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Fury 3, Silverbacks 0

The Ottawa Fury made it three straight wins on the road and kept their North American Soccer League playoff aspirations alive on Saturday night at Atlanta’s Silverbacks Park.

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Pierre-Rudolph Mayard struck in the third minute for the Fury, and it was all they needed on their way to a 3-0 victory over the Silverbacks in front of a crowd of 3,071.

The Fury, who seemed all but out of the playoff picture going into last weekend’s 2-0 decision over Tampa Bay, clearly aren’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. With two wins and two draws in their past five outings, they now have 22 points on 20 games in the combined season standings, leaving them in eighth and eight back of Carolina, which has played 21 and currently holds down the fourth and final playoff spot.

“It’s important to keep our dream alive, and our dream is to make the playoffs,” Fury coach Marc Dos Santos said. “It’s an ambitious one. It’s one that seems a little bit impossible, but we’re fighting a game at a time. We have a team with a lot of character and passion and I think our dream is possible.”

After Mayard opened the scoring early on a tap-in, Oliver made it 2-0 in the 38th minute before Carl Haworth finished the hosts off, netting the ball on a header off a cross from Oliver in the 83rd.

Romuald Peiser earned his second straight shutout for Ottawa.

The three points were also valuable to the Fury in the Fall Season standings, pushing them out of the basement. Ottawa overtook Atlanta and now has 12 points in 11 Fall games while the Silverbacks are a point back. Ottawa is also now even with the Indy Eleven, but have a game in hand. Indy fell 2-1 to the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on Saturday.