Opportunity lost with blown lead in draw

Despite dominant first, ’Hounds give up second-half goal in tie

Riverhounds SC coach Bob Lilley always tries to emphasize to his team how points lost or gained at the beginning of the season are just as important, if not more, than those at the end.

Needless to say, he didn’t view the team’s 1-1 tie with North Carolina FC on Saturday night as a point gained in a draw but two points lost after the Riverhounds blew a onegoal halftime lead in front of 5,113 at Highmark Stadium.

“We were probably unlucky not to score more in the first half, but once they tied it, they had momentum,” Lilley said. “We’re going to have to look at the tape. We’re going to have to make adjustments. It feels like an opportunity lost.”

Though North Carolina controlled the tempo and spacing throughout the second half, it took a perfect play for the visitors to come up with the equalizer.

Midfielder Louis Perez came down the left side and lofted a perfect pass into the box for forward Evan Conway. The 6-foot-1 Conway outjumped two Riverhounds defenders and slapped a perfect header over the outstretched hand of goalkeeper Gabriel Perrotta and under the crossbar at 57:42 to knot the match, 1-1.

“It’s a great ball and the timing of that run, that’s s good header. It’s not dead in the corner and, I think, as a keeper, you’re always going to be high off you line to cover for through balls, especially as direct as they were playing,” Lilley said. “I thought Gabby took up a good starting spot…. But you don’t want to get caught in those halfspaces.”

That goal came a direct result of a complete change of approach for North Carolina after the intermission. In the first half, North Carolina packed it in, with both of its wingbacks taking an outside defensive posture and having only a few yards of separation from the defenders and the attack.

With so little space to work, the Riverhounds were called offsides several times, which stymied their attack. They did work for a couple of scoring opportunities — USL Championship all-time assist leader Kenardo Forbes had three shots in the first half — but they could not finish as the game remained scoreless for much of the first half.

“We had a really good first half. But we have to do more than one goal with the dominance we had in the first half” Lilley said. “For as much of the ball as we had and as dangerous as we were in the first half, we looked tired at the end of the first half.”

As exhausted as they might have been, North Carolina sagging back with both of its outside backs to create a five-man picket fence packing the defensive zone helped the Riverhounds learn the value of patience as well as how to exploit an opponent’s mistake.

Riverhounds midfielder Danny Griffin made a solid play, stripping the ball from a North Carolina player in the offensive third, then played the ball off an opponent to the right side for Langston Blackstock. After he drove the defender deep into the box and got North Carolina goalkeeper Antonio Carrera to commit, he laid off a perfect pass to Edward Kizza for an easy tap-in goal — his third of the season — to give the Riverhounds a 1-0 lead.

Though Blackstock didn’t get his first goal of the season, it was his first point and he was more than happy to play the unselfish role of set-up man.

“I just felt like he had a better look at it so, if I could it give it to him with an open goal, I feel like it was better than me,” Blackstock said. “People were kind of coming an I saw Kizza coming and I gave it to him.”

Even so, the Riverhounds play after the intermission is a cause for concern. They allowed North Carolina to complexly flip the script in the second half as their opponent dictated play, maintained possession at a nearly 60-40 split and had several quality scoring opportunities even after scoring the tying goal.