With Danny Griffin on attack, Riverhounds get past Birmingham Legion FC

Pittsburgh Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley made an adjustment to the formation for Saturday night, moving Danny Griffin from his usual defensive midfield spot into an attacking midfield position.

For a year-plus, Griffin has been a stalwart in the lower midfield, but he quickly showed he can make an impact as an attacker.

Griffin scored in the fourth minute and it held up as the Riverhounds earned a 1-0 win over Birmingham Legion FC at Highmark Stadium.

Griffin said he found out about the change Thursday and wasn’t worried because he had played attacking midfield some his rookie year with the Riverhounds and in college.

“It was a position I am familiar with and one of the best parts about the guys on this team is that multiple guys can play multiple positions,” Griffin said. “Everyone knows their role wherever they are. I enjoy playing higher in the formation and I also enjoy playing lower, whatever I can do to help the team get the win.”

With the win, the Riverhounds (6-2-1) improved to 5-0 at Highmark Stadium on the year across all competitions and 4-0 in USL Championship matches. They also temporarily moved back into second place in the Eastern Conference.

The setup to Griffin’s goal started with a pass from Kenardo Forbes to Nathan Dossantos on the left wing.

Dossantos then crossed the ball into the middle and it settled for Griffin, who shot it into the net for his first goal at home in his third season with the team.

“I took the touch and saw the defender didn’t step up towards me, so I picked a target, hit it low and struck it well,” Griffin said. “I’m happy to get my first one and get it in front of the Steel Army. That was an amazing feeling.”

Lilley said they tried Griffin in an attacking role a couple of times in the preseason and felt Saturday was the right time to try it out in a league match.

“We wanted to activate him higher to help with the press,” Lilley said. “We dropped Marc Ybarra, who is a good passer, and Kenny (Forbes) a bit deeper to get possession. We were able to possess and move through the lines. I think Danny’s mobility allows him to do a lot of things. He was in the middle of a lot of good moments we had tonight. The next game it may be something else that we see, but he did a good job for what we asked of him tonight.”

The Riverhounds carried the play, holding 57% of the possession and were in the 60s for most of the night. They fired eight shots on target and didn’t yield a shot on goal.

Some top-notch saves from Birmingham keeper Matt VanOekel and a couple of bad bounces kept it a one-goal game.

Lilley felt it was his team’s best 90-minute performance of the season.

“I thought we were really dominant,” Lilley said. “The last 15 minutes, it gets a bit scary when you haven’t put the game away yet because you don’t want to drop points on a night like tonight.

“I was really happy with the performance. It was an important game. Birmingham has been a bit of an unbeaten run and are starting to gather momentum. We’ve been pretty good with responding after dropping a league game and not having a losing streak. We were ready to play and able to do enough to get the job done.”

Leading scorer Dane Kelly served a one-game suspension for his red card in last week’s 2-0 loss at Louisville City.

The Riverhounds are back at home next Saturday to host Western Conference foe El Paso Locomotive.