Baltimore MD - Crystal Palace FC USA kept their sights on a third place finish with a convincing 3-0 victory over the visiting Bermuda Hogges. The match was played at Poly/Western High School in Baltimore as part of the city’s annual International Festival. The two sides meet again on Wednesday night at UMBC for Palace’s final home game of the regular season. With tonight’s win, Palace have all but clinched home field advantage for their 1st round playoff match on August 13th.

Bermuda had played the night before in Harrisburg and it showed in their play and in their roster - only two substitutes were warming the Hogges’ bench. Palace were by far the livelier team as the game took shape in the first half. Chances were being created thick and fast by the home side and on 18 minutes, Val Teixeira sent in a perfect low cross from the left to Larry Mark charging into the box. Mark’s one-touch finish gave him his first goal of the season and Palace the lead.

In the 39th minute, Pat Healey put Val Teixeira through near the half-way line and the Portuguese winger stormed up the left channel into the box. Teixeira pulled up 10 yards from goal, looked up and picked his spot, slotting home calmly to the far post to double Palace’s advantage going into half-time.

Chances were much harder to come by in the second half as the pace slowed significantly. Bermuda’s best chance of the match took place in the 80th minute when Blenn Bean found himself one-on-one with Brian Rowland in the Palace net, but Rowland maintained the clean sheet with an excellent block.

Larry Mark was on target again in the 83rd minute, sprinting past his marker and finishing with confidence to cap off a dominant performance by the Baltimore side.

The second match in the back-to-back series with Bermuda kicks off at 7:30pm on Wednesday August 6th in the familiar surroundings of UMBC Stadium.

Crystal Palace Line-Up:
Brian Rowland, Mateus dos Anjos, Andrew Marshall, Mike Lookingland, Paul Robson (David Feazell 25), Pat Healey, Shintaro Harada, Dan Lader, Val Teixeira, Larry Mark, Matthew Mbuta

Subs not used: Bryan Harkin, Kevin King, Cecil Lewis, Sergio Flores, Ibrahim Kante, Zak Thompson

Bookings:

Harada 60

Goals:

Mark 18, 83

Teixeira 39

Bermuda Hogges Line-Up

Timothy Figureido, Omar Shakir, Jelani Scott, Darius Cox, Blenn Bean, Jared Peniston (Lyndon Burgess 82), Damon Ming, Devaun DeGraff, Stephen Astwood (Lashun Dill 71), Keishen Bean, Kevin Richards

Bookings:

K. Bean 45

Scott 67

Referees: Robert Fereday, Jason Cullum, Adrian Krell, Brett Lally