7:30 PM – Legion Stadium
Match Officials, as assigned by PRO:
REFEREE: Mr. Chris Spivey
AR1: Mr. Patrick Schmidt
AR2: Mr. Michael Gregory
4TH: Mr. Ahmed Koussa
Tonight, the Hounds are playing the first of two games on consecutive nights, a less-than-ideal way to begin the Niko Katic interim tenure. However, the schedule is what it is and the task at hand is come out of the weekend earning more points than they’ve amassed through the first seven games.
Wilmington has bagged six goals all season… six. Four of those just happened to be scored against Pittsburgh in the Hounds’ home opener on April 12. As long as the backline decides to resemble something other than a row of traffic cones, it’s safe to conclude that Wilmington won’t have the firepower to fill up the net like they did, last month. In other, ‘Heads news, starting goalkeeper and Toronto FC loanee Quilan Roberts won’t be playing tonight.
RT @USLPRO: SUSPENSION: Goalkeeper Quillan Roberts has been suspended one game for his red card against Charleston. Will sit out Friday.
— WilmHammerheads FC (@WilmHammerheads) May 21, 2014
Despite conceding three goals to the Hounds, in April, the guy made a couple tremendous saves in the first half of the contest, which allowed the Hammerheads to escape Highmark Stadium with full points. Roberts being unavailable may being one of the big keys to tonight’s fixture.
With Roberts in street clothes, that leaves the goalkeeping duties to Matt Glaeser, whose only action for Wilmington are the 16 minutes he saw last week once Roberts was shown red. Also, Wilmington does not have three keepers listen on their roster, which would necessitate an emergency signing or having a field player don the gloves if something were to happen to Glaeser. The Hounds should be looking to put as many balls on net as possible to test an unproven backup keeper, who must also play somewhat cautiously to avoid leaving the game by injury or cards.
For the Hounds, the announced travel roster reads as follows…
(1/2) @PghRiverhounds traveling roster for the wknd: John, Angulo, Flunder, Obodai, Earls, Gilstrap, Kerr, Green, Dallman, Marshall, Lisch
— PghRiverhounds (@PghRiverhounds) May 22, 2014
(2/2) @PghRiverhounds traveling roster for the weekend: Seth, Fekete, Cabrilo, Motagalvan, Ownby, C’deBaca, Vincent — PghRiverhounds (@PghRiverhounds) May 22, 2014
Also, the latest update on who is not currently a Riverhound…
Anthony Arena and Jason Johnson have been recalled back to Houston; unavailable for this weekend’s @PghRiverhounds games
— PghRiverhounds (@PghRiverhounds) May 22, 2014
The (somewhat) surprising inclusion on the travel roster is Brian Ownby. The Houston loanee appeared for and recieved a red card with Dynamo, making him unavailable for a game (or possibly three for violent conduct).
Between having two games in as many days, and seeing how Kotic puts his own fingerprint on the formation and starters, all bets have to be considered off in predicting a starting XI.
Finally, there is no watch party for tonight, so fire up your internet machine and watch the live stream of the game via the youtubes, by either clicking the link at the top of this page, or by clicking the picture of the dead hammerhead shark, below.
#UNLEASH
