Houston Dynamo at Sporting Kansas City: Orange Stay Unbeaten at Livestrong Park

Posted by : Stephen Eastepp September 15, 2012

What a painful ending to the game! With just over a minute left in stoppage time, Sporting Kansas City found the equalizer to steal three full points away from Houston. The Dynamo left Livestrong Park with a 1-1 draw, which isn't a bad result but felt like a loss.

Brad Davis gave the visitors a 1-0 lead with a nice strike in the 58', but C.J. Sapong took advantage of poor marking in the 93' to even the scoreline and salvage a point for Eastern Conferene leading Sporting Kansas City.

Couple of observations on the night.

Tally "the Wall" Hall! Are you kidding me? This kid is good! If it wasn't for Hall's incredible play throughout the game, we would've left there with a loss. Hall's a stand up guy also, so he'll never say it, but I'm sure he wasn't too happy with the defense after Sapong leveled the game. Can you imagine him breaking Pat Onstad's Dynamo record for clean sheets with such a dominate performance? Would have been a nice piece of history with such a standout performance. On to the next one.
Sporting Kansas City outshot Houston 28-6. Wow. SKC pressured so far up the field and you have to credit the defense for withstanding such a barrage of offensive pressure. Had the game been level early in the second half, we'd all be saying how we will gladly take a draw in this game based on what we were seeing. Obviously, with a last minute equalizer, it doesn't feel like that today.
Giles Barnes got just over ten minutes in his Dynamo debut and looked confident. His shot shortly after being subbed in was just outside and even though he had some other options in the attack, I like his confidnence and think he's going to fit nicely into the lineup. Also think he'll be a key player in the playoffs - just got a feeling.
Is it me or does it feel like Ricardo Clark never left Houston? He's been a great pickup and even though Adam Moffat is out injured, I haven't even thought "where's Moffat" that last couple games.
Last year, I thought the Luiz Camargo pick up was huge. This year, I can't believe I don't even remember he's on our team at times.
In the end, Livestrong Park is a tough place to play for so many teams, but Houston seems to play well there. That's good news because I feel we may be facing them in the playoffs again. Think Chris Canetti said it well this morning on Twitter.

Trying to ease the sting, look at it this way: we went 1-0-2 vs KC this year. A win at home and 2 draws on the road.
— Chris Canetti (@ChrisCanetti) September 15, 2012

Over at Dynamo Theory, I previewed the Eastern Conference playoff race last week. Sporting Kansas City was Houston's toughest opponent in their final six games, and a point during that game is really a great result. Don't sweat the final score Dynamo fans.

Coming up next for the Dynamo is C.D. FAS in the CONCACAF Champions League on September 20th. Three days later Houston will visit Philadelphia in their next league game. Dominic Kinnear will need a nice balance for these two games as both are equally important. With a win against FAS, the Dynamo would be in a nice position in their CCL group, where they are currently tied with Olimpia.