Sporting Kansas City makes short work of Portland Timbers
PORTLAND, Ore. - Krisztian Nemeth scored in the 83rd minute and Sporting Kansas City beat the Portland Timbers 1-0 on Saturday night with both teams jockeying for playoff position.
Kansas City (13-9-9) moved up into the third place in the Western Conference standings, while Portland (12-11-8) fell into a tie for sixth with San Jose - which holds the tiebreaker for the final playoff spot. The Timbers have three games left in the regular season and the Earthquakes have two.
The Earthquakes and the Vancouver Whitecaps played to a 1-all draw Saturday night.
Nemeth dribbled past three defenders and beat Timbers' goalkeeper Adam Kawarasey for the lone goal. The sellout crowd at Providence Park booed loudly when the match was final.
The Timbers dominated possession in the first half, keeping pressure on goalkeeper Tim Melia, but both sides were scoreless at the break.
Portland had a good chance in the 35th minute. Fanendo Adi fed to Darlington Nagbe out in front, but Melia dove to stop the shot. In the 65th minute, Melia made a kick save on a hard shot from Timbers forward Lucas Melano.
Melia had six saves on Saturday night for his eighth shutout. Last month Melia had a career-high seven saves in a 0-0 draw with the Timbers in Portland.
The Timbers were coming off a 2-1 victory at the Columbus Crew last Saturday that snapped a four-game winless streak.
Sporting played to a 1-1 draw at home to Seattle last weekend, but beat the Philadelphia Union on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw for the U.S. Open Cup title Wednesday night.
Melia, defenders Matt Besler and Kevin Ellis and midfielder Benny Feilhaber played all 120 minutes of that match, and started again Saturday night against the Timbers.
Sporting was without midfielder Paulo Nagamura because of yellow card accumulation.
Timbers midfielder Will Johnson had a procedure to remove screws in his right tibia, which were placed there when he broke his leg last season in a game against FC Toronto.
Johnson, who played in 12 matches this season with the screws, is out indefinitely.
Before the match the Timbers held a moment of silence for the nine victims of the Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg on Thursday.
The Timbers Army supporters' group hung a banner with the black ribbon symbol and the letters UCC. Fans also displayed a heart-shaped banner about the players' field interest that simply said ''Roseburg'' with the image of a single rose.