Rayan Elloumi and Thomas Muller scored goals late in the second half to lift the Vancouver Whitecaps to a 2-0 victory over the host Seattle Sounders on Sunday night.
The late tallies allowed Vancouver (11-3-4, 37 points) to move back into first place in the Western Conference.
Vancouver also clinched its ninth Cascadia Cup, the three-team competition between the Whitecaps, Sounders and Portland Timbers. The Whitecaps are 3-0-0 against the two teams with one match against Seattle remaining.
The Sounders (7-8-3, 24 points) extended a dubious club record with their seventh straight MLS loss.
The Whitecaps outshot Seattle 16-4 despite star Brian White (hamstring) sitting out the match. Vancouver didn’t allow the Sounders to put a single shot on target. The Whitecaps put four shots on net.
Vancouver’s Yohei Takaoka notched his eighth clean sheet of the season. The Whitecaps halted a three-match league winless stretch (0-1-2).
Andrew Thomas made one save for the Sounders.
Emmanuel Sabbi set up Elloumi with a short pass in the 77th minute. Elloumi then sent a right-footed shot into the right corner of the net.
Five minutes later, Vancouver had an indirect free kick and Oliver Larraz gave the ball to Muller, who sent a right-footed shot that hit the right goalpost and went into the net.
The Sounders were unable to threaten down the stretch. A shot in the 90th minute by Sebastian Gomez was blocked by Vancouver’s Tristan Blackmon.
Vancouver had a stellar scoring chance thwarted in the 40th minute. Muller had the ball come his way on a corner kick, took a right-footed swipe and sent a bouncing shot to the left of Thomas. Paul Rothrock was stationed on the goal line and blocked the ball with his chest and it caromed off Thomas and out of harm’s way.
The Sounders’ top first-half chance came in the 31st minute when Snyder Brunell sent a close-range, right-footed shot into the side netting.
–Field Level Media
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