USSF D-II: Miami heads to Austin, while RailHawks host Whitecaps

Posted Jul 31, 2010 by Nick Murray

Updated Jul 31, 2010 at 01:19 PM

Austin returns to action after two weeks off to host Miami, while Vancouver continues its road trip in Carolina in Saturday’s USSF Division II action.

VANCOUVER (8-3-9) AT CAROLINA (6-4-6): The top two teams in the NASL Conference meet at Wakemed Stadium with the RailHawks looking to gain ground on the Whitecaps.

Carolina has four games in hand on Vancouver, but saw the Whitecaps extend their lead at the top of the conference to nine points when they earned a 1-0 victory against Montreal on Wednesday night. Carolina lost 1-0 to Rochester the previous evening, an own goal by defender Matt Bobo the only goal.

With a win tonight, the Whitecaps would take control of the conference, making it key for the RailHawks to rebound and get something from tonight’s contest.

MONTREAL (6-8-5) AT BALTIMORE (5-9-4): The Impact will try to rebound from their defeat to Canadian rival Vancouver on Wednesday as they try to solidify their playoff position by putting more space between themselves and the Eagles.

Crystal Palace Baltimore has been inconsistent of late, but defeated Montreal 2-1 at the Stade Saputo in their last meeting two weeks ago, goals by Gary Brooks and Andrew Marshall allowing the Eagles to rally from an early deficit.

Montreal has also seen its form come and go, a 3-0 win against St. Louis coming in-between the losses to Baltimore and Vancouver. Having scored 18 goals in 19 games, the Impact need to find more scoring than just Tony Donatelli, who leads the team with five goals.

MIAMI (2-7-9) AT AUSTIN (10-2-5): The highest-scoring team in the league faces the side that has now conceded more goals than any other this season as Austin returns to action for the first time since a 2-0 win against St. Louis on July 17.

Miami is on a seven-game winless streak and hasn’t recorded a shutout since its last win on June 12 against Portland. The Blues have also given up an average of two goals per game over their last four outings, only one of which ended in a tie.

The defensive weakness they have shown should be taken advantage of by the Aztex, who have scored 30 goals in 17 games this season with Eddie Johnson, Maxwell Griffin and Jamie Watson accounting for 20 of them. Griffin scored a hat trick in the previous meeting between the two teams this season, a 3-1 Aztex victory on June 19.