Triumph and Paradise Share Points in Scoreless USL League One Draw
- Forrest Wimberly
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
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Franchise History:
It was a scoreless draw Wednesday night at GE Vernova Park as the Greenville Triumph hosted the visiting Sarasota Paradise in USL League One regular season play.
Amal Knight in the Greenville nets made several critical saves to earn the point for the Triumph who are slowly making their climb up the USL League One table. The Triumph are now tied for fourteenth place, nine points out of the eight place and the final playoff spot after this draw versus Paradise and the Fourth of July win over the Cosmos.
Greenville had most of the ball and really controlled the tempo of play in the opening minutes and put together some very long spells of possession. In the 12th minute all this possession led to an excellent opportunity as Lucas Meek was played a ball wide left in the attacking third where he drove inside and shot the ball far post only to have the post deny him the opening goal of the match.
Greenville was very good at spreading out the field and circulating the ball dragging the Paradise defense from touch line to touch line. This strategy kept the ball but never delivered the goal as the final ball into the box or into the feet of the forwards just didn’t come out of the movements. Paradise were content to allow the possession that probed the edges of the defense but were quick to put out any fires that emerged in the middle of the park from the Triumph attacks.
Paradise had their best chance in the 26th minute as a through ball put their striker in 1v1 versus Greenville keeper Amal Knight who stood tall and turned away the shot for a corner kick to keep the match scoreless. This was a recurring theme during the evening as Knight made six massive saves to keep Paradise off the scoreboard and the Triumph in the match.
Paradise rattled the ball off the bar off a corner kick in the 28th minute and that ended the immediate danger for the Triumph. The match went to the half tied 0-0.
Greenville had another excellent chance to score in the 56th minute but their driven free kick was just out of reach of the Triumph runner who couldn’t get the final decisive touch on the ball to turn it into the nets.
Knight came up huge again in the 60th minute kicking the shot away after a Paradise was again in 1v1 on the Triumph netminder. The positioning, reading of the play, and ability to stay “big” when facing the shots made Knight very successful in turning Paradise away all match long.
“It feels good to have back-to-back clean sheets,” said Triumph goalkeeper Amal Knight after shutting out the Paradise and Cosmos in back-to-back games. “I have been working hard at it, and you could feel it during the first half of the season. To come into the beginning of the second half of the season and get back-to-back clean sheets feels good.”
Knight was definitely on his game Wednesday night and at one point during the second half he slowed down a restart to refocus his defensive unit. Paradise used several passes to move the ball from the center circle to just inside the Triumph box where they took a shot that Knight watched sail wide. Sensing that the Paradise build-up play way too easy, Knight called out to his team to keep playing and raise their defensive intensity. This lack of defensive focus deep into the second half wouldn’t trouble the Triumph in this match but is an area to address if the Triumph are to make a serious run at a playoff position.
“Defensively, I think we’ve been doing well, and we just have to keep it up,” continued Knight. “We’ve got to stay focused for the entirety of the 90 minutes, and we just have to keep going,”
The Triumph now holds a 4W-7L-2T (14 points) record and will turn their attention to Prinx Tires USL Cup action as they close out group play hosting the Richmond Kickers on Saturday, July 11.
Both the Triumph and Kickers are eliminated from the USL Cup knockout stage and this match could be a valuable tool to rest some regulars, showcase some younger players, and build some confidence for the remaining USL League One matches. Kickoff is at 7:30 versus the Kickers.
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