Takeaways and Player Grades: Strong start propels Riverhounds in outlasting pesky Rowdies

The Riverhounds got a four-match homestand and a stretch of eight of the next 10 contests off to a positive start with a 2-1 win against a pesky Tampa Bay Rowdies at Highmark Stadium on Saturday night before a crowd of 5,048 fans on what was a very hot, sticky evening along the Mon.

Head Coach Bob Lilley was pleased with his team’s performance, especially in the first 30 minutes of the match and how they responded after giving up a goal late in the first half, with a strong final 45 minutes.

With the win, Pittsburgh (5W-6L-2D, 17 points) movesup in the standings, into sixth place, right behind Detroit City FC side they dominated two weeks ago.

The Hounds got on the board first in the 15th minute, with a gift from an old friend, former Hounds defender Thomas Vanceayezeele, who stuck out his leg in an attempt to clear Robbie Mertz’s corner attempt to the far post.  Instead, the ball deflected into the goal.

Keeping up the pressure, Pittsburgh scored five minutes later, as Augustine Williams got a big monkey off his back, scoring his second goal of the season and his first since the team’s season opener on March 8, getting on the end of a well-placed Luke Biasi cross to the back post area.

From there, the Hounds nearly scored again with a couple more chances before letting Tampa Bay back into the match.

Lilley expressed his frustration in one of his patented extended press conference interview sessions with our group of Pittsburgh media members.

As always, the veteran head coach provided lots of great insights, plenty of great quotes, adding some humor while addressing his thoughts on the match itself, but also the Hounds’ current run of form and on the state of USL Championship — particularly how difficult competition is in the Eastern Conference from top to bottom.

For this night, following what the Head Coach used an explitive to describe his team’s loss the previous week in Indianapolis, the Hounds got things in order in their house, playing on the front foot enough to walk away with an important three points.

Now, they are hoping they can can parlay this into a successful homestand that will catapult them further up in the standings

Riverhounds Lineup / Starting XI / Formation 

With the team’s captain, Danny Griffin, falling ill at midweek — forcing him to miss training sessions on Thursday and Friday — Lilley made a decision to go without his captain and the team’s leading goal scorer to start the match.

In his place, Charles Ahl, who was injured for much of the first part of the season, earned his first start.

After keeping him on the bench the previous two matches, Bertin Jacquesson was put back into the starting lineup.

Pittsburgh didn’t stray too much from its base, 5-4-1 (3-4-3 when getting foward) formation.

In addition to Griffin coming off the bench in the 67th minute, Pittsburgh also used Junior Etou (78′), Jorge Garcia (67′) and Max Broughton (88′).

Takeaways

Putting Rowdies on Heels Early Mattered

While Lilley admitted that his team started the match in the first 10 minutes or so playing too ‘square’ — that is — playing passes across the back line without much sense of urgency, the Hounds amped things up a notch in short order.

They were getting further up the channels — getting to the endline to generate some quality service and set up corners — as Lilley pointed out that the Rowdies had left some doors open.

All the Hounds needed to do was exploit those moments.

They were able to do that once the wheels started churning.

When bringing repeated pressure, theh Hounds were effective in putting the visitors on their heels.  They also caught a break, from one of the most reliable defenders the club’s ever had – Thomas Vancaeyezeele – made an uncharacteristic mistake in opening up his body when trying to clear Mertz’s well hit right-footed outswinging corner.

For much of the season, the Hounds haven’t been able to get those breaks — so this is something they could relish and build momentum.

Seizing the moment, many of the Hounds ball carriers turned into effective playmakers, particularly Mertz, Ahl, Jacquesson, Barnes and Biasi.  Seeing there were openings, they were able to adjust and make decisions that led to dangerous moments.

Biasi spoke about this in his post match interview.

“I knew if I played the ball low and hard, I knew it was going to get cut out,” Biasi explained as he noted that in a previous run up the left endline, he went for it, blasting a tough angle shot into the side netting.

A few minutes later, Biasi adjusted.  Making a similar advance on left side, he didn’t accerate to the end line, instead, read that Tampa crowded the goal box with a few defenders.

“This is something we’ve been working on.  Trying to build a better connection with our forwards.  It seems every year we have a different guy up top. In this instance, I thought, let me just put this up in the air, hopefully Augi could spin out, get around and get there, and it worked out.”

Williams looked every bit like the experienced goal scorer in this league that he’s been for nearly a decade — making a well-timed move behind the defender to get a clean header on the ball to give Pittsburgh something it hasn’t had much this season — a two goal lead.

Getting on the front foot early in matches at home has been a trademark of all of the successful Bob Lilley teams at home — at Highmark Stadium.

“We’ve been a little streaky,” Biasi said.

“We tend to have a good performance, then we come out flat.  We say, what happened? We weren’t ready. We came out flat.  We can’t do that. We have to be consistently on the same page.  We started off the season with a lot of away games. We had a lot of new guys on the team dealing with that, it was difficult. I think it’s hard on the body.  Highmark’s always been a fortress for us.  We love the home fans. We always play very well. We can squeeze teams with our dimensions, so this is a time where we can get up in the standings and we have to take advantage of this.  And it started today.”

‘Not Hungry Enough’ To Score More

While the first 30 to 35 minutes, the Hounds were controlling tempo and creating more dangerous chances, not too long after they grabbed the 2-0 lead and after a couple near misses, they started to back off more, sit deeper.

That’s when the Rowdies playmaker in the middle, Ollie Bassett, went to work extending possessions a few times to advance the ball into dangerous areas in the final third.

Bassett’s clever footwork in the 40th minute, caught the Hounds ball watching a bit, as the Rowdies midfielder laid off a ball to Manuel Arteaga at the top of the box.  From there, Arteaga drove a hard, low shot that cleared through the box and past a diving Hounds keeper, Eric Dick.

Clearly, Lilley wasn’t pleased with those last 10-15 minutes of the first half.

“This a game where I want to see guys hungry to score more,” Lilley said.

“Sometimes teams take foot off the gas.  You have to prevent doing that. There was no pressure on the ball.  When they had the ball, we had defenders seven yards off the ball.  So, they could see every pass.  Suddenly, they get a ball rattling around on the edge of the box, a player like Arteaga, and we gave away more free kicks too than we should have allowed.”

In Choppy Second Half, Hounds Were Still Searching for Goals — and that’s a positive

The Hounds took back control of the match at the start of the second half, as a refreshed Jacquesson came out of the break creating a pair of chances.  The first came right away in the 46th minute, then he did some impressive work to navigate around a pair of defenders — acceleration takes him wide but behind, but Tampa’s keeper Ethan Bandre had to come off his line to make a quality save.

Though they didn’t score again, the Hounds kept pushing and generated a few counter chances later in the match too, though they couldn’t execute to put the match out of reach.

“I am proud with how we responded to go looking for the third goal,” Lilley stated.

“We missed the target on some that we shouldn’t miss the target on. We shot a few into the goalkeeper. We couldn’t pick out the open part of the net. We’ve got to get better.”

Then the veteran coach turned sarcastic.

“No one said we should stop at two (goals). We could have set a record, and got three tonight.”

Player Grades

1	Eric Dick	GK  – 6 –  Made a couple quality saves, was strong coming off the line — in all another steady night at the wheel for Hounds’ primary keeper.
23	Guilherme Vacter	DF – 7 – Looks smooth as silk out there on the ball.  Vacter was the most accurate passer (92%) to play 45 minutes or more and had the most tackles (3) in the match.
5	Sean Suber	DF – 5.5 –  59 touches, eight defensive actions, won 2/5 duels and committed a pair of fouls (Lilley wasn’t happy that Hounds were conceding too many free kicks)
13	Luke Biasi	Winger – 7 – had an effective two-way effort in a 90-minutes shift on the left wing. He recorded the assist on Williams’ goal and created two chances, while adding three clearances and winning possession four times.
3	Perrin Barnes  ‎	MF – 6 –  created a pair of chances and had total of 10 passes into final third, plus six defensive actions
16	Beto Ydrach	DF –  5.5. — 46 touches, 1/8 long passes were accurate, won 5/9 duels
10	‎Bertin Jacquesson	F / MF – 6 – moments of quality as usual, but also struggled late in first half.  Came out stronger in second half — nearly scored by carving out a solid chance. Overall a good night with four shots when he had five touches in the opponents box.  Hounds fans will easily want to see more of this.
42	Jackson Walti	MF – 5 – accurate passing (86%) as usual, had one of the few shots, near team high 53 touches, won just 2/7 duels, committed foul
9	Augustine Williams  ‎	FW – 4 – can’t score if not getting touches.  Had the least touches of any outfield player on the pitch who played 90 minutes.  This has to change.  Augi needs more touches, plain and simple
12	Charles Ahl  ‎	FW – 5.5 – The youngest (22 y/o) Hound generated a pair of chances in his first league start. had seven passes into the final third won 4/7 duels and had six recoveries.
14	Robbie Mertz (c) ‎	MF/FW – 7 – wearing the captain’s armband was instrumental in pushing and generating chances.
Substitutes
31	Randolph	GK — DNP
6	Broughton‎	DF — 81′ — N/R
2	Danny Griffin	MF – N/R – despite recovering from illness, was well enough to put in nearly a 30 minute shift off the bench
15	Bradley Sample	MF – DNP
18	Garcia	MF – N/R – came on in 67th minute
20	Bourgey	DNP
8	Etou	Winger – N/R — entered in 81′