Mijahir Jimenez tallied a brace for his first MLS goals Saturday night as Red Bull New York held off Orlando City for a 3-2 win in Harrison, N.J.
Emil Forsberg added a goal and a secondary assist for RBNY (7-7-4, 25 points), who solidified their spot in the East playoff table and improved to 4-0-2 in their last six fixtures against the Lions.
Tyrese Spicer came off the bench to factor into both Orlando goals in the second half, scoring the first and drawing the secondary assist on Griffin Dorsey’s marker. But it wasn’t enough to make up for a leaky performance defensively.
The Lions (6-10-2, 20 points) came into the match boasting consecutive clean sheets against San Jose and Nashville, which entered the weekend atop the East table. But Orlando’s defense had trouble maintaining any sort of shape and RBNY carved them up almost from the jump.
Gustav Berggren appeared to score in the fifth minute but an offside call negated it. Orlando’s reprieve lasted until the 23rd minute, when Berggren teed up Jimenez at the goal mouth to initiate scoring.
Forsberg upped the advantage to two in the 43rd minute as Cade Cowell set him up in the center of the box for a point-blank shot that Maxime Crepeau had no real chance to stop. RBNY took that two-goal advantage to halftime, along with a 12-6 advantage in shots and 4-0 in shots on target.
Spicer pulled one back in the 52nd minute off a corner kick, heading Braian Ojeda’s pass into the box into the net for his second goal in as many matches. But Jimenez restored a two-goal margin in the 60th minute via service from Cowell, roofing his shot into the top right corner.
Dorsey brought Orlando back within a goal in the 63rd minute as Antoine Griezmann brilliantly fed him for a look at a mostly open net from the right post.
Goalie Ethan Horvath came up huge for RBNY in stoppage time, coming up with terrific saves on point-blank chances from Spicer. Horvath made all five of his saves in the second half, while Crepeau finished with four saves.
–Field Level Media
