Timbers extend unbeaten streak to ten league games

By: Bob Kellett | June 14th, 2009

Ho hum. Just another Kitsap, WA – Cary, NC – Charleston, SC road trip. Three games in five days. Nearly 3,00 miles in travel. This would be unusual if it weren’t the USL First Division where the intended league purpose is to render its players useless by the age of 25.

Useless the Portland Timbers were not during this sojourn. They defeated the Kitsap Pumas 3-0 on Tuesday in one of those tricky US Open Cup matches where they are supposed to win because they play in a higher caliber league but they aren’t assured victory because the game means more to the lower caliber league guys.

They then flew cross country and faced the Carolina RailHawks for the third time in ten league games. Without their leading goal scorer and without their holding midfielder, the Timbers pretty much took it to Carolina and could easily have walked away with three points instead of the standard 0-0 result they seemingly always get against Carolina.

A few hours rest and they were back at it in the heat and humidity in Charleston, facing a Battery team that has yet to lose in 12 games. Falling behind a goal, Portland could easily have folded. Instead, a late goal from Mandjou Keita leveled the score at 1-1 and extended the Timbers’ unbeaten streak to ten games.

A win and two draws even though it could just as well been two wins and a loss. Either way we’ll take it. What we learned from this brutal stretch was that this year’s squad does in fact have a bit of depth. Over the three games, 15 different players started and 18 players saw action. The Cameron Knowles Iroman awards go to Steve Cronin, David Hayes, Scot Thompson, and Keith Savage for playing all 270 minutes.

And now the team has the luxury of two whole days without a game. They get to fly back across the country to face some outfit called the Sonoma County Sol in yet another one of those tricky US Open Cup matches where they are supposed to win because they play in a higher caliber league but they aren’t assured victory because the game means more to the lower caliber league guys.

A victory means a US Open Cup home match on June 30 against the much despised Seattle Sounders. That would not suck.

Photo: Steven Worthy