By JAKE NUTTING

For most of the first hour of Friday’s match in Toronto, the Tampa Bay Rowdies found themselves trailing to the team dead last in the USL’s Eastern Conference standings. As the match neared its climax, though, the Rowdies surged to notch three goals in the span of 14 minutes and come away with a 3-1 result for their first road win of the season.

“I thought the players showed tremendous character,” Rowdies Coach Stuart Campbell said. “It was a difficult first half for us, but the guys came in, we had a good chat at halftime, went back out and I thought we were absolutely outstanding in the second half. I think we thoroughly deserved the three points”

Toronto FC II put the pressure on Matt Pickens early in the 9th minute when he had to rush off his line to thwart Ben Spencer’s free run on goal on the right of the box. However, Pickens failed to stop Toronto’s next scoring chance a minute later. Sergio Camargo lofted a beautiful ball over the back line and Luca Uccello timed his run perfectly to stay onside and latch on to the pass for a finish into the bottom left corner.

The Rowdies were inches away from leveling the match in the 21st minute. Deshorn Brown stripped a Toronto defender in the final third, pushed the ball into space and used his pace to beat another defender, but his shot to the far post had too much curl and went just wide of net. Brown skied another chance inside the box later on in the half yards over the crossbar.

Despite going down a goal, the Rowdies remained committed to their possession style. The problem was Toronto’s quick goal energized the young side, which now went in faster and harder on close challenges and closed Tampa bay out of the final third for much of the first hour.

In the 57th minute, Georgi Hristov provided the first shot on net of the match. The Bulgarian deftly chested a pin-point long ball from Damion Lowe down just outside the box and rifled the bounce off the turf toward the side netter. Keeper Angelo Cavalluzzo denied Hristov, though, with a firm punchout.

Calvalluzzo and Pickens were both called on to make saves during end-to-end action in the 60th minute. A scuffed shot from a Rowdies corner kick was scooped up by Cavalluzzo, who launched a counter attack that culminated with Pickens stifling a shot from Spencer in the center of the box.

Tampa Bay’s persistence finally paid off through terrific build up play by Darwin Jones. The winger broke down his defender on the right flank in the 68th minute and sent a low cross toward the near post that was cleverly flicked by Hristov on to an unmarked Joe Cole for the tap across the line.

The two goals to clinch all three points for the Rowdies came in quick succession. Substitute Martin Paterson made an impact ten seconds after replacing Brown, nodding the ball home when a defender’s attempted clearance of a free kick came in his direction. Jones then doubled the lead two minutes later as his long range shot took a beneficial deflection off a defender a caught Calvalluzzo flat-footed.

“I’m delighted,” Paterson said. “[When I came on], I was very confident that we would create chances. I didn’t know if we would win, but I know we would create chances and it was up to us to put them away. If you watched the game, we had the clear-cut chances much more than them.”

Tampa Bay returns to the field on Wednesday with another away day, this time against the Rochester Rhinos. Following that match in New York, the Rowdies head will home for a Saturday meeting with Preki’s St. Louis FC.