RBNY2 draws ten men Fury

After a three game road trip, that saw the New York Red Bulls 2 side lose at the Pittsburgh Riverhoundsthree goals to nil, a match at Nashville SC that gets wiped out due to incliment weather, and a one goal draw at the Charleston Battery. They headed back home to take on an Ottawa Fury side that is also looking for three points themselves.

Well ona hot and steamy night at the MSU Soccer Park on the campus of Montclair State University, Red Bulls 2 were able to get a point at home for a comeback draw against a ten men Ottawa Fury team, that plays very rough.

Within a 11 minute span the Fury came out swinging and going down to ten men in a heartbeat as they put themselves behind the eight ball very quickly. First the goal that put the visitors ahead as Carl Haworth converted his chance in the 20th minute.

Callum Irving delivers a long ball towards the Red Bulls 2 side of the pitch and sadly, two defenders bump into each other, as neither player communicated well on that situation. That gave Haworth plenty of space to allow Evan Louro to come off his line, and he gets beat short side to the front post.

But it would be Jeremy Gagnon-Lapare who would be done early in this contest, forcing his side to go down to ten men the rest of the way. He delivered a hard tackle in the 13th minute on Kyle Zajec for his first of the match.

Then he earned his second which led to his walking papers in the 24th minute as he goes thru Chris Lema, and doesn’t try to make contact with the ball. Gagnon-Lapare runs right into Lema’s right leg that was in mid-air and puts his side down to ten men.

Red Bulls 2 couldn’t string anything together until the second half came. In the 54th minute the home side finally got on the scoresheet thru a well worked goal. Sebastian Elney saved the ball along the near side as the header shot was harmlessly going over the end line for a possible goal kick.

Elney quickly found Jared Stroud who crossed the ball into the Fury area. Then an oncoming Kyle Zajec finds the space to go short side and he converts the equalizer past Callum Irving. After the full 90 minutes were up, Red Bulls 2 and the Ottawa Fury ended their match up with a one goal draw.

But for Head Coach John Wolyniec, this is a result that is a bit disappointing as their side couldn’t take the full advantage of being up a man for the entire 66 minutes when Gagnon-Lapare was sent off with the 2nd yellow becoming red.

“Yes, disappointing. I think it’s the third time that we’ve gone up a man and I think we’ve gotten goals in two of those games, one, we gave up a goal, end up tying all three. Obviously disappointing, I think all three of have been in the first half, too. So it’s a long time to be up a guy and not you know, it’s one thing, if you can’t, you’re not successful in 20-30 minutes, but when you’re not successful for 50-60 minutes, that’s a bit frustrating.” said Wolyniec “Obviously, we get the goal. So there’s definitely something to look at and say, okay, we, we did something and, you know, we hit the post and the crossbar, and a couple of other chances that we’re really close, but it is frustrating, and it says something and, you know, certainly playing in tight spaces, we got to get better at. Some of that is entry passes, being a little cleaner.

“Some of that’s moving the ball, Some of its to challenge the backline to move the ball quicker, and with a little bit more purpose, and some of its just listening to some of the tactics that were given to the guys, you know, thrown off on their own a little bit.

So, it’s a mix of things, but it is certainly starting to be a little bit alarming. And that’s something that has been a challenge in the past anytime a team goes down a man the press kind of goes out the window a little bit, right. So something that we work on, quite often and quite heavily becomes a bit of a useless tool. So, you know, a mixture of things, but it is alarming and disappointing. So hopefully we can get better at that, for sure.”

For Red Bulls 2, their next match is a mid-week tussle down I-95 as they take on the Philadelphia Union’s affiliate in Bethlehem Steel, then back to the MSU Soccer park to face Atlanta United 2 on the weekend.