Riverhounds take advantage of 2 early goals to beat Loudoun United
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For the second time this season, the Riverhounds took advantage of scoring two goals in the first 11 minutes of the game to defeat Loudoun United and earn another three points.
Mark Forest and Anthony Velarde converted penalty kicks in the fourth and seventh minutes of the game. Then, in his Riverhounds debut, Albert Dikwa scored in the 87th minute as the Riverhounds (7-3-1) went on to a 3-0 win over Loudoun United (1-6-2) for their seventh victory of the season.
“I don’t think the game was over until we got that third goal because we never really looked settled,” Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley said. “But look, the guys did their job, they got the three points. Were they at the top of their game? No, but they had to work, and they were put under a lot of pressure, and they put up enough resistance to get a clean sheet.”
When the Riverhounds beat Loudoun United on Aug. 19 they scored twice in the first 11 minutes but didn’t quite stay on the front foot throughout the rest of the 90 minutes, and Loudoun was able to create chances.
On Tuesday night, it was somewhat of the same. Loudoun controlled 54.5% of the possession and the Riverhounds lacked the type of energy that Lilley was looking for.
“We didn’t have our best stuff tonight, and we were flat for much of it,” Lilley said. “We defended reasonably well, but I would’ve liked to have done a better job with the ball and defended higher up the pitch and taken the game to them more. This is twice we’ve gone up 2-0 on them and just kind of backed off.”
Forrest got the scoring started for Pittsburgh after he was taken down inside the box in the first five minutes of the game. The native of Douglassville in Berks County took advantage of the opportunity and buried his penalty shot inside the left post.
Three minutes later, Anthony Velarde scored his fourth goal of the season after Loudoun committed a hand ball in the box for a second penalty kick. Velarde made it look easy, going the same way as Forrest to give the Hounds a big advantage.
Given the early penalty calls, starting goal keeper Danny Vitiello, who earned his second straight clean sheet against Loudoun, knew that a penalty in their direction might come sooner or later.
“I was telling our back four that we needed to be careful in the box now,” Vitiello said. “If we got a couple, the ref was going to say, ‘OK, anything that was reasonably a penalty, I was going to have to give it.’”
Loudoun United got that opportunity in the 16th minute when Jordan Dover committed a penalty on the left side of the 18-yard box. Vitiello came up big for the Riverhounds, though, and made a good read to stuff the Joshua Fawole attempt.
“It’s all about trying to stay focused and mentally challenge the other guy,” Vitiello said about what it takes to stop a penalty kick. “But at the end of the day, it’s a lottery and the goalkeeper has to guess the right way. You got to do the best you can, make the right call, and luckily he went that way.”
It was a big stop that led to the Riverhounds second straight clean sheet after shutting out Hartford Athletic this past Friday, but Vitiello made big stops throughout the game and tallied a total of four saves on the night.
Dikwa stepped on to the field for the Riverhounds after halftime and tallied his first Riverhounds goal when he bullied the ball away from a Loudoun United defender and put it into the back of the net to make a good first impression at Highmark Stadium.
Leading into Dikwa joining the team, starting defender Thomas Vancaeyezeele hadn’t known too much about him. He’s already happy that Dikwa is on his side.
“I’ve never seen him play before, and I’m happy that he’s on our squad now,” Vancaeyezeele said with a laugh. “He’s strong, fast and he moves pretty well. I was joking with him tonight though that he should have scored a second goal.”
Now the Riverhounds will prepare to travel to Red Bull Arena on Saturday to take on New York Red Bulls II.