Crystal Palace Baltimore vs. Portland Timbers.
Sunday, August 29th, 2010.
PGE Park; 6 p.m. Kickoff; Attendance: 15,418; Weather: Partly Cloudy.

Crystal Palace Baltimore 0 - Portland Timbers 3.

Scoring Summary:
PDX: Ryan Pore; 15th minute. (assisted by Mamadou Danso)
PDX: Bright Dike; 42nd minute. (assisted by Johan Claesson)
PDX: Bright Dike; 53rd minute. (assisted by Ryan Pore)

• The North End celebrates one of three goals on the night.

Hit the cut for our play by play, plus quotes from Midfielder Ryan Pore and Head Coach Gavin Wilkinson.

Four hours before match time hundreds of Portland Timbers supporters began filling up a parking lot across the street from the stadium. As the gates began to open everyone started making their trek to the park for the start of the match. They were already festive and the night just got better and better throughout.

BOOM! POW! WHACK! KAPOW!

The Portland Timbers beat down Crystal Palace Baltimore three-nil after Bright Dike scored a brace and Ryan Pore chipped in with a goal as well. Baltimore is a team that previously beat the Timbers back on May 13th and 22nd, and these the three points were much needed in the playoff position race. The higher Portland finishes in the standings the weaker the team they will play, and currently the Timbers sit in third place in the USL Conference and in fourth place in the overall standings.

Forward Bright Dike continued proving his goal scoring ability with his two goal performance. Currently he has a one goal per match average in the past five contests. Dike scored on both sides of the break and celebrated in style for his second—the team pretended Dike hit a home run and waited for him to run the bases. Bright rounded third and then jumped into his teammates arms at home plate.

Around the 42nd minute Dike received the ball from Johan Claesson, 40 yards out from goal. In his charge towards the goal he took on four defenders, beating all of them. Just as he reached the outside of the 18 yard box he unleashed a wicked left-footed shot. Goalkeeper Evan Bush could not get his mitt on the ball and the smoke started filling up the North End.

With the 2-nil lead the team was able to push the numbers up. The final nail in the coffin came in the 54th minute. Under pressure, Johan Claesson found teammate Ryan Pore with his flick. Pore squared the pass off to Dike and with his first touch Bright slammed the ball toward the far post. The goalkeeper was able to get a touch on the shot but could not deflect it enough to keep it out of the back of the net.

Ryan Pore also put his mark on the score sheet earlier in the match. On a long ball out of the back by Mamadou Danso, Pore was able to control the pass. The defender had a humorous attempt at clearing the play and fell down on his back side. Oops. Pore did not hesitate to find the back post. The goal and the assist helped pad his stats atop the league's points leaders. He currently has 14 goals and 32 points in the 25 matches he has played in.

Crystal Palace Baltimore was frustrated throughout the whole match. Portland goalkeeper Steve Cronin never really faced any danger in front of his goal. He only had to make one save on the night as Baltimore was lucky to escape the match with 10 men on the pitch. Korey Veeder was sent to the showers early after being issued his second yellow from a shirt-grabbing tussle with Takayuki Suzuki. Early on, he committed a late cleats-up challenge on Ryan Pore that went unpunished. On another occasion, in the 87th minute an intentional hand ball was committed in the box and also went unpunished.

Even with all the changes this season to the roster, Cronin recorded his ninth clean sheet of the season. With the exception of the Austin Aztex, this Timbers team stacks up well against their competition in the league, with a dozen different scorers that have already compiled 43 goals this season. The last home match is this tonight at 7 pm against the Puerto Rico Islanders. After that, the Timbers finish the season on the road for the final four matches. You can be sure the pints will be flowing at the away match viewings at Beulahland, Bitter End Pub, Rogue Public House, and many other places. See you there?

I got to speak after the match to Midfielder Ryan Pore and Head Coach Gavin Wilkinson about the win.

Here are some of the quotes:

—-Ryan Pore—-

"When they have six wins and two of them are against us it kinda gives us a slap in the face."
"We made it a point to come out and rub their faces in it a little bit and prove we are the better team. We did that tonight."
"We got a pretty physical team. I do not think there is any team we are scared of right now."
"The last two games have been sell-outs and we have more to go. I have heard that it will be a sell-out too. It has been remarkable what we have been able to do. The fans and their support behind us is the main reason why Portland is on the map right now."

—-Gavin Wilkinson—-

"The two strikes he had were brilliant."
"He did not start the first five or six games, worked hard, got himself fitter, and now he is climbing up the goal scoring charts." Gavin continued on, "There is no mystery that our results has started improving as he has hit a little bit of form and hit the back of the net."
"I thought we were going to have to grind out a result knowing that they are a pain in our rear end." he then added, "I think we outplayed them tonight." he also added, "I think we showed exactly the difference between the two teams."
"I thought by putting three in the middle of the park we could exploit them and we did."

Shots: BAL 8 - PDX 18.
Saves: BAL 4 - PDX 1.
Corners: BAL 3 — PDX 3.
Fouls: BAL 18 - PDX 14.
Yellow Cards: 
BAL: Korey Veeder, Tsuyoshi Yoshitake, Santiago Fusilier, Alan Sanchez.
PDX: Mamadou Danso.
Red Card:
Korey Veeder.