Julian Hall Hat Trick Gives Red Bulls The Win over the Crew

By Daniel Feuerstein | Harrison, NJ | May 13th, 2026

Red Bull New York came back to Sports Illustrated Stadium to face the Columbus Crew in a midweek matchup with the hopes of starting a new winning streak since the start of the season. While both sides were battling each other on the pitch, the home side earned the full three points as the Baby Bulls continued to roll on with a big performance from their new young star striker as they edged the Crew by a final score of three goals to two.

Julian Hall converts his first career hat trick

Tonight was the night that Julian Hall took down the Crew all by himself as he converted his first career hat trick. The New York City native, at the age of 18 years old, continues to have a red-hot start to this season. Currently leading the club with nine goals in the regular season, and 12 in all competitions, Julian Hall has come out and rampaged all over the pitch to put the club into a victory. He becomes the Youngest player in MLS History to score a Hat trick at 18 years and 50 days old, passing Ricardo Pepi at 18 years and 196 days in the 2021 MLS Season for FC Dallas.

The first goal came in the seventh minute, with the Red Bulls having possession, just outside the Columbus area. Emil Forsberg received the ball from Ronald Donkor, and played it toward the far side of the area, as Cade Cowell makes a run toward the ball. As soon as Cowell gets that, he crossed it to Hall, as the wunderkid found a way to reach back with his right leg, and redirect it inside an open net for this first of the match.

His second goal came in the 40th minute as Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty was behind the center line and delivered a perfect ball into the path of Cowell down the far side. After taking a few steps, Cowell also delivered a perfect ball toward the middle of the Columbus area directly in front of Hall and all he had to do was run straight into it and converted his second goal of the match.

His third and final goal, was from the near corner and it was a scramble to convert the hat trick. Rafael Mosquera delivered the corner all the way across the pitch and found Gustav Berggren camped out by the far post. He headed the ball down toward the net, but pinballed a bit till it stopped dead inside the six yard box. Hall quickly pounced on the ball, as he took a stab at it, and hit the inside of the back post and completely over the line in the 79th minute. While there might have been a slight deflection off a defender, the Red Bulls took the full three points for a two match winning streak.

“Im not going to lie, I get kind of emotional, like it kind of just makes me think about all the times I was working so hard to get to make memories like this. I’m just really grateful and thankful for the guys that set me up and put me in great positions. Honestly, I never really thought it would come until a little later on. I’m just really grateful The Academy has bulit me up for moments like this and I’m so happy to score those goals for tonight’s victory,” said Julian Hall “When I first came through the second team, Bradley Wright-Phillips was a big guy that helped me find the right places at the right time, like you said. And I think especially this season, Michael’s helped me a lot with just improving my game. Every single game, I’m trying to be in the best positions for my teammates. And I think, yeah, I mean, I’m here watching Champions League everything, trying to be like those guys. So, yeah, I’m trying to do as best as I can every single game.”

Columbus was active and annoying

The Crew have always given the Red Bulls fits whenever they have been the best in the league, or the worst in the league. It happened again as they took advantage of some misplayed balls and scored against the home side. Andre Gomes took advantage of the unforced error and attacked the net. Going down the far side he saw Hugo Picard and then floated around inside the Red Bulls area. Max Arfsten trailed the play, got the ball from the top of the area and chipped it past Ethan Horvath in the 22nd minute to level it at one.

Columbus second goal came from the penalty spot when Omar Valencia tried to defend the ball, stuck his right arm out in an unnatural position and handled it inside the area. The referee pointed to the spot for the penalty. Veteran Diego Rossi who came in as a second half substitute smashed it past Horvath, who guessed right and just missed the save helped the Crew earn a second equalizer in the 64th minute.

Early issues for the Red Bulls in the first half

Before and after Hall scored his first goal of the match, the Red Bulls were playing a bit careless with the ball. At least two to three times between the first two goals of the match for either side, there were some poor passing and poor ball control from Red Bulls Captain, Emil Forsberg. Twice he mishit the ball trying to move it up and found no one except for the Columbus Crew attackers and they wanted to pounce on those mental errors. While the first error didn’t convert into a scoring chance the second one did as Arfsten made it a one goal game. We know the workload for the Red Bulls and for everyone else in the league has been a bit challenging, but once again, they can’t give away free chances to the opposition and allow them to take advantage of.

“There’s a part to being a complete team, a team that can win in different ways, a team that is well rounded. You know, they’re an interesting team. They obviously have a new coach as well. They have ideas about how they want to, in some cases, lure you out, connect a bunch of short passes that don’t necessarily go anywhere right away.

And then when you do start to come, then have ideas about how to play into the spaces that you’ve just left. And so, you know, we’ve worked hard in the last few weeks of trying to find a good balance between being a team that is very aggressive and being a team that really goes after the other team, but doing it in a way where we are smart and intelligent and really hard to play against in other ways in the in the midfield area.

So, you know, it’s an interesting game, it’s a interesting night. I mean, we score some very good goals. We create a few other really big chances. They have the ball in some cases, but from the run of play, they don’t create much. They don’t create much at all. And so against a team, a good team that has that has good ideas of their own, we still made the game pretty hard on them, so that that part is positive. Said Michael Bradley.

JULIAN HALL: Scored his first career MLS Hat Trick. Is the youngest player in MLS to convert a Hat Trick. Scored his Seventh, Eighth, and Nineth Goals of the Season, and 12 goals in all competitions. Has a career 12 MLS Goals.

CADE COWELL: Earned Two Assists in the Game, his Fourth and Fifth Assists of the Season. His 18th & 19th Career MLS Assists

EMIL FORSBERG: Earnd an Assist, His fifth Assists of the season and sixth assist in all competitions. His 21st Career MLS Assists

JAHKEELE MARSHALL-RUTTY: Earned an Assist, His second Assist of the season. His 11th career MLS Assist

Red Bull New York defeats the Columbus Crew and are now on a two match winning streak, as Julian Hall scored his first career hat trick.

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