Hounds keeper posts a clean sheet in draw

Prior to the season Riverhounds SC installed LED strobe lights on the corner poles at Highmark Stadium give the fans a light show when the team scores a goal.

So far, the attendees haven’t seen the visual exhibition as the team has yet to score a goal in its first two home matches of the young season.

Even without hitting the back of the net, however, the squad gave the fans something positive on which to build their hopes.

Newly acquired goalkeeper Eric Dick posted his first clean sheet with the team and made a spectacular save late in the match to keep visiting Tampa Bay off the board as the Riverhounds (0-3-1) earned their first point of the season in a 0-0 draw with the unbeaten Rowdies (1-0-3).

“The guys worked their butts off to do it. That’s a great team that we just played,” Dick said. “This week, we had a mentality of, defensively, let’s be sound. Let’s do whatever it takes to prevent goals… and everybody chipped in on the defensive side.”

It’s no secret the Riverhounds have been in something of a rebuilding mode having to retool the team after losing nearly half of its lineup and more than threequarters of its overall goal production from the 2023 version that won the Players’ Shield with the best regular season record in the USL Championship. Although the team earned its first point of the campaign, it was also shut out for the third time in four games and has only one goal to its credit thus far.

“I think you put that kind of work in a game, you can’t hand it away,” Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley said. “I feel like everything — or a lot — has been self-inflicted and that’s not Pittsburgh Riverhounds soccer. Usually we’re pretty stingy and we wear you down and we have the quality to get our goals when we need to. We’ve been giving them away far too easy and it’s nice to put a stop to that and hopefully we can build on that.”

The Riverhounds only had one shot on goal against Tampa Bay goalkeeper Jordan Farr.

Riverhounds midfielder Kenardo Forbes set a team record when he took the field Saturday for the 196th appearance in a Riverhounds uniform. He is also the team’s and the league’s all-time assist leader.

The Riverhounds almost let the game slip away when they were tagged with a foul that led to a direct free kick from just inside the 22-yard arc by Lewis Hilton 82:37 into the match.

Hilton got the ball around the Riverhounds wall, but Dick dove to his right and got both hands on the shot to knock it away.

“It’s always tough. Especially dead in the center, but the wall did great to make it difficult to go over,” Dick said.