changes on a short week may cause a headache for the coaching staff, there’s a slightly different outlook when it comes to the players.

“Obviously you can’t do it consecutively every time, but I love these kind of weeks,” Lubin said. “Play Saturday, regen Sunday, get a little session in. We’re traveling, playing. It’s just like boom, boom, boom. Play games, recover, play a game, and that’s why we’re here. We love to play, and win, and compete, so a week where we have a few less training sessions and a more games is always good to me.”

SAN DIEGO LOYAL BY THE NUMBERS

• San Diego is most dangerous early, scoring 12 out of 17 goals in the first half. Are teams working out how to defend against them by the break?
• Loyal has two red cards so far this season, and both of them came in the last two matches.
• Expect to see a few flashes of yellow. The 44 cautions received by San Diego are the most of any USL Championship team this season.

From the Ashes Prediction: Even with rotation, Rising has a decent squad at its disposal. If they can frustrate Loyal, watch for the hosts to throw the kitchen sink at their attempts to get a goal. When they do, Rising could catch them on the counter, and walk out with a slim victory.