The rain let up enough tonight for a midweek fixture in the Midway, a match that pitted your Loons against the Houston Dynamo and found the red-eyed birds decisively prevailing over… whatever a dynamo is. The team locked down the pitch in a wild second half to flip the script on a mid-May contest that saw a heavily rotated Minnesota side fall at Houston’s house.

In the vein of rotation, some absences were felt on both sides tonight, with four regular starters out on Gold Cup duty for the Black and Blue, and the Dynamo missing star midfielder Jack McGlynn for the same reason. Wessel Speel filled the net in place of Dayne St. Clair, and the rest of the XI fanned out with Kelvin Yeboah at the front of a 5-4-1.

A fruitless first half saw an incessant push and pull that ended with Minnesota at an above-average 45.3 percent possession. Speel shut down a left-footed shot from the center of the box by Erik Sviatchenko in the eighth minute, keeping the slate clean. Midfielder Robin Lod sent the ball to wingback Anthony Markanich for a 33rd-minute shot from the left foot that went just wide. Houston’s Griffin Dorsey picked up a yellow fouling Markanich in the 36th, and from there, play fell back into a ceaseless back-and-forth. A couple of dicey free kicks and shots on target had the home defense on high alert, logging five clearances in the first forty-five and successfully locking out Houston’s attack.

Right before the half, what seemed to be a penalty call turned into a drawn-out conflict in stoppage time, moving to video review before referee Sergii Demianchuk withdrew the call and instead showed captain Michael Boxall a yellow. Shortly after, the whistle blew on a scoreless first half in Saint Paul, but the tides were about to change.

Not even 10 minutes into the second half, a drastic shift in energy swept the stadium when Jefferson Díaz headed Boxall’s long throw-in toward Bongokuhle Hlongwane, who backheeled it past Houston’s Jonathan Bond. Hlongwane’s well-timed goal put the Loons in the lead, and he ran to the stands to celebrate with his family, who were stateside for the very first time.

But he wasn’t done yet. Just two minutes later, he made it a brace when Wil Trapp sent a long ball up to Anthony Markanich, who fed it to a perfectly-positioned Hlongwane who doubled the Loons’ lead.

Houston answered the first goal with a double substitution, but the fresh legs came up short against some powerful Minnesota momentum. At 2-0, the score of the season’s first Houston vs. Minnesota match was successfully turned on its head, but that wasn’t quite enough for the Black and Blue. Lod swept in with a left-footed shot in the 70th minute off a magnificent assist by Julian Gressel that sailed straight into the right side of the net.

With that, midfielder Joaquín Pereyra came in for Owen Gene. A desperate Houston made two more substitutions. Kelvin Yeboah picked up a yellow in the 79th, with Pereyra doing the same shortly after. Coach Ramsay made a triple substitution with fewer than 10 minutes left on the clock, with DJ Taylor, Sang Bin Jeong, and Darius Randell taking to the pitch for Yeboah, Gressel, and Hlongwane.

The clean sheet seemed like a done deal until Houston’s Amine Bassi put a goal in for Houston four minutes into stoppage time, but it was still far too late for the Dynamo. The clock ran out on a 3-1 victory in favor of the Black and Blue, keeping them in the West’s top three. Tune in Saturday night for an interconference matchup against the New York Red Bulls, 6:30 p.m. CT.