The last time Ottawa Fury FC upset the highly touted Charlotte Independence, the team made a coaching change.

That wasn’t going to be the case, win, lose or draw this time out but the Fury were mere minutes away from doing it again to Charlotte.

The Fury tried to make an early goal by Jamar Dixon stand up, only to have Charlotte midfielder Lewis Hilton tie it in the 89th minute as the two teams played to a 1-1 draw Saturday night at the brand new 2,300-seat, 10-field, Sportsplex at Matthews, N.C., just southeast of downtown Charlotte.

The late goal prevented Fury FC interim head coach Julian de Guzman from getting his first win as head coach and the club has still not won since way back on Aug. 12 at TD Place, also against the Independence, which oddly enough led to the ouster of Paul Dalglish as the team’s head coach in the hours following what was believed to be the Fury FC’s biggest win of the season.

The club quickly installed de Guzman, formerly an assistant, into the top job and while the club has certainly played more entertaining soccer, a record of now no wins, five draws and two losses has not helped with the Fury FC’s long-shot playoff chances.

The single point will do little to put the Fury FC back into the playoff picture, though they still have enough points available before the United Soccer League regular season closes out Oct. 14 in Pittsburgh, which has the potential to be a make-or-break contest.

The still-12th-place Fury were in tough in Charlotte against the Eastern Conference’s most prolific offence, the Independence holding a 50-to-34 advantage in goals-for on Fury FC heading into the contest.

The Charlotte lineup also boasts the league’s top goal scorer in Enzo Martinez, who is tied for first with 16 goals, and Jorge Herrera who is fifth with 12.

The Fury handled the big guns well enough. They just couldn’t close things as the Independence held a wide margin in play, particularly in the final 30 minutes leading up to Hilton’s goal.

Ottawa now has just two wins in their past 10 games against five draws, including four in a row under de Guzman.

That kind of playoff push is not going to do it in any league, though mathematically, the Fury are still alive with five games to play, beginning next Sunday at TD Place against the first-place Louisville City FC.

Following that one, Fury FC has trips to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh around a two-game homestand with Charleston and FC Cincinnati.

Of those five games, four are against teams ahead of Ottawa in the Eastern Conference standings, so it’s not going to be an easy climb up the table.

Fury FC, to its credit, got just the kind of start de Guzman has been hoping for since taking over as interim head coach of the team in mid-August.

Ottawa went right to the attack and it paid off with some sustained pressure in the Charlotte end just 10 minutes in when Dixon headed the ball into the net for a 1-0 lead.

Just moments later, the Fury FC again threatened with Dixon rifling a shot off the post and Tucker Hume just sending his kick wide of the goal.

Fury FC ’keeper Callum Irving made the lead standup into the half, making an outstanding acrobatic save just below the crossbar. Irving was making his 31st consecutive start and has played every minute this season in the Ottawa goal.

Ottawa suffered a scare in the final moments of the opening 45 when leading scorer Steevan Dos Santos took a boot to the side of the knee and went down in obvious pain. Dos Santos entered the game on a five-game goal-scoring streak, just one shy of the USL’s longest in 2017.

Dos Santos was unable to return for the second half, replaced by Carl Haworth, and ending his goal-a-game run.

FURY LOSES LEADER

Steevan Dos Santos took to the field in Charlotte on Saturday night as the United Soccer League’s hottest goal-scorer.

The Ottawa Fury FC’s top scorer was looking to extend his goal scoring streak to six consecutive games and tie as season-high in the entire league for the 2017 season.

Instead, Dos Santos’ night lasted just 44 minutes when a pair of Charlotte Independence defenders sandwiched the 6-foot-4, 208-pound Dos Santos at midfield with one of the Charlotte players catching the Ottawa forward on the side of a knee with his boot.

Dos Santos went down hard and awkwardly.

Play went on and Fury FC managed to complete the opening half and two minutes of added time with Dos Santos lying in agony off to the side of the field.

The Fury medical staff attended to Dos Santos at halftime, but the skilled striker was unable to answer the bell for the second half And was replaced by veteran Carl Haworth, for his 101st appearance in a Fury FC jersey.

There was no further word on the extent of the injury though Dos Santos will be re-evaluated next week as the club returns to training at TD Place in preparation for next Sunday afternoon’s contest against first-place Louisville City FC.

But there’s little doubt the club cannot afford to lose their most-feared offensive threat.

The hot run by Dos Santos has lifted him into 17th in league scoring with eight goals and that amounts to almost one-quarter of the Fury FC’s offensive output for the entire season.