TORONTO — Heading into Wednesday evening’s match, the Philadelphia Union looked to continue their recent run of picking up points as they traveled to BMO Field to take on Toronto FC.

And while the Union finally scored first for the first time in league play thanks to Milan Iloski’s first half stoppage time goal, a flurry of second half goals by both squads — including a Luka Gavran goal in the 90’+6 — would end the match 3-3, sending both sides home with a single point on the evening.

“You can’t be coming away from home, taking the lead three times and giving up the lead,” said Philadelphia Union head coach Bradley Carnell. “So yeah, I felt that this was two points lost today for sure. And we continue, we continue fighting. We continue trying to bring the group along, and we continue trying to bring in the youngsters at the end and continue to do what we do.”

Frankie Westfield had an early chance from a free kick, which Luka Gavran stretched out to save, making the difference in keeping the match scoreless early. Westfield had another attempt minutes later, and while he once again cleared the wall, the shot hit the side netting.

As the match reached the 22nd minute, Toronto started building into the game, going on the attack more frequently. After a Sery Larsen clearance, Toronto had their first corner of the match. On the play, Nathan Harriel made a skillful end-line clearance to prevent the Union from conceding first again.

However, on the same play, Walker Zimmerman and Indiana Vassilev tangled, sending Vassilev to the ground for an extended period of time. Vassilev would be fine a would end up playing 65 minutes on the evening.

The Union would strike first late in the fourth minute of first half stoppage time on a goal from Milan Iloski, assisted by Jovan Lukic. However, the Union defense almost gave one back moments later as DeAndre Kerr slipped through and just missed wide of the net as both teams headed into halftime.

The Union would score again early in the second half, with Danley Jean Jacques scoring his second goal of the season. However, the Union conceded moments later as Josh Sargent found the back of the net, assisted by Daniel Sallói and José Cifuentes, to pull the match within one for the home side.

Toronto would ride their newfound momentum, and eight minutes later, Kobe Franklin drew the match level at 2-2 in the 64th minute, bringing the home crowd, who had been largely silenced, back into the match.

For a moment, the home side thought they had taken the lead in the 82nd minute with a nifty goal from Sallói; however, he was ruled offside, keeping the match level at 2-2.

Philadelphia would regain the lead in the 89th minute following a Jesús Bueno corner into Alejandro Bedoya, who flicked it on to Nathan Harriel for his first goal of the season, giving the Union hope of walking away with all three points.

However, as it has been this season, nothing is certain. In the final moments of the match, a well-driven ball from Alonso Coello found Toronto goalkeeper Luka Gavran, who had come all the way up for the final play. The keeper headed the ball home to level the match 3-3 at the final whistle, forcing Philadelphia to settle for a single point rather than all three on the evening.

Gavran’s goal made him the third goalkeeper in league history to score, joining William Hesmer (Oct. 16, 2010) and Danny Cepero (Oct. 18, 2008), per MLS Communications.

“So we continue this road of learning by doing, and it’s really unfortunate, but the minute we leave this locker room here, we’re going to get galvanized,” mentioned Carnell. “We’re going to get locked in again and catch a flight to Columbus.”

Philadelphia will now turn their attention to the Columbus Crew for a Saturday night showdown at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Apple TV.

Main article photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Union