LAFC, Galaxy just miss playoffs
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — Jonathan Lewis scored two goals on Sunday night as the Colorado Rapids eliminated Los Angeles FC from the playoffs with a 5-2 victory and moved into first place in the Western Conference.
The second goal from Lewis, in the 53rd minute, happened when Diego Rubio stole the ball deep in LA territory.
Collen Warner, Cole Bassett and Dominique Badji also scored for Colorado (177-10), who earned the firstround bye by a point when Seattle played to a 1-1 draw at Vancouver. It was the Rapids’ first five-goal game this season.
Cristian Arango and Brian Rodriguez had second-half goals for Los Angeles (12-139), which also needed Vancouver to lose to make the playoffs.
Galaxy 3, Minnesota 3
CARSON — Adrien Hunou and Robin Lob scored early for Minnesota United, which played to a 3-3 draw with the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday night to make the playoffs. The Galaxy, on the other hand, were eliminated because of a dramatic win by Real Salt Lake.
Minnesota or Los Angeles would have secured a playoff spot with a win, but a tie would have been good enough as long as Real Salt Lake didn’t win. But RSL scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time for a 1-0 win over Sporting KC, and forced the Galaxy into a must-win situation.
The Galaxy had three shots — two on goal — in the seven minutes of stoppage time.
Instead, Minnesota (1311-10) goes into the playoffs as the No. 5 seed and will play at fourth-seeded Portland. Real Salt Lake secured the seventh and final spot with 48 points, the same as the Galaxy (12-13-19), but RSL had the goal differential tiebreaker.
Down 2-0 in the first half, Sebastian Lieget got LA a goal in first-half stoppage time.
Chicharito tied the game in the 51st minute and again the 75th minute, after the own goal in the 62nd.