Hartford Athletic Snap Road Skid; Grab Point Against Birmingham Legion
Hartford Athletic Snap Road Skid; Grab Point Against Birmingham Legion
Latics complete a second-half comeback for their first road point since March
Hartford Athletic used second-half goals from Mamadou Dieng and Michee Ngalina to snap an eight-game road losing streak on Saturday night in Birmingham. It’s only the third time this season that the Latics have come from behind to grab points and the first time they’ve done so on the road.
As usual, Enzo Martinez was the danger man for Birmingham as he opened the scoring when Joe Farrell misjudged a long ball and allowed the Legion midfielder to get in behind where he finished confidently past Renan Ribeiro to give him his seventh goal in eleven games against the Latics, more than any other player.
The Legion doubled their lead in the 38th minute when an unmarked Dawson McCartney redirected a corner kick into the back of the net, leaving Hartford staring down a multi-goal first-half deficit for the third consecutive road game.
The second half was much brighter for Hartford but it took until the 71st minute for them to find the breakthrough. Danny Barrera whipped in a corner that found it’s way across the box to Joey Akpononu, who headed it back across the box and into a dangerous area. The ball just evaded the head of Kyle Edwards, but Dieng was in the right place to power home a header and reduce the deficit to one.
Hartford continued to look for opportunities and was rewarded in the 87th minute. Barrera tried a shot from outside the box that was parried away by Matt Van Oekel, but as Dieng tried to control the rebound in the area, he was fouled. Referee Corbyn May pointed to the spot, and the Latics had a late chance to equalize.
Michee Ngalina stepped up to the spot, and while Van Oekel guessed right after a stuttering runup, the penalty was perfectly placed into the bottom corner and the teams were level with only a few moments remaining in regulation.
The job wasn’t quite done for Hartford as Ribeiro was forced to make a smart save late in stoppage time to preserve the result. A deflected ball found Miguel Perez at the top of the box and his quick shot forced the Hartford keeper to get down quickly and turn the ball around the post. The resulting corner came to nothing and the final whistle blew on an important road point for the Latics.
Hartford wrapped up a difficult stretch of three games in eight days with a valuable five points and now head to Smithfield on Saturday for a critical matchup with local rivals RIFC.