The first fifteen minutes of the match were not a good indicator of what was to come as neither team made a serious threat to score. But in the 16th minute, the visiting Tide would take the lead when Chase Tangney knocked in a rebound from close range to give Tacoma a 1-0 lead.

But the Timbers would wake up and start creating chances, as Jordan Crasilneck and Daniel Leach would miss on close shots over the next few minutes, but then Miguel Guante found Brent Richards making a nice run through the middle of the Tide defense, and Leach would slip the ball past charging Tide goalkeeper Jordan Jennings and into the net to tie the score at 1-1.

Four minutes later, the Timbers U23’s would take the lead off a Crasilneck corner when Ryan Youngblood headed in from a tight angle for the 2-1 lead. Three minutes later the Timbers nearly widened the lead when Crasilneck made a deep run into the Tacoma box, but his curling shot slipped just past the far post.

Tacoma had a good chance to tie the score again when a header from Rory Agu was tipped just over the crossbar by Timbers goalkeeper Garrett Staples.

In the 35th minute, the home side would widen their lead when a long throw in from the sideline by Richards was headed in by Crasilneck to give the Timbers U23’s a 3-1 lead. But the two goal lead would only last six minutes when a free kick by Tacoma’s Leighton O’Brien was headed diagonally over the Timbers keeper and into the net by Agu to pull Tacoma back to 3-2.

Two minutes later, Tacoma leveled the score when they scored on yet another header, this time the service coming from Cam Vickers, headed in by Colin Rigby, and the score would be level 3-3 at the half.

The wide open scoring in the first half did not carry over into the second half as both teams made adjustments, especially to stop the wide-open headers that both teams had enjoyed in the first half, and after an early second half chance for Tacoma by Justyn Scholze, neither team had another shot on net until the 65th minute when Portland’s Mutanda Kwesele had a free kick from 30 yards out that skipped off the top of the Tacoma crossbar. One minute later, Tacoma’s had a nice 2 on 1 chance broken up at the last minute by a nice defensive play by Gaunte.

Then in the 73rd minute, the Timbers U23 would take the lead in what had been a half of few chances when Avneet Shergill dropped a pass to Collen Warner, whose blast from just outside the Tacoma box was into the top right corner and left the Tacoma keeper with no chance at all, and the Timbers midfielder celebrated by taking his shirt off (and getting a yellow card for it) as the Timbers had a 4-3 lead.

Tacoma would try to push forward to respond, frequently leaving only two defenders back and as a result the Timbers had a few late odd-man chances, and only being kept from widening the lead by good saves from Jennings.

The only shot on goal the Tide would get after the Timbers goal was in the 90th minute, when Agu had a good look from 25 yards out but the shot was right at Staples and easily saved, and the Timbers U23s would hold on for the 4-3 win.