Despite the early scoring for North Texas SC, Vancouver Whitecaps 2 completed the comeback and won 4-3 on Saturday night in Swangard Stadium.
Just three days after their win in Colorado, North Texas took the field once again, this time in Vancouver. Los Toritos sported a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Nico Montoya getting the start in goal, his fourth of the season.
Tonight’s lineup was relatively unchanged, aside from the Montoya substitution and Ian Charles returning to the starting XI. Michael Cortellessa made his second start of the season as the team continues to experiment with its starting defenders.
Vancouver, on the other hand, held to a 4-4-2 for much of the night, a formation that they’ve been quite fond of this season. Alexander Milošević got his seventh start of the season in goal, his first action since May 28th when they played MNUFC2.
Leading goal-scorer Nelson Pierre started up top alongside Rayan Elloumi. On the backline, Adrián Pelayo got his fourth start of the season. Most notably absent from tonight’s lineup was Deylen Vellios, who had the third-most minutes played on this team prior to the game.
North Texas got the scoring rolling in the 8th minute as Joshua Torquato laid a ball off to Anthony Ramirez. Ramirez took a shot, which deflected off a defender, hit off the post, and fell back to Torquato, who tapped it in for the first goal of the game, 1-0 NTSC.
Minutes later, Vancouver would answer. In the 10th minute, the Whitecaps worked the ball out wide to Nikola Djordjevic, who crossed the ball into the box. Elloumi scorpion kicked a pass out to Antoine Coupland, who settled the ball and scored, to tie it up at 1-1.
The last score of the first half would come in the 30th minute, when Cortellessa played a great ball into the box. Sam Sarver rose up to head it in, but the ball was saved and bounced back to Sarver, who took a touch around the keeper, but was brought down for a PK. Sam converted the penalty for his 9th goal of the season, and gave North Texas the 2-1 lead.
Vancouver answered right back to open up the second half. In the 50th minute, after the ball bounces around, Solar SC product Jackson Castro picked it up out wide. He made a couple of dribbles and crossed it back into the box. Elloumi rose up over a North Texas defender and headed it in for Vancouver’s second goal of the game, to tie it at 2-2.
Vancouver would take their first lead of the game in the 69th minute, when Castro won the ball back from North Texas and played it through to Elloumi. The striker, who was alone on goal, chipped it over Montoya to make it 3-2, Vancouver.
Less than a minute later, Charles would answer back emphatically for North Texas. After a shot from Daniel Baran was deflected off a Whitecap defender, Charles sprinted in towards the box where his right foot connected with the ball, and was crushed into the back of the net, to tie the game once again, at 3-3.
The scoring didn’t end there. In the 76th minute, Torquato would play an awkward header in the box, which didn’t seem to clear out, and would come right back down to him. MLS Next Pro leading scorer, Pierre, was able to collect the loose ball and slotted it home for his 11th of the season, to extend Vancouver’s lead to 4-3.
Unfortunately, North Texas couldn’t pull another one back tonight and would leave Vancouver without a point. A tough end to a road stretch of games that will see NTSC flying home to Texas with only two points.
Head coach John Gall had this to say about their recent road trip, “We went to Colorado and got a win in a shootout, and then came here and gave up four goals. It is really something that is a hard one to swallow at the moment. I’m really disappointed because I know we’re better than that, and I know we have players who can not make the mistakes they made tonight.”
Despite the poor performance from Los Toritos, Anthony Ramirez did have himself quite a game on the offensive half of the field. He seemed to be everywhere on the pitch tonight and was always involved in every scoring chance, in one way or another.
Up next, North Texas SC returns home to Choctaw Stadium to take on Minnesota United 2 on Thursday, July 3rd at 7:45 pm CT. MNUFC2 is currently 5-4-2 on the season.