Jackson Hopkins scored his third goal in four games and 10 men DC United held a 1-1 draw against Orlando City visiting Washington on Saturday evening.
Luis Barraza made 10 best career stops for DC (5-15-10, 25 points), the number of which was reduced during the dismissal of Lukas Macnaughton in the 57th minute.
These performances helped the undefeated black and red in four games (1-0-3) under the new manager René Weiler despite having already been eliminated from the post-season assertion.
Defender Alex Freeman pulled the level of Orlando in the 53rd minute with his fifth goal of the season. But the Lions were also a combination of waste and the victim of the excellent Barraza night, not having taken three points despite 26-6 in shots and 11-3 in the efforts on the target.
Orlando (13-7-9, 48 points) left a place in sixth in the Eastern Conference via Columbus’ victory in Atlanta.
Hopkins put DC to DC against the game race in the game of the game in the 33rd minute on one of the rare incursions of DC forward.
Conner Antley did the most impressive work of accumulation, taking the pass of Joao Peglow, making a hard cut to escape a defender on the right side of the box, then selecting Hopkins in front of the goal.
Hopkins then used his back to run his defender before shooting a low finish in front of Pedro Gallese.
Freeman leveled 20 minutes later during a sequence that ultimately led to Macnaughton’s ejection.
Pasalic forced Barraza to a first stop after being played on the right. Freeman was the first rebound to prick him over the line. And after referee Chris Penso was summoned to the rereading instructor, he judged that Macnaughton had made a sufficiently dangerous challenge to Freeman in his attempt to refuse the rebound effort to justify a red card.
Barraza could have done better to push this rebound in a less dangerous area. But he compensated him in the late stages with two late refusals of Marco Pasalic and another from Eduard Atuesta.
– field level media
