In anticipation of Brian Ching’s retirement at the conclusion of the 2013 season, HoustonDynamo.com will count down the Top 10 Brian Ching Moments each week leading up to the Brian Ching Testimonial Match, presented by BBVA Compass. No. 7: Ching nets a bicycle kick as part of a game-winning hat trick.
Nobody sets out to score a hat trick. In fact, it hardly crosses anyone’s mind until a player is right on the edge of one: sitting on two goals and getting that chance for the third.
When Brian Ching netted his second hat trick in a Dynamo uniform on August 21, 2010 against the Chicago Fire, there was just one thing on his mind: win.
“It was one of those games where we score, they score, we score, they score,” said Ching. “I felt like I just didn’t want to lose that game.”
Ching opened the scoring that night in the 31st minute, pouncing on a dropped ball by Sean Johnson after the Fire goalkeeper collided with his own player on a Dynamo corner kick. It may have been one of the easier goals of his career, but the next two certainly were not.
Lovell Palmer and then-Fire striker Calen Carr traded goals in the first ten minutes of the second half before Ching went for the spectacular for his second goal of the night, just before the hour mark.
Again off a corner kick, Bobby Boswell made a run to the back post and had a volley attempt on the run that clanged off the underside of the crossbar.
“Bobby was unlucky not to finish it, but the ball bounces off the post and falls right to me,” said Ching. As the ball bounced off the turf and over his head, the Dynamo forward lined up and executed a bicycle kick past a stunned Chicago defense. “When you score a great goal like that, you want to win the game; you want it to be a good memory.”
Chicago stormed back with two goals to tie the match back up, but Ching wasn’t done yet. Five minutes away from dropping two points at home after leading 3-1, the Dynamo striker demonstrated that will to win once more off a Richard Mulrooney corner kick. Ching worked past defender C.J. Brown to get a free header from seven yards out and buried the game-winning goal into the far post to complete the hat trick.
“To get those three goals and to get them when we needed all three, it was great,” said Ching. “We came out of that tough game at home winning 4-3, and you remember something like that for a long time.”
