By Hunter Jacobson|
The sound of beating drums echoed throughout Merlo Field once again as the Pilots returned to action against Portland Timbers 2 on Friday night. Portland couldn't recover from an early self goal and fell to the Timbers 2-1.
Timbers 2, which also calls Merlo Field home, is a professional soccer club competing in the United Soccer League.
Offense was hard to come by for the majority of the first half. The Pilots' first shot on goal didn’t take place until the final minutes of the half and T2’s attack was not much stronger. Despite this, Timbers 2 took a 1-0 lead into the half.
The lone goal of the half came on a Pilots own goal when a cross from T2’s Neco Brett sailed toward the Pilots' goal box and took a bad bounce off of Dirk Van Der Velde’s knee and into the goal.
“They got a good ball in and any time you get the ball in the box like that it’s dangerous,” Pilots goalkeeper Paul Christensen said. “We were just unlucky.”
Both teams’ offenses were firing on all cylinders in the second half. Christensen made a diving save just one minute into the half. Ten minutes later midfielder Eddie Sanchez scored the Pilots' first goal to tie the game at one.
The score didn’t stay that way for long as Villyan Bijev of Timbers 2 scored a goal in the 58th minute to put T2 back on top 2-1.
The offense quieted on both sides for the rest of the game and Timbers 2 saw the game end with their 2-1 lead still intact.
New head coach Nick Carlin-Voigt was impressed with how his team played against a Timbers 2 squad full of high quality players.
“All those guys won national championships in college, were All-Americans, and it’s a good example of where we want to be as a program,” Voigt said, “(I’m) grateful for the Timbers organization to give us the game, and every time we play we get better.”
Despite a tough loss as a result of an own goal, coach Voigt and the Pilots said they are not discouraged.
“Anyone who came to this game knows it was a very close performance,” Voigt said. “It could have gone either way, we were unfortunate to give up an own goal, but that’s the game sometimes.”
Overall Voigt said he saw many positives in the game and knows that his team is in a good place at this point in the young season.
“I thought the guys brought it today, they had great energy,” Voigt said. “We played them straight up and we played the game to win.”
Contact sports writer Hunter Jacobson at jacobsoh19@up.edu or on Twitter @huntre23.
