Wednesday night was twice as nice for Khori Bennett and the Switchbacks. 

The Jamaican striker scored two goals at Weidner Field to propel Colorado Springs to a 2-0 win over USL Championship Eastern Conference club Miami FC. The victory marks three straight for the Switchbacks across all competitions and the brace put Bennett back in the driver’s seat in the league’s Golden Boot race. He’s tied for the USL Championship lead with 11 goals in regular-season play. 

“Honestly, it’s not at the front of my mind,” Bennett said of the race for the Golden Boot. “The past few, I would say weeks, we’ve been putting in good performances and not quite getting the results so the most important thing for me was that consistency. We won (against) Phoenix, we won in Orange County and now we won today. So we want to keep this consistency going because we have the material to be top of the table, to win this whole thing so that’s the most important thing. Obviously as a striker, I’m always happy to score goals, I always want to score goals and I’m hungry for goals every single game but the most important thing is the team first.”

It’s only natural for Bennett to have the team-first mentality. His teammates certainly had it for him. 

Following an hour lightning delay and scoreless first half that saw the Switchbacks outshoot Miami 9-0, the match’s first goal came in the 79th minute. Midfielder Sam Williams set Bennett up with a long pass into the box. Bennett rose up and put his header past Miami keeper Eloy Room. 

In the 90th minute, Switchbacks forward Sadam Masereka won the ball off a challenge, sprinted upfield and passed to Bennett who finished the counterattack for the insurance goal. 

Both Williams and Masereka came in on substitutions. 

Based of their performances, Switchbacks coach Alan McCann will have a tough time selecting his club’s starting lineup when the Switchbacks host Charleston Battery in a quick turnaround Saturday. 

He’d have it no other way. 

“The amount of times I tell these guys make my job harder is probably, if not every second day, daily and that’s what we want,” McCann said. “That’s why training has been so good because we’ll have Sadam pushing Jonas (Fjelberg), we’ll have (Yosuke Hanya) pushing (Adrien Perez) and that’s because of who started tonight and who came on and they came on and changed the game.”

It was a great performance in goal for Colorado Springs as well as keeper Colin Shutler earned his second-straight shutout. Shutler didn’t have much to do in the opening 45 minutes, but he shined with a pair of saves to begin the second half. 

“We’ve been talking for a while that we give up one opportunity and it’s one goal, and it’s so heartbreaking to hear as a goalkeeper so I don’t want to face more shots but if I do, I want to be there for the team,” Shutler said. 

Colorado Springs (6-5-4) moved into fourth place in the USL Championship’s Western Conference after Wednesday’s result.