Jun 21 Montreal Impact Makes it 3 In A Row At Home

Not only did the Montreal Impact beat the team they were chasing in the standings, but they had to do it with continuing injury woes as well as with a missing defender in their line-up due to suspension. While the Carolina Railbacks were facing a bit of adversity of their own coming off a 4 game road swing that saw them go 0-3-1, being shut out in the three losses, the Montreal Impact had their own troubles. Joey Gjertsen, who scored the second goal of the game against the Vancouver Whitecaps last Tuesday, joins teammates Gabriel Gervais, Antonio Ribeiro and Christian Nunez on the injured reserve with an abdominal in jury suffered in that same game.  Team Captain Mauro Biello also joined the IR with an undisclosed injury as he hasn't been just right since the season opened. You could also count Adam Braz out of this game since he was serving his automatic one-game suspension from the melée he was involved in against the Battery on June 13th. Nonetheless the Impact won 2-0 in menacing manner as they tied this same Railhawks team at 8th place overal in the USL standings.

For the first time in a long while, Matt Jordan was not called upon to save the day, earning him recent honours as player of the game as well as Team of the week mentions. No, on this day, the Impact forwards decided to dominate ball possession for most of the half and came on very aggressively from the opening touch, perhaps a little too aggressively as defender Alex Suprenant was handed a yellow card as he hauled down a Railhawk Midfielder on his way down the field en route to Matt Jordan's domain.

After this call, the Impact took it to Carolina where, at the 13 minute mark, Rocco Placentino streaked down the right side of the field and crossed it over to Roberto Brown who, despite being double manned, managed to head it past Carolina 'keeper Chris McClellan making it 1-0. Honourable mentions go to the 23 minute mark where Severino Jefferson, starting his 2nd straight game, completely undressed the Railhawk defender to stroll in on McClellan but neither he nor his teammates could convert on the ensuing shot and rebound that McClellan gave up. Making a case for himself to coach Limniatis, Jefferson started another run that also saw 2 exquisite passes from him to Leonardo Di Lorenzo who crossed to Roberto Brown who in turn tried to get it to a waiting but offside Placentino, again bringing the crowd to it's feet for a fleeting moment at the 33 minute mark.  But the crowd would get their  moment back at the 43, when Roberto Brown  found a determined and ever-present Severino Jeffersen who got it by McClellan for his first of the season making it 2-0 and Severino celebrated by "high-fiving" the Montreal faithful behind the Railhawk net.

The second half brought the yellow out of the referees and most of it was landing on the Impact. Both David Testo, Severino Jeffersen received cards in what the 12,715 other referees in attendance thought were a last ditch effort to make this game close. But, it was not to be. As the game drew closer to an end, Roberto Brown (later named the player of the game) found Leonardo Di Lorenzo strolling into the box and he adeptly stopped the ball to the ground before toe tapping it past a helpless McClellan for his first of the season, making the score, which would be the final, 3-0.

With this win, the Impact are now tied for 8th place and are only 1 point behind Miami FC for the 7th and last playoff spot in the USL standings. Before they can add to this total, they will head to Vancouver on the 25th to play the Whitecaps in game 2 of the Canadian Championship series. (You will recall, the Impact won the first game here last week 2-0)

The Impact stay on the road for a little while longer where they will travel just south of Vancouver where they will meet the 4th place Seattle Sounders before heading home on Sunday July 6th to host the last place Puerto Rico Islanders.

These days, it's very easy to be a Montreal Impact fan.

Tags: Carolina Railhawks \ game \ Montreal Impact \ result \ score \ soccer \ USL