The Portland Hearts of Pine inaugural season came to a tough ending on Sunday night in a USL One Semifinal Playoff against the Spokane Velocity at One Spokane Stadium in Spokane, Washington. The Hearts would fall in two rounds of penalty kicks (6-5), losing by a final match score of 3-2.
After Spokane opened the scoring in the first half, Portland tied it up early in the second in the 53rd minute on a goal from Ollie Wright. The game eventually went to a full 30-minute overtime. The Hearts would take the lead in the first minute of the extra session on a strike from JayTee Kamara, before Nil Vinyals extended the season for the Velocity by knotting things up in the final moments of the overtime sending it to penalty kicks. Goalkeeper Hunter Morse was able to give Portland the upperhand by stopping the third Spokane shooter in the 5-man first round of PKs, giving his team an opportunity to advance to the championship with the shootout even at 4-4. But Spokane keeper Merancio Valdez had other thoughts, making a save to extend it to a second round by stopping the final Hearts chance. After the teams traded makes in the shooter by shooter second round, the Velocity netted another with their second shooter and Valdez would then come up with another huge stop on what turned out to be the final shot of the season for Portland to send Spokane to the league final next weekend. The Hearts end a very successful inaugural year with a record of 12-8-12.
Photos of Kamara, Wright, and Morse courtesy of the Portland Hearts of Pine
