The Big Picture
Colorado Rapids 2 (2-8-3, 10 pts) fought to a 2-2 draw against top of the table opponents Ventura County FC on Sunday night. Ventura County started the night strong, heading into the half up by one goal. Rapids 2 found its stride in the second half with forward Alec Díaz bagging a goal in the 51st minute to bring his season total to three goals. Just a few minutes later, captain Marlon Vargas netted his sixth goal, tying him for the third most goals scored in the league this season. Colorado's go-ahead goal proved to be a temporary lead for the home side as Ventura found their second and final equalizing goal in the late minutes of the second half sending both sides to a shootout. The away team ultimately took home the extra point in a 2-4 result, leaving Colorado with one point earned on the night.
Rapids 2 will hit the road to take on Houston Dynamo 2 at SaberCats Stadium on Sunday, June 23, for the team's first match against the Texas side. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. MT.
Notable:
- M Marlon Vargas scored his sixth goal of the season in tonight's match, tying him for third in the league for most goals scored in 2024.
- Vargas has added a goal and an assist in back-to-back matches.
- F Alec Díaz has scored in back-to-back matches, bringing his season total to three goals. Díaz is now the second highest goal scorer on the team with three goals.
- M Noah Strellnauer has recorded two goals and three assists this season, totaling five goal contributions in his 12 appearances.
- M Robinson Aguirre tied Yosuke Hanya for the most appearances (47) by a Rapids 2 player in team history during tonight's match against Ventura County.
- F Patrick Dormoh recorded his second start of the season during tonight's match. His first-ever start for Rapids 2 was on April 7 against Sporting KC II.
- D Michael Edwards surpassed former Rapids 2 defender Blake Malone for the fourth-most starts (33) in team history.
Postgame Media Availability:
Select postgame quotes transcribed below.
COLORADO RAPIDS 2 HEAD COACH ERIK BUSHEY
On the match:
"Great second half. A lot of work done by the boys and for that I am extremely grateful. Once you are up two-one at that stage, obviously the expectation is that you see out the game and win, but we pushed for the entire half. Now, we make a couple mistakes and if you make a couple of mistakes back-to-back, it tends to be problematic and in this case it was. It's difficult because the players are feeling as though they should have won. Hopefully, with a little bit of time they will see just what their performance was in the second half, it was outstanding. So yeah, live and learn. It's a point earned and I am proud of the players."
On the team's overall performance:
"I was going to try not to mention the first half at all. The first half, we weren't deserved winners. We will leave it at that. The second half, we were deserved winners. So, is the draw fair? I guess if you look at it that way, it probably is. The game wasn't one sided in the first half and yet, we weren't doing enough. The game was certainly more one sided, at least as I recall it right now, in the second half, so maybe we deserve a little bit of the edge. It is a good opponent. We had spent the week, I had spent the week talking about, with all due respect to the opponents we have faced, that I thought this was going to be the best one. We know that they could play and that we should be winning the game. We didn't but we fought to get into a winning position, fought from a losing position and were disappointed with a draw, I get that. We have had a lot of losses, we have two games unbeaten, so again it's a point earned, and we move on for the next match."
COLORADO RAPIDS 2 FORWARD ALEC DÍAZ
On the match:
"I think for us it really is a tale of two halves. I think the first half, I think we all know it wasn't up to our standard. I think it was a good response in the second half. We came out from the beginning of the half fighting and the level was there. It's just a bit frustrating that we didn't get the extra point in the shootout and that we didn't get the three points to begin with."
On turning draws into wins:
"I think I touched on it a bit earlier but it's making these good 45 minutes into good 60 minutes and those good 60 minutes into good 90 minutes. That is the biggest thing that we need to be able to turn this into full matches where we are giving these top performances. As I said in the beginning, I don't think the first half was good enough. I think if we were able to turn that into 90 minutes, I think these draws will start turning into wins."
