Toronto extends ‘winning’ streak
Timbers win
CINCINNATI, Oct 12, (AP): Patrick Mullins scored his first goal of the season and Toronto FC extended their winning streak to five games with a 1-0 win over FC Cincinnati on Sunday night.
Mullins scored in the 29th minute when Patrick Laryea drove deep to the right of the goal and passed it back out to Mullins, who had a clear shot on net.
Toronto (12-2-4) have not lost since Sept 5, when Vancouver notched a 3-2 win.
Cincinnati (3-11-4) have lost four in a row and haven’t won since a 1-0 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Sept 19. Timbers 3, Earthquakes 0 Jaroslaw Niezgoda scored two goals and the Portland Timbers won their fifth straight match with a 3-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes.
Felipe Mora also scored for Portland (9-4-3), who are tied with the defending champions Seattle Sounders with 30 points atop the Western Conference. It was Portland’s third shutout in their last four games.
After a scoreless first half in rainy conditions, Diego Chara served up a cross to Niezgoda for a header a minute into the second.
Niezgoda, who is from Poland and signed by the Timbers earlier this year, scored again in the 52nd minute for his fifth goal of the season and his first two-goal game.
Portland’s Eryk Williamson got his second straight yellow card in the second half and will miss Wednesday’s game against Real Salt Lake.
Vancouver’s Tanner Beason appeared to score in the 71st minute but he was ruled offside after a video review. Shea Salinas’ attempt in the 81st minute went just wide to the right.
Mora, who scored twice in Portland’s 6-3 victory at the LA Galaxy on Wednesday, scored his seventh goal of the season in the 86th minute. Mora has scored in three straight matches.
Chara got the assist, his teamleading sixth of the season.
The last time the teams met, Portland came away with a 6-1 victory in San Jose. That touched
SOCCER
off the Timbers’ winning steak, during which they’ve outscored opponents 17-4.
Union 2, Impact 1 Jamiro Monteiro and Sergio Santos scored in a nine-minute span and the Philadelphia Union beat the Montreal Impact 2-1.
Monteiro took a well-placed lead pass from Ilsinho on the right side and just beat the keeper on the near post in the 39th minute. Santos – also set up by Ilsinho – took a cross and tapped it in a largely untended net.
Sporting KC 2, Nashville 1 Gerso Fernandes and Erik Hurtado scored and Sporting Kansas City rallied to beat Nashville SC 2-1.
Hurtado slipped a volley under the cross bar to cap the scoring in the 79th minute. Amadou Dia played a long, arcing ball to Hurtado for the right-footed finish.
Kansas City (9-5-2) have won three games in a row.
Walker Zimmerman scored his first goal since the season opener on Feb 29, giving Nashville a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute.
Gerso tied it in the 53rd, redirecting a cross by Johnny Russell and scoring from point-blank range.
Fire 2, D.C. United 1
C.J. Sapong scored in his first start in nearly three months, Boris Sekulic had his first MLS goal and the Chicago Fire beat D.C. United 2-1.
Sapong – who missed five games, first for personal reasons and then when he was quarantined as part of COVID-19 protocols – put away a volley to open the scoring in the third minute. Álvaro Medrán bent a free kick to the top of the 6-yard box where Sapong flicked in a sliding rightfooter.
Sekulic side-netted a header off a corner-kick by Medrán in first-half stoppage time to give Chicago (5-8-4) a 2-0 lead.