Tonight was a start of a new era for Columbus following the sacking of Robert Warzycha as head coach on Monday and the new era started with a morale-boosting 2-0 win over Houston. Though the outcome could have been very different if Will Bruin had found his shooting boots after a poor first half from the Crew.
Houston should have been three goals to the good within the first 15 minutes of the game with the Crew defense serving up chances at will. First Eric Gehrig let Bruin get a toe to a ball he should have cleared as he rounded Matt Lampson in the Crew goal, but the weak shot was cleared by the retreating Chad Barson.
Bruin again found himself free minutes later after a long ball over the top of the Crew defense, but he hit his shot wide of the goal. He was then presented with his third chance on 11 minutes with Gehrig again at fault. He failed to clear a long ball which Bruin stole and was clean through on goal, though it was not third time is the charm as his shot rose high over the bar.
Columbus finally started to create some chances as the half went on with Ryan Finley and Justin Meram testing the Houston keeper. The Crew’s best chance of the half fell to Dominic Oduro when Brad Davis of Houston played a poor crossfield ball which Oduro intercepted, but he overran the ball allowing Tally Hall to come out and block the resulting shot.
The second half was a different story for the Crew as they came out with an intensity that was missing in the first half and were rewarded immediately. Finley scored his first professional goal after some fine work from Bernardo Anor. He found Meram free on the left side of the box, who unselfishly squared for Finley to place into an empty net.
It should have been 2-0 just moments later after a soft penalty was awarded after a tug on Oduro’s shirt in the box. Finley, buoyant from his first-ever goal in the pros, stepped up to take the resulting kick, but his poor effort was easily saved by Hall.
The second goal finally came on 74 minutes when Oduro’s cross was awkwardly hit by Finley and fell kindly to Meram to dispatch his shot across Hall into the far corner. This capped a fine performance from Meram.
“Justin has individual talent a lot of guys don’t have in carving balls and slipping by guys, creating his own shots,” Crew Interim Head Coach Brian Bliss stated. “He can do that, whether he was doing it better the last six months or was doing it better today, I’ll leave you guys to judge that, he’s got that in his game, he just happened to be on today for lack of a better term.”
Houston never threatened to come back in the game and were looking tired with this their second away game in three days.
