Palace And Pittsburgh Finish Scoreless In Season Opener

Published on April 19, 2009 under United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Crystal Palace Baltimore News Release


Baltimore, MD - Crystal Palace Baltimore were held 0-0 by the Pittsburgh Riverhounds on Friday evening in their season opener in front of an announced crowd of 2,015 at UMBC Stadium.

"We're real happy with the clean sheet," stated Palace Co-Manager Pete Medd. "That's becoming a common occurrence for us which is a positive. But we've got to figure out what we're going to do attack-wise, what's our character offensively. We've got to find the right combination of players, because we just didn't create last night."

Fellow Co-Manager, Jim Cherneski, echoed Medd's comments: "We're very disappointed with our lack of desire to get forward and the lack of off-the-ball movement to create goal-scoring chances. The back four were excellent, but we can't be content with a draw. Neither team managed to create a lot of opportunities, but I felt Pittsburgh had the edge."

Pittsburgh's only real chance of the first half came on 25 minutes when Justin Evans headed goalwards but Brian Rowland in the Palace net pulled off an excellent save to keep his side in the game. On 35 minutes, Dan Lader had the ball in the back of the Pittsburgh net, but was adjudged to have been in an offside position from Zack Flores' pinpoint cross.

The second half saw Palace take more of the initiative, but scoring opportunities were still few and far between. After quarter of an hour, Brian Rowland looked to have come to Palace's rescue once again with a point blank stop on Sean Cameron's effort on the six yard line, but the play was ruled offside by the officials. Palace began to look more dangerous over the final twenty minutes of the match, with second half substitute Pat Healey behind most of the newfound attacking creativity. But neither side was able to break the deadlock.

"Obviously we'd prefer to get all three points," said Palace captain Val Teixeira after the game. "But we knew that the first game of the season was going to be a hard one."

Palace center back Andrew Marshall was singled out for praise by Medd for his performance on the night: "He was fantastic leading the back line."

Marshall expressed his own satisfaction with the shutout, but stressed: "We need to work on creating more opportunities, we need to be more patient."

"At the end of the day a draw was a fair result," Medd reflected, "but we expect more from ourselves. We need to do better."

Palace's next game is at home against the Bermuda Hogges on Friday April 24th at 7:30pm. Tickets are still available through the club's website - http://www.crystalpalaceusa.com - or by calling 410.933.TEAM(8326)

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United Soccer League Championship Stories from April 19, 2009


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