North Texas SC stumbles on the road against Houston, to lose their third Texas Derby matchup of the season, 3-0.
Coming off their win against Minnesota United 2, North Texas SC held a 4-2-3-1 formation with JT Harms getting his seventh start of the season. Alongside him, the back line of Los Toritos remained the same for a second straight week.
Midfielder Diego Garcia and forward Jaidyn Contreras both returned to the starting XI, to earn their tenth and fifth starts, respectively. Most notably absent from the team tonight was Tarik Scott who is coming off a brace from their previous game.
The Dynamo Dos sported a 3-4-3 formation during tonight’s game, with Pedro Cruz getting his fifthteenth start of the season. The backline for Houston was relatively new, with Michael Halliday and Juan Viveros getting their fourth and fifth starts for the team, respectively.
New to the starting lineup for the Dynamo Dos was forward Myles Gardner, who made his first start for the home team tonight and second appearance for them this season. Most notably absent from the team were Exon Arzu and Diego Gonzalez, who have accounted for six of the team’s goals this season.
Despite the strong start for North Texas, Houston would find the back of the net first. In the 10th minute, after the away team conceded a foul outside of the box, Mattheo Dimareli crossed in a ball off the set piece towards Stephen Gyamfi, who headed it past Harms to make it 1-0, Houston.
Gyamfi managed to bump Malachi Molina just enough, to create a bit of separation for the header, and not draw any sort of foul in the air.
Houston doubled their lead in the 31st minute. After a run through the midfield, Sebastián Rodríguez curled a shot from just outside of the box with some pace behind it. Despite it appearing to be shot right at Harms, it moved just enough to find its way past him, to make it 2-0 Dynamo Dos.
Things went from bad to worse for North Texas in the second half. In the 51st minute, off a 5-on-3 counter for Houston, Halliday played a cross into Juan Viveros, who rose up and headed it in for Dynamo Dos’ third goal of the night, to make it 3-0.
In the 62nd minute, things appeared to be turning around for North Texas. Molina made a run in past the defense, and was taken down by Cruz to force a PK. Sam Sarver stepped up, but sailed the PK over the crossbar. A symbolic moment for how this game went tonight.
“I’m disappointed. Obviously before Houston scored, we had plenty of chances to open the scoring. After that, we gave up a goal on the set piece. Then another goal that shouldn’t have been scored and now you’re down 0‑2 and it becomes even more difficult. The game wasn’t how we wanted to play and how I wanted to manage,” Head coach John Gall said after the game.
After three additional minutes of stoppage time, the game would end in a 3-0 defeat for Los Toritos. North Texas is now 1-2 on the season against the Dynamo Dos, with a goal differential of -6 during those games.
Despite the loss, Caleb Swann had a quietly-solid performance tonight. Our Man of the Match seemed to be the only player on the pitch who was relatively consistent in winning the ball back for North Texas and managed to create some chances on the offensive side of the ball.
Defender Zach Molomo, who made his NTSC debut tonight added this after the game, “Tactically I don’t think we did too bad. It was just a matter of small collective errors and lack of communication in some parts of the game. We need to correct those ahead of our next game coming up on Friday.”
Up next, North Texas SC travels to Children’s Mercy Victory Field to take on Sporting KC II on Friday, July 18th at 7:30pm CT. SKC II are currently 0-11-4 on the season, with one win in a shootout.