With his team in first place, Jim Curtin kept the long view and suggested his team is good but still has a lot of work to do if they want to reach their goal of playing in the postseason at home.
"They made us turn the ball over in bad spots. Fortunately, Matt made a few saves, Carlos came in and made a few saves for us, and we raised our level in the second half and looked more like us."
Matt Freese's status
Curtin updated the media on Matt Freese's status following the match.
"He got taken to the hospital for some scans and that's usually never a good sign," the head coach cautioned. "I don't want to speculate. He landed wrong on the hip early in the game. To his credit, toughed it out as long as he could. Something wasn't feeling quite right in there. I hope everything is OK for Matthew.
"Carlos stepped in and did a great job. Made some big saves all the way until the 90th minute there to keep us in the game. That's been the story of our season. I think we've used now 25-26 players in the squad, and we haven't just used them, they've contributed big minutes for us."
Top of the table
"No one really remembers who is in first place in -- what are we in -- May?" Curtin began.
"I'm most focused on -- and our team is most focused on -- taking care of all the games that we have at home. Tonight was a big first step in that but you don't celebrate being at the top of the table in May.
"Most important is that we position ourselves now to host our first playoff game and to win our first playoff game. We have to work hard to achieve that, and I think we have the squad and the talent in this group to do so."
Kacper's contributions
For the second straight match, striker Kacper Przybylko stepped up and scored an important goal for Curtin's side.
"You could argue the man of the match for us -- was it him, was it Jamiro? 1 and 1a? Take your pick." the head coach shrugged. "I thought both of them were exceptional for us tonight.
"I thought Kacper, his movement in the box, his ability to hold up the ball, you have Waston hanging on you the whole night, a really great center back in our league, not an easy task to put 90 minutes back to back again. We had to burn subs in a unique way, had to push him 90 minutes again. And he really held up.
"You can see his quality, how clean his layoffs are, his contact with balls in the box. We talked earlier in the week about it, he's not a guy that needs a ton of chances to score a goal. He buries the looks that he gets. Happy for Kacper, it's been a long road back to fitness for him. You can see his workrate and ability to press in the 90th minute. Doing what strikers need to do, which is score goals, and he's done a really good job of that for us."
Przybylko and the first place Union now prepare for New England Revolution to come calling on Saturday, May 4th for Star Wars night. And there's no better place in the galaxy to start a game than the top of the table.
Tickets for Saturday's match are available here.
