Greenville builds lead on top of standings with fifth win in six matches
Greenville, SC (June 29, 2022) – The Greenville Triumph offense continued its summer spark with a 3-1 win over North Carolina FC in the final regular-season meeting between the two clubs. Goals from Gavilanes, Labovitz and Keegan finished the night off for Greenville in a match that was a shutout until the final seconds of the contest.
From the first whistle, Greenville was on their toes and fired up. The home side feverishly attacked the NCFC defense in the opening moments of the match. Just nine minutes in, midfielder, Noah Pilato sent an outside-of-foot pass to winger, Allen Gavilanes who buried it with a thunderous shot to give Greenville a 1-0 lead. As the clock moved towards the second half, both clubs fought for possession, unable to find a rhythm or the back of the net. Greenville returned to the locker rooms with a 1-0 advantage.
Back on the pitch and careful with players’ energy levels due to the midweek match, Greenville subbed in a new rotation of players including co-captain, Aaron Walker and last weekend’s game-winning goal scorer, Jesus Ibarra. Midway through the half, NC defender, Britton Fischer rolled a pass back to the goalie, offering Jacob Labovitz a chance to beat the keeper and strengthen the Greenville lead to 2-0. A couple minutes later, Labovitz combined with Jesus Ibarra for a gorgeous double assist to give Jake Keegan his second goal of the season and seal the Triumph victory. The only blight on an otherwise-stellar performance came in the final minute, as an error from Greenville goalkeeper, Paul Christensen, gifted NCFC their lone goal, ending the match 3-1.
“You know we consecutively are keeping that high-level play, you know we always talk about performance culture and we don’t want to just to be a buzz word,” said Head Coach John Harkes. “We actually want to stay up there, so the performance tonight was great.”
The Greenville Triumph travel to Arizon to play FC Tucson at 10 pm ET for the first-time this season. The club returns home on July 9th at 7:00 pm.
John Harkes, Head Coach: You know we consecutively are keeping that high-level play, you know we always talk about performance culture and we don’t want to just to be a buzz word. We actually want to stay up there so the performance tonight was great- there was a slip up of course but you don’t want to focus on the negative part of it. You want to make sure that we’re pushing the guys and we give them the compliments that we should in terms of getting the three points against a tough team. North Carolina is always a tough team especially in the attack so I think we got a learn from it and we gotta use it the best way possible going forward.
Jacob Labovitz (F), on the key to his recent goal-scoring run: “I’d say just getting more minutes under my belt and getting more experience. I’m getting more chemistry with the guys and they’re feeding me great passes up top. I think we’re really starting to jell together.”
Jake Keegan (F), on the third goal to put the match away: “I don’t remember the first ball played on the sequence, but Jacob was excellent – he’s done so much better in those situations holding the ball up for us, and then Jesus, what a one-timer. I was just kind of on the end of it for a goal, but a team effort there. It’s always great to score but I think our performance tonight was very good from start to finish. We knew what their strengths were in terms of their pace behind and we knew we had to sit in a deeper block and once we won the ball, we were dangerous tonight.”
