Jordan Morris and Joevin Jones scored three minutes apart late in the second half to lift the Sounders to a 2-0 victory over D.C. United Wednesday night at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., The victory snapped Seattle’s three-game losing streak, providing the Sounders with their first road win of the season.
Morris tallied his fifth goal in the 79th minute when he rocketed in a rebound off goalkeeper Bill Hamid right in front of the net. Three minutes later, Jones took a pass from Ozzie Alonso and knocked in a left-footed shot from the left side of the box.
“The team played really well today,” said Morris. “It feels really good to get the three points and everyone is excited. We’ve had a rough patch lately, but we had a team effort and it paid off.”
The Sounders, 5-7-1 overall and 4-1-0 against the Eastern Conference this season, collected three points to raise their season total to 16. They are 7-2-2 all-time against D.C. United, including 4-1-1 at RFK.
Jones entered the game in the 74th minute and had an immediate impact as he helped set up the Morris goal before scoring himself.
“This was great,” said Jones. “I feel awesome right now. When I came in (head coach Sigi Schmid) told me to have fun and do my best.”
Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei faced only one shot on goal and blocked three shots in recording his fourth shutout of the season.
“This was very a very important win for our confidence,” said Frei, “especially to get it on the road. This is everything we wanted out of this game. It’s tough to play here (RFK) and we didn’t get many chances, but we were clinical. Now we have a little bit of a break and this will really help us after the break.”
The Sounders dominated the run of play, controlling the ball for 53.8 percent of the match. In the first half, Seattle had two prime scoring opportunities, especially when Andreas Ivanschitz drilled a shot off the crossbar just before halftime.
The Sounders do not play another MLS match until June 16 when they meet the New York Red Bulls on the road. The break is due to the Copa America Centenario tournament that begins Friday through June 26.
Noteworthy
The Sounders played without Clint Dempsey (international duty) and Chad Marshall (injury) . . . The Sounders avoided their first four-game losing streak since July 11-Aug. 9, 2015, when they dropped five consecutive MLS matches . . . Lamar Neagle, traded by Seattle to D.C. United in December, took five shots Wednesday night, but didn’t come close to scoring . . . General manager Garth Lagerwey said on the Q13 FOX broadcast that the Sounders plan to add a designated player and a targeted allocation money player as soon as the transfer window reopens July 4.
2 Comments
Finally! And it’s not surprising that Morris scored one of the goals. I’ll give the Sounders credit, they’re always in it until the the end but don’t always finish well. This time the defense came to play which sets the tone of the match. Hopefully with the break the club can get rested up for their next match.