Timbers U-23s season ends with 3-2 playoff loss

PORTLAND
, Ore.
- Defender
Josh Brown and forward Ryan Youngblood each scored in the Portland Timbers U-23s 3-2 loss to the Seattle Wolves on Thursday afternoon at PGE Park. Wolves forward Alex Chursky tallied a hat trick to lead Seattle to the divisional championship on Saturday against the Kitsap Pumas.
The Timbers U-23s first goal of the match came early when Brown headed in a corner from midfielder
Jordan Crasilneck. Youngblood scored again for Portland and tallied his twelfth goal of the season off of an assist from midfielder Masaki Hemmi to give the Timbers a 2-1 lead going into halftime.
Seattle however, rallied back twice off of two goals from Chursky to tie the game up at 2-2 in the 81st minute. Chursky scored the go-ahead goal for Seattle in the 90th minute to put them through to the Northwest Divisional Championship.
Portland outshot Seattle 16-10 and Wolves goalkeeper
John Moore made three saves on the day.
Brown’s third goal of the season came in the 6th minute off of one of six Portland corners. Crasilneck sent in a ball that found Brown’s head just inside the six-yard box. Brown easily headed the ball into the net putting the Timbers U-23s on the scoreboard early.
Seattle answered back in the 23rd minute off of a miss clearance by the Portland defense. Chursky collected the ball and buried his volley into the upper left hand corner tying the game at 1-1.
Portland pulled ahead before halftime, when Hemmi
split two defenders and found Youngblood alone on the back post to give the Timbers U-23s a 2-1 lead.
In the second-half, Chursky scored his second goal of the night off of a free kick from defender
Brandon Zimmerman in the 81st minute to level the score at 2-2.
Seattle’s winning-goal came in stoppage time when Chursky buried his sixth goal of the season to put the Wolves ahead 3-2 and capture its first playoff win in franchise history.
Notes:
Today’s loss is the first loss at home for the Timbers U-23s this season in eight home matches … Both Portland goalkeeper Austin Guerrero and Moore recorded three saves each … Crasilneck paced the Timbers U-23s with four shots taken.
Lineups:
POR: GK Guerrero, D Flunder (Emory, 55), D Erskine, D Brown, D Guante, M Hemmi (Hasson, 60), M Warner (Shergill, 79), M vanSchaik (Farfan, 90), M Crasilneck, F Youngblood (Richards, 43), F Lopez (Evans, 69)
SEA: GK Moore, D Finch, D Scott, D Bates, D Zimmerman, M Strickland, M Hoss (Roussos, 79), M Klein (James, 53), M Morris (Fishbaugher, 69), F Morgan, F Chursky