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The Swope Park Rangers jumped on Tulsa Roughnecks FC early Wednesday night and then cruised to victory. The win moved Swope Park into fourth in the Western Conference and set them up to host a playoff game if they win their last match on Saturday.
For the third straight game, the Rangers claimed an early lead. Kris Tyrpak scored his 6th goal of the year when captain Christian Duke forced a the Tulsa keeper to turn the ball over. Ever Alvarado crossed to Tyrpak for an easy header in the 5th minute.
Dane Kelly doubled the lead and scored his 6th of the year when Alvarado threaded a ball through traffic for Kelly to hammer home from point blank range in the 9th.
“We are coming out focused. In the locker room the message is clear, the players understand it and they put everything into practice. There is a lot of quality in this group and they maybe come into the game a little more focused. Now teams know that we come out like that and they will be more ready.” – Swope Park Rangers head coach Mark Dos Santos
The Roughnecks pulled one back in the 19th. Amer Didic brought down Sammy Ochoa in the box and Tulsa was awarded a penalty. Ochoa put it past Zac Lubin for their lone goal.
Typrak added another goal in the 27th from Aryton to extend the league back to two again. From that point the Rangers were still the better team but focused on managing the win, especially in the second half.
“We knew before the game that it would not be a perfect game, it’s difficult to play so many games in a few days. The way we approached the game, the way we got out of the locker room was with a lot of responsibility, a big identity, we created a lot, we scored. The second half was a little bit of managing some guys that had played a lot of minutes and managing the fact that we have another game in two days. At the end of the day we were able to get out of there with three points and that was important to us.” – Dos Santos