Sat August 27, 2016 League 1 Ontario--Aurora United FC vs Durham United FA (from League 1 Ontario website)
Aurora's Adjei Scores Three To Sink Durham 3-1 08/28/2016, 8:15pm EDT By Anthony Gallo After grabbing a win last weekend, Aurora United yet again played off the stellar attacking play of Simon Adjei (5', 54', 90') to get their first back-to-back wins this season. The young Swedish import put his side up off an early corner kick that caught Durham United's keeper Eugene Alves off guard. After that, the match featured plenty of high tempo ball movement from both sides, as Durham tried to get back into the game. Aurora held the lead until just before half time, when Michael Maiorano had a chance in the box and volleyed a low shot into the bottom corner of the net. His first of the season came at a very important moment for his team. Going into the second half, both teams exhibited patience, trying to build quality attacks from the back. It wasn't until Adjei used his strong presence to make a good run from half, beating two defenders and the keeper before firing a shot from the edge of the box into the side netting, that Aurora took the lead. Adjei would seal the match in added time, when he made another solo run from half, yet again beating two players to fire another shot past Alves and give his side all three points. This was Aurora's second win in as many matches, and head coach Jim Brennan was happy to see his team stick to their gameplan and grab a result against a top team in the east division. "We're happy with the result that we got. Obviously we would like to play a good brand of football for 90 minutes, but the game didn’t go that way," said Brennan. "It got a little bit scrappy, stop and start quite a bit, but it was a game that we will take and it was good to see that our guys could play that way if necessary." Brennan also praised the performance of Adjei, saying that the team is working hard to provide him with good opportunities on goal. "He has bags of confidence right now, he is on form and scoring the goals." "Defensively the guys are working hard and the players are working it up to him, getting the opportunities for him to put it in the back of the net." This was Durham's third loss in five matches, as they continue to look to jump ahead to first in the east. Head coach Sanford Carabin said he wasn't too pleased with his team's effort against Aurora and how they didn't stick their instructions before the match. "I think they got away from the gameplan on how we wanted to attack very early on. We reminded them at half, and it didn’t seem to work," said Carabin. "I think there was a bit of panic in some players. We have a few new guys in the squad this week that we had to integrate because of injuries. We had nothing going forward and we had no solution at all for their striker." Carabin singled out Adjei, as he said that he was the difference maker in this match for Aurora. "He's good in the air, he's good with his feet, and he proved it today," said Carabin. Adjei recorded his second hat-trick in three games, and he now has 15 goals on the season. He said that despite the position his team is in, that doesn't change their gameplan. "We had a rough beginning of the season. We don't have too many points, but we are still continuing and we are working hard." "I don't think [we deserved] the poor results in previous games. We just get scored on in the last minutes, but now I think we are learning and we are playing better and working hard in the defence," said Adjei. With their loss, Durham were unable to gain any ground on the Woodbridge Strikers. Although Durham is level on points with the Strikers at 32, Durham holds a advantage via the head to head record. However, both teams are five points behind first place Vaughan Azzurri, and a win against Vaughan on Thursday will be a massive six pointer for Durham in their pursuit of a berth in the 2016 League1 Ontario men's championship match.
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