Takeaways and Player Grades: Riverhounds should take positives away from draw at Louisville

Photo courtesy Louisville City FC

On short rest, both the Riverhounds SC and Louisville City FC came into their 23rd all-time meeting with an aggressive mind-set, each pushing for an elusive goal, but in the end, each team couldn’t deliver enough quality on the attacking end in a match that was hard-fought but disjointed draw at Lynn Family Stadium on Saturday night.

FINAL: Riverhounds SC 0, Louisville City FC 0

 

“I thought it looked like two teams coming off of a mid-week game,” head coach Danny Cruz said.

“Wasn’t pretty tonight by any means. Thought we needed so much more quality with the ball. Thought defensively, the group worked hard in the second half, but certainly, we have some things we need to work on on the attacking side of the ball and technically as well. Another shutout, which we’re happy with.”

Riverhounds Head Coach Bob Lilley appeared to be pleased that his team were on the same page most of the match, especially in taking Louisville’s daunting attack out of rhythm — but at the same time came up short when opportunities presented themselves to break through with a goal in the run of play.

“We had some tired legs out there,” Lilley said.

“Tonight, it had to be a really good collective performance. It was, and we had chances to win it, but at least we got something out of the game. Hopefully we grow from that.”

With the result, the Hounds (2W-4L-2D, 8 points) finally pick-up a point in league play for the first time in over a month, while Louisville (5W-0L-3D, 18 points) remain unbeaten, but drop three points behind Eastern Conference’s front-running Loudoun United FC (21 points).

It was the first time Louisville City FC has been shut out at home since July 2023.

Little separated the two teams, as Louisville (5-0-3), the last undefeated team in the Championship, held a 13-10 edge in shots and 57 percent of possession.

Riverhounds Personnel, Lineup, Tactics

For the first time all season, Head Coach Bob Lilley penciled in his biggest attacking off season signings, Bertin Jacquesson and Augustine Williams, on the lineup card in the starting eleven.

With the addition of Jacquesson on the field, plus midfielders Danny Griffin and Robbie Mertz at the top of the attack along with service from wingers Luke Biasi and Perrin Barnes.   For the second straight match, it was Guillaume Vacter who got the start on the back line, along with mainstays Sean Suber and Beto Ydrach.

Off the bench, Aiden O’Toole and Junior Etou contributed to helping the Hounds finish out the clean sheet effort with 18 quality minutes.  Max Broughton and Bradley Sample came on in the very late moments.

Match Takeaways

Augustine Williams Has More Chances, But Can’t Put Them Away  

While the score indicates that this match was a defensive struggle, as both sides had a few moments where they created chances, but the combination of stellar play from goalkeepers and defenders made quality chances hard to come by during the match.

Still, it was an especially engmatic evening for Augustine Williams, who finally started to find the ball at his feet in dangerous positions for the first time all season.

Heading into the season, Williams came to Pittsburgh as one of the top all-time active goals scorers in the league (79 in USLC play to date and 83 in all competitions), yet outside of an opportunistic season opening tally at North Carolina, which came from a goalkeeper error, Williams hasn’t been on the end of much positive service and he hasn’t been able to create many shots for himself.

Prior to Saturday’s contest, Williams averaged one shot per match, with one goal and just two on frame.   The forward has worked hard playing both ways all season, doing what’s been needed in Bob Lilley system in terms of pressing, covering lots of ground (and miles), logging nearly 90 minutes per match — a lot for a forward.   He just hasn’t been able to find the ball at his feet that much.

On Saturday, The Sierra Leone native — with help from the attacking line underneath and on the wings — namely Griffin, Mertz and to a lesser extent, Jacquesson — finally put multiple shots toward goal, ending up with four attempts in the match — but each time — he came up empty.

The Riverhounds have been struggling as a team to score goals, but despite the scoreline, they actually created more positive chances in this match than in any other match this season.

Mertz had a quality moment early — sending a shot from the top of the box that nearly hugged inside the right post, but Las was there to make a diving stop.

But it was Williams broke into open spaces with the ball at his feet a few times to tease Riverhounds fans.

One of Williams’ best chances came as he got loose on a breakaway but was caught from behind to see his shot attempt denied in the 44th

Siri, define "locked in" 🔒@Tophcity | #LOUvPIT pic.twitter.com/MmlrjE1L4n

— Louisville City FC (@loucityfc) May 11, 2025

In the 47th minute, nice feed from Barnes came to Williams’ foot with space between Louisville’s center backs, but the shot attempt from the edge of the box was blocked by former Hound and Pitt standout, Arturo Ordonez.

In the 79th minute, one last quality chance came for Pittsburgh when Aidan O’Toole played Williams behind the defense again, this time down the right side from in the Hounds’ own half. Williams carried into the box, but Las came off his line and cut down the angle to make the save when Williams shot before the defense could close in.

Although he was relatively quiet in terms of touches, shot attempts, struggled in his duels (won 1/6) and dispossessed a few times, Jacquesson’s added presence on the wing appeared to help open things up a bit more for Williams in this match to have more chances.  Last season, if you recall, Jacquesson scored five goals and added two assists when coming to the club on loan — and Louisville’s back line which included Jacquesson’s former teammate (Ordonez) — were clearly aware of his presence.

While the fans may be bickering about Williams’ missed chances, the Hounds will have to take the positives from this match that things started to open up a bit more than we’ve seen all season.  They’ll have to build on that moving forward — with the forwards.

Another Quality Clean Sheet for Eric Dick, Bolstered By New Center Back Trio 

This was a match with two clubs and coaches who know each other very well and are both often very sound defensively, the number of quality — where the heroic plays were made on the defensive side of the ball.

chances that Once again, Riverhounds goalkeeper Eric Dick, following his standout performance in the US Open Cup victory against New York City FC, was outstanding in goal, registering three saves, matching the same total for Louisville City FC keeper Daimian Las, as both teams tinkered with chances but for the most part were limiting chances.

Dick made four saves for the Hounds for his second straight shutout, while Las made three in the Louisville goal.

The veteran keeper was called into action in the 20th minute to smother a turning shot by Taylor Davila that was well-placed but lacked the power to find the bottom corner.

The Hounds goalkeeper came up with an even bigger stop late in the half, as he dove to his left to deny a 25-yard drive by Jansen Wilson, who had the game-winner in the teams’ last meeting in 2024.

In the 65th minute — Dick needed to make the save on an awkwardly hopping shot by Davila, and Barnes was in good position to ensure the rebound wasn’t collected by an attacker.

As mentioned above in the outline of Hounds personnel utilized, it was the first start in a league match for Frenchman Guillhaume Vacter and only the fourth appearance for the defender.

Lilley started Vacter in the Open Cup match, deciding to keep the former UConn team captain in the lineup for the second straight match.  Vactor proved to be a ball-winning machine, fitting in well with Wednesday’s hero and fellow rookie out of the Big East — Beto Ydrach along with Sean Suber in the middle of the back line.  Vactor won 9 of 11 duels, including 6 of 7 in the air, added seven clearances and added a scoring chance created for good measure.

The veteran coach, in dealing with a gauntlet of three matches in eight days, carefully planned his squad rotation accordingly and came away from this stretch of play with a number of positives from giving more players valuable minutes and steering the team to two results after a disappointing home loss last week.

“Max (Broughton) started against New York, Gui (Guillaume Vacter) started the last two games, Jorge (Garcia) hadn’t started since the opener, but he did against New York. With guys getting healthy, there’s a lot more options available to us. It was one of our more complete games, and even though Louisville didn’t get off to the quickest start, I think lot of that was our doing.

Keeping Heads Above Water in League Play With More Challenging Road Matches To Come

Once again, the Riverhounds will spend another stretch of matches on the road, as this was the first of four contests away from home for Pittsburgh.  In league play, last week’s match vs North Carolina will be the only home contest between late March and early June.

Thus, every point the Hounds can pick up in this stretch on the road will be critical.

For now, Pittsburgh’s keeping its heads above water, with eight points in the Eastern Conference table, which is still good for a spot above the playoff line.  As we saw last season, if they don’t pick up more points on the road in the first half of the season, they could get into deep waters.

To follow this match, Pittsburgh will visit the defending USL Cup champions, Colorado Springs, then have a midweek contests at Philadelphia in the Open Cup, then head to play at the defending Eastern Conference champions, Rhode Island FC, in their new home on May 24.

Anywhere from two to four points in the next two league matches would be extremely helpful — otherwise they risk falling behind the teams that are trailing them in the standings.

Riverhounds SC Player Grades

Starting Eleven 

Eric Dick   GK — 8 — Four saves — two were top notch.  Early season MVP for this club?

Sean Suber  DF – 7 – Continues to be solid — a whopping 14 (!!!) clearances and 16 total defensive actions, 48 touches, 3/7 accurate long balls.

Perrin Barnes DF – 6.5 – Another start in league play. Created three chances — add five passes into final third.  Plus four defensive actions and won 3/5 duels.

Jackson Walti  MF – 6.5 – Been a model of consistency as holding midfielder — completed the most dribbles (3) in the match, with 57 touches, seven defensive actions while winning 7/11 duels.

Danny Griffin (C) MF – 6.5 – Is there an expected assists stat out there?  If so, Griffin has to be over 1.0 per match.  Two shots, created a chance, eight recoveries and was fouled a couple times.

Robbie Mertz – MF – 7 – In addition to one shot on frame — also created another chance, won 7/12 duels in 84 minutes.

Bertin Jacquesson FW — 5 – His presence in the lineup helped but when on the ball and battles with tough Louisville City defenders, he was a bit rusty.

Beto Ydrach DF – 6 – Good things happen when you pair the Big East Defender of the Year along with another rookie defender out of the Big East (Vacter).   Had a team high 15 passes into the final third along with seven defensive actions, but committed three fouls and won 4/10 duels.

Luke Biasi – MF – 6.5 — Had 11 passes into final third, while winning 5/7 duels and eight defensive actions.

Guillaume Vactor – D – 6.5 — with 10 defensive actions, winning 5/6 duels, five clearances and two interceptions — did very well under pressure all night.

Bench / Subs 

Aiden O’Toole – MF – 6.5 – decent spell off bench including creating Hounds last quality chance and drew a foul.

Junior Etou – MF – 6 – clearly knew his assignment and did it well with fresh legs off bench (3/3 duels, 100% passing accuracy) but didn’t do anything to create scoring chances as he was 0/2 in accurate crosses.

Bradley Sample (84′) MF – N/R

Max Broughton DF – (90+4) – N/R