The Seattle Sounders came back from 2-0 down to draw the Houston Dynamo 2-2 on Wednesday night at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas. Latif Blessing recorded a first-half brace before Paul Rothrock and Jackson Ragen leveled the match in the second half to split the points.
The Dynamo took the lead in the 30th minute when they capitalized on a turnover in Seattle’s defensive half. Amine Bassi snuck past Josh Atencio and dinked a cross past Stefan Frei to an onrushing Blessing, who dove forward to redirect the ball into the net with his stomach.
Houston nearly doubled its advantage in the 36th minute when Griffin Dorsey played in a cross to the near post, but Sebastian Kowalczyk’s sliding effort went just wide.
Blessing earned his brace in the 40th minute when Ibrahim Aliyu countered quickly on the left flank before lofting a ball to the far post where Blessing headed in his second goal in 10 minutes.
Dorsey almost added a third in the 53rd minute when he went on a half-field run down the right side before his shot was deflected by Jon Bell and skipped past the far post.
Blessing nearly found his hat trick in the 57th minute, but Frei made a great reactionary deflection on a cross to push it just out of Blessing’s path.
Frei’s save proved massive as Rothrock halved the deficit for Seattle just seconds later. Atencio played a through ball into Rothrock, who made a cheeky chip over a defender before firing a shot that was right at Steve Clark. The Dynamo goalkeeper spilled the attempt, though, and Rothrock slid the rebound into the back of the net.
The Sounders turned the match on its head in a six-minute span when Ragen equalized in the 63rd minute. Albert Rusnák played in an inch-perfect cross to the back post for the big center back, who redirected it inside the far post.
Frei came up huge again in the 75th minute when he first stonewalled Bassi before cleaning up the rebound attempt from Kowalczyk.
The Sounders will enter the weekend still above the playoff line in ninth place with 22 points from 19 matches.
Seattle will return to Lumen Field on Saturday for the first of three consecutive home matches starting with FC Dallas in the annual Pride Match (7:30 p.m. PT; MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, 93.3 KJR FM, El Rey 1360AM | TICKETS).
THREE TAKEAWAYS
Comeback kids
After suffering a 2-0 halftime deficit, the Sounders showed resilience and guts to claw back with two goals in six minutes in the second half to earn a point.
Rothrock strikes again
After scoring his first goal of the season just four days ago, Rothrock scored in his second consecutive match. He haunted the Dynamo again after scoring his first career MLS goal in Houston last season.
Ragen opens MLS account
What a time for Ragen to score his first Major League Soccer goal. The 25-year-old Seattle native and University of Michigan product was playing in his 73rd career game since signing with the Sounders in 2022.
