Sounders and Sporting Kansas City play to 0-0 tie

SEATTLE (AP) Sporting Kansas City was down one of its top scorers, so it was up to Tim Melia and the defense to keep the Seattle Sounders off the scoreboard.

Melia needed to make just one save, but it came late in the game as Sporting Kansas City played to a 0-0 tie with the Sounders on Saturday night.

''The guys did a real good job protecting me, and we got out of here with a result, and we should be happy for that,'' Melia said. ''To get the point we did, especially in a place like Seattle where it's loud and tough and a good team to play and a team that scores a lot of goals, to get out of here with a zero is a good building block moving forward.''

Sporting KC scratched second-leading scorer Dom Dwyer just before the game because of a neck injury. Dwyer had four goals while starting and playing in all but 19 minutes of Kansas City's first 11 games.

''It was more precautionary than anything else,'' Sporting coach Peter Vermes said. ''He was just feeling something and thought it was better if he pulled himself out. That was a mature decision on his part. We needed him and it would have been great if we had him on the field.

''But sometimes, you have to sacrifice one game for 10.''

Melia picked up his second shutout in just his fourth game of the season for Kansas City (4-2-6). His only save came late in the 82nd minute on a 10-yard shot by Chad Barrett.

Stefan Frei made his biggest save for the Sounders (6-3-2) midway through the three minutes of stoppage time when he tipped a rising 25-yard shot by Benny Feilhaber.

The Sounders played without their second-leading scorer. Forward Obafemi Martins missed his second straight game with a bruised tibia.

Seattle had the better chances of the first half, but Melia denied the Sounders on three point-blank tries. He took one ball off the head of an onrushing Barrett midway through the 21st minute, knocked away a header by Chad Marshall at the outset of the 32nd, then punched a target ball away from Barrett and Lamar Neagle halfway through the 39th.

Barrett, who scored both goals in last week's 2-0 win at Vancouver, was making his second straight start in place of Martins.

''I wish I could have had that one back,'' he said of his miss. ''If I had given myself a check over the shoulder and known that (a defender) wasn't there, I could have taken a touch instead of settling it and bringing it down. But they put 10 guys behind the ball, and that's hard to score when they do that the entire game.

''Sometimes, you need a little luck and a deflection to go in, and then the gates open,'' he added. ''But that didn't happen today, and they left with a point.''

Kansas City's best first-half opportunity came at the end of the ninth minute when a long throw-in from the attacking right side landed right on the feet of midfielder Krisztian Nemeth, the team's leading scorer with five goals. Nemeth half-volleyed it toward a wide-open right side, but Frei got there in time to pull it out of the air.

The shutout ended the scoring streak of Sounders forward Clint Dempsey. He had recorded a goal or assist in 10 straight games - the last two of last year and the first eight he played this season.