OLYMPIA, Wash. – After falling behind 1-0 for the fifth time this season, the Oly Town Artesians made another comeback and earned a point with a toasty 1-1 draw against the Vancouver Victory at Black Hills High School on Saturday night. Max Hauser scored the equalizer in the 76th minute to help Oly improve to 2-2-1 on the season and into a three way tie atop the Evergreen Premier League’s South Division with just one regular season game left to play.
Vancouver opened the scoring in the 11th minute when Levan Zhividze scored his league leading fifth goal of the season and the Victory took a 1-0 lead. In five league games this season, it is the fifth time that the Artesians have conceded the first goal and put themselves in an early hole. Oly Town held much of the possession and nearly all of the chances in the first half, but still trailed by one at halftime.
The two teams went scoreless over the next 65 sweltering minutes with 16 year-old goalkeeper Owen Purvis making numerous saves to keep the Victory up well into the second half. But finally, after a series of shots, Max Hauser gathered a rebound and punched the ball into the back of the net to get the Artesians level. After the goal, and despite heavy legs from the extreme heat, the game picked up going box-to-box but both defenses held solid and the game came to an end knotted up 1-1.
The tie puts Oly Town at 2-2-1 with seven points this season and they are tied with Tacoma Narrows and Yakima United on top of the South Division with just one game left. Yakima holds the tiebreaker over Tacoma, Tacoma holds the tiebreaker over the Artesians, and the Artesians hold the tiebreaker over Yakima. The Artesians host Yakima on Saturday, July 10th at 6:30 PM as part of a women’s/men’s doubleheader. The Oly Town women will host Washington Premier at 3:30.
Meanwhile, Vancouver’s point means that they are just one point off of the pace with six and will travel to Tacoma on the 10th to face Narrows in their final regular season game.
GOALS: ’11 – Levan Zhividze – Vancouver, ’76 – Max Hauser – Oly Town
DISCIPLINE: Alex Lopez (Oly Town) – Yellow, Aidan McGinty (Vancouver) – Yellow
LINEUP: 1 – Sawyer Price (GK), 2 – Manny Nicasio, 4 – Marcos Santos (’62), 6 – Sammy Taffola, 7 – Jake Zimmerman, 9 – Matt Jordan (’70), 10 – Alec Zimmerman (’70), 15 – Nate Boatright, 16 – Collin LaBranche, 17 – Max Hauser
SUBS: 3 – Dakota Seddon (’62), 12 – Zack Martin (’70), 14 – Duvan Vaca-Trujillo (’70)