Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Lucky 7: Sporting Kansas City remains undefeated

By NICK SLOAN, NJSloan212@gmail.com

One team in Kansas City is on a seven-game losing streak.

Luckily, the team in Kansas City, Kan., is on a seven-game winning streak.

Sporting Kansas City defeated Vancouver 3-1 on the road this evening in Canada. Aurelien Collin scored after a shot from Roger Espinoza's shot on goal deflected to the scorer in the 24th minute of the game.

Now 7-0-0 to begin the season, Sporting Kansas City later received help from the opposition in the form of an own goal.

Vancouver's Martin Bonjour kicked the ball in his own net while attempting to pass it to goalkeeper Joe Cannon.

The goal helped Sporting Kansas City take a 2-0 early in the second half.

In the game's 65th minute, Kei Kamara scored off an assist from Chance Myers.

Vancouver's Sebastien Le Toux scored in the game's 79th minute, but Sporting KC held Vancouver scoreless the rest of the way.

The win is even more impressive considering that most of the statistics, outside of the most important one, indicated a strong performance by Vancouver.

The Whitecaps out-shot Sporting 19-8 and had seven shots on goal to just two from Sporting Kansas City. Vancouver also dominated the possession rate, 56.5 percent to 43.5 percent.

Still, it was not enough.

Sporting's record remains perfect and now are 11 points ahead of the second best team in the Major League Soccer's Eastern Conference.