Friday night’s Jagermeister Cup game begins what coach Bobby Murphy called “the dog days” of the season for the Portland Hearts of Pine.

The grueling stretch of games started with a 4-1 loss to Rhode Island FC.

The Hearts will play two more games, both at home, in the next nine days and a total of seven games in a four-week stretch — four at friendly Fitzpatrick Stadium.

“It feels like we’ve been waiting for this. Now it’s here. Now it’s the dog days and time to start picking up points,” Murphy said.

Friday’s game was a non-USL League One game at Rhode Island FC’s new 10,500-seat Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket. The Jagermeister Cup is an in-season tournament pitting USL1 teams against the higher-division USL Championship squads.

The Hearts of Pine is 1-2 in the group, also losing to Hartford Athletic and scoring a rousing 4-2 win against Detroit City at home. Rhode Island is 3-0 in the group. The winners of the six groups and two wild-card teams will advance to the single-elimination portion of the tournament.

Of greater significance are the next two games, both at home, against USL1 foes AV Alta FC in a rare Wednesday night (6:30 p.m.) game and then the short turnaround before hosting South Georgia Tormenta FC on Sunday, July 6, also at 6:30 p.m.

Portland has a 2-2-6 league record and have climbed to 10th in the 14-team standings with 12 points after a 1-1 tie at AV Alta last weekend in Lancaster, California. AV Alta (4-3-4) is sixth with 16 points.

South Georgia (3-7-2), which beat Portland, 2-1, enters this weekend 12th with 11 points.

Murphy said the surge in games requires him to prioritize the events. The league games are the priority.

Regular starters forward Assad Liadi, center midfielder Michele Poon-Angeron, and center back Kemali Green did not play at Rhode Island.

“They picked up some knocks (at AV Alta) so hopefully we’ll have them back for Wednesday,” Murphy said.

Pat Langlois, out since a May 24 ankle injury at Forward Madison, returned to action on Friday. Also back is Natty James, a promising attacking midfielder who had been with the Trinidad & Tobago national team at the CONCAF tournament. Trinidad was eliminated in group play.

Evan Southern could be back sometime next week. Southern had begun to carve out significant playing time in the opening weeks of the season, starting three of the first five league games, before he was sidelined with an injury. Southern’s last action was May 10 in a 2-2 draw at Union Omaha.

“Like I told the players the other day, I tried to build the squad for weeks like this,” and to have the depth to weather injuries, Murphy said.

10 DOWN, 20 TO GO

Midfielder Ollie Wright, who scored three straight second-half goals in a 3-1 home win against Union Omaha, assisted on a Liadi strike midway through the second half to earn the 1-1 tie in California. It was the Hearts’ fifth tie in seven league games on the road.

Portland has now played one-third of its inaugural 30-game USL1 regular season. While still outside the top eight, which is the playoff cutline, Portland has played three fewer games than ninth-place Greenville Triumph SC (3-6-4, 13 points), which comes to Portland July 16, and two less than eighth-place Texoma (4-5-3, 15 points). Seventh-place Richmond (4-6-4) has played four more games than Portland.

“Overall we’ve been successful,” Murphy said. “For young teams, especially new teams, with no history, no returning players, to go on the road seven times and to come away with five points is really good. Think Alta is our best 90-minute performance and the now challenge is sustaining that effort and building on it.”

SCORING UP, TALKING DOWN

After scoring three goals in its first four league games, Portland has notched 10 goals in its last six USL1 contests. It’s goals-against average has remained steady (11 against in 10 games).

“Converting chances is always a challenge. That’s what separates the teams (that) do really well. I think we’ve gotten a handle on conceding goals. Now it’s really just getting that killer instinct that you need to put teams away and cultivating that ruthlessness to pick up points,” Murphy said.

In an effort to create a greater business-first attitude, Murphy is currently banning players from talking with the media in all its platforms.

Murphy said because the franchise has been so successful with its branding, marketing, and merchandising and ticket sales (the home season is essentially sold out), that players had begun to feel, “through the transitive property they were successful and they haven’t done (anything).” Murphy said he expects to lift the interview ban soon.