Swope Park takes win in Seattle 2-0

The Swope Park Rangers got back into the win column with a 2-0 victory on the road over Seattle Sounders FC 2 in Tukwila, Washington on Sunday.

The victory was needed for the Rangers to keep in reach of a playoff spot but more importantly to bounce back from a poor performance at home against OKC Energy at home in their previous match.

"We needed to give an answer, a good answer from what happened in the game against OKC," Swope Park Rangers head coach Marc Dos Santos stated after the match. "The type of performance against OKC at home, it's not what we want to be made of and we needed to answer. So I think today was a good answer coming to an away game, playing against a team that has created some problems against other teams at home, they beat Vancouver 3-2 here. We knew it would be a tough challenge."

The Rangers and Seattle played fairly evenly through the first half with Swope Park getting the better of the run of play for the most part but the score remaining tied at zero. " It's not the type of game that, because of the type of turf it bounces a lot, that we could really settle the game so we needed to be patient," Dos Santos explained. "We needed to wait for the best moment."

That moment came in the 65^th minute when Rangers' midfielder Ualefi saw an opening and fed Kris Tyrpak up field. Tyrpak took a couple touches to create some space and launched a shot from outside the box and past Seattle's keeper Charlie Lyon as he dove to stop it.

The Rangers put the game away in the 88^th minute when Johnny Grant forced a turnover off of the Seattle defense and Mark Anthony Gonzalez chested the ball to gain control and slid a shot past Lyon to make the lead 2-0.

"Tyrpak is a player that when he is healthy and at his best he can help this team a lot," Dos Santos observed. "He got an excellent goal and then we kept defending well and got a good finish from Mark to finish the game. I think overall the guys deserved it, they played a very good road game and it's a very good three points."

With the second goal, Gonzalez moves into the lead for goals scored for Swope Park with 5 and Tyrpak's was his 3^rd of the season.