A 5-0 shellacking of Oakland Roots SC on Saturday night was a welcomed reprieve for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds in what has been the most challenging season in Bob Lilley’s time at the club.

It ended a 10-game winless streak in USL Championship play where the Hounds went 0-6-4 and had a six-game stretch without a goal.

There’s certainly more work to be done, but it was a start.

Past the halfway point, the Hounds (4-9-6) are on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs, but they’re only four points from eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

They probably won’t need five-goal onslaughts every match to get back to the high standard that has been set since Lilley arrived in 2018.

More complete performances like they had Saturday night, however, will be paramount.

“It’s great for people to see and to restore belief that we can do this, but you don’t get into the playoffs unless you can do this consistently,” Lilley said. “We’ve left very little margin for error.

“I believe in turning points, but it is what we make of it next week. At the end of the year, we can call it a turning point because we can look back and see that’s when our momentum changed and results changed. More importantly, do we want to make it a turning point?”

The last part is to be determined for a team that entered 2024 with a much less experienced roster overall after losing starting goalkeeper Jahmali Waite to El Paso, last season’s USL Championship Player of the Year, 20-goal scorer Albert Dikwa to Rhode Island and reigning Defender of the Year Arturo Ordonez to Louisville City.

So far, their play hasn’t been anywhere near as consistent as last season, which culminated in winning the Players’ Shield for having the league’s best regular-season record.

Dikwa hasn’t produced with Rhode Island like he did in Pittsburgh, with only six goals in 15 appearances, but the Hounds only managed 11 goals as a team before Saturday’s match.

Edward Kizza, Kazaiah Sterling and Danny Griffin have three goals each to lead the team.

On Saturday, the Hounds got goals from outside the forward group.

Midfielder Junior Etou scored a pair, his first two of the season, Griffin scored on a penalty and center back Sean Suber and Kenardo Forbes each tallied their first of the season.

Regardless of who scored, they finished their chances, which was a welcomed sight for Lilley.

“It kind of dispelled the myth that we can’t score goals,” Lilley said. “But can we score them consistently? If you get into dangerous areas and put dangerous balls in the box, good things are going to happen. We’ve done that at times and have been wasteful, but we’re also guilty of some games doing it part of the game and not doing it the entire second half.

“You don’t score goals if you don’t have touches and numbers in the box. It’s nice to see those goals where midfielders are in the box and taking risks.”

The Hounds have two more home games this month starting with an 8 p.m. matchup Saturday with Hartford Athletic that’ll be nationally televised on ESPN2.

The Hounds hadn’t won since May 4 before Saturday. They’ll need to continue to achieve victories to avoid Lilley’s first losing season at the club.

“We’re definitely not going to get too high from this moment (on Saturday),” Suber said. “It was a good result and a good win, but we have so much more work to do to get back to the top. We want to be a top-four team, and obviously, we haven’t had the season to do that so far, but if we can string some wins together, then we will be looking good.”

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