USA-born T&T mid­field­er An­dre For­tune was among the goals as his North Car­oli­na FC ral­lied from 0-2 down to earn a 2-2 draw with FC Tam­pa Bay Row­dies in the Unit­ed Soc­cer League (USL) Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion at Al Lang Sta­di­um, Progress En­er­gy Park, St Pe­ters­burgh, Flori­da on Fri­day night.

North Car­oli­na had the first re­al look in the fifth minute when Rob­bie Kris­to dragged a shot across the face of goal and just wide of the right post.

Two min­utes lat­er, how­ev­er, the Row­dies opened the scor­ing as Leo Fer­nan­des kept a play alive on the left side af­ter a low cross by Se­bas­t­ian Guen­zat­ti, and Fer­nan­des’ re­turn ball across the six-yard area found Guen­zat­ti, who fired home from a nar­row an­gle in­to the left cor­ner.

The vis­i­tors had a chance to re­ply when they kept the play alive af­ter a free-kick was half-cleared to Pec­ka, who fired through a crowd in the penal­ty area from 25 yards, on­ly for Row­dies goal­keep­er Evan Louro to hold on­to the ef­fort in the slick con­di­tions.

Tam­pa Bay dou­bled its lead in the 22nd minute, and Fer­nan­des was in the mid­dle of the play again.

Af­ter the side was award­ed a kick just out­side the top-right cor­ner of the penal­ty area, the Brazil­ian curled a left-foot­ed de­liv­ery that elud­ed every­one and found the left cor­ner of the net. North Car­oli­na thought it had pulled a goal back eight min­utes lat­er, but Kris­to was ruled off­side as he turned home a cross.

North Car­oli­na threat­ened again ear­ly in the sec­ond half and Louro had to be sharp to keep out a low shot from Ben Speas six min­utes af­ter the break.

The Row­dies goal­keep­er had lit­tle chance to keep out 24-year-old For­tune’s shot in the 56th minute when an er­rant pass by Lucky Mkosana af­ter a cor­ner kick came to the mid­field­er, and his first-time shot pow­ered in­to the left cor­ner.

The vis­i­tors con­tin­ued to pres­sure through­out the sec­ond half, and with sev­en min­utes to go, it paid off.

A short pass­ing move­ment on the right side al­lowed a chance for DJ Tay­lor to de­liv­er a deep cross, and Kris­to rose above his mark­er and sent a head­er back in­to the right cor­ner of the net to lev­el the score, earn­ing his side a point.

Al­so on Fri­day night, Cordell Cato picked up a 36th-minute yel­low card in Ok­la­homa City En­er­gy FC's 3-1 spank­ing of Austin Bold FC.

Sat­ur­day (Ju­ly 18), Noah Pow­der and reign­ing cham­pi­ons Re­al Mon­archs, who suf­fered 1-0 loss to San Diego Loy­al, were sched­uled to bat­tle Col­orado Springs Switch­backs while na­tion­al de­fend­er Ne­veal Hack­shaw will be keen to add to his win­ning strike ver­sus Saint Louis FC as In­dy Eleven faces Sport­ing Kansas City II, and the trio of Le­ston Paul, Tris­ton Hodge and Du­ane Muck­ette and Mem­phis 901 FC trav­el to At­lanta Unit­ed II.

Le­land Archer and Kier­ron Ma­son will be the last T&T play­ers to see ac­tion in the open­ing week when their Charleston Bat­tery bat­tles Birm­ing­ham Le­gion FC on Sun­day (Ju­ly 19) while Shan­non Gomez’ Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic meets Reno 1868 FC.

Over­all, 11 T&T in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ballers will fea­ture in the league’s re­vised sched­ule for the 2020 USL Cham­pi­onship sea­son.