Diego Valeri and Fanendo Adi scored second-half goals to give the Portland Timbers a 2-1 home victory over the Philadelphia Union on Saturday.
The victory gave Portland (11-11-8) 41 points and moved it ahead of Sporting Kansas City for fifth place in the Western Conference. The loss kept Philadelphia (11-11-8) at 41 points. The Union are fourth in the Eastern Conference.
In the first minute of the half, Portland’s Darren Mattocks turned past defender Keegan Rosenberry on the Philadelphia end line, then delivered a driven pass to Valeri a couple yards from goal. From that close, it was a simple task for the forward to redirect the ball past goalkeeper Andre Blake for his 12th goal of the season.
Less than a minute later, Philadelphia evened the score. Fabian Herbers drove toward the edge of the Portland penalty area, where two defenders forced him into overrunning the ball. Fortunately for the Union, Chris Pontius was following the play and jumped on the stationary ball, slamming a left-footed shot past Portland goalkeeper Jake Gleeson for his 11th goal.
Portland regained the lead in the 53rd minute, with Mattocks again setting things up. After collecting a poor clearance by Rosenberry, Mattocks attempted a 12-yard shot, which deflected off Adi standing on the 6-yard line and into the goal for his 15th goal of the year.
Valeri and Adi have scored 27 of Portland’s 45 goals this season. The next highest scorer on the team is Jack McInerney with five, the last on July 13.
Philadelphia finished the match with 10 players, after defender Joshua Yaro earned his second yellow card of the game in the 85th minute.
Sounders 1, Whitecaps 0
Jordan Morris scored in the 81st minute and the Seattle Sounders beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 1-0 to keep their MLS playoff hopes alive.
The goal was the rookie forward’s team-leading 10th.
Seattle (10-13-5) won for the first time since Aug. 21 and snapped a three-game winless streak.
Nicolas Lodeiro set up the goal by floating a target ball into the penalty area toward the top of goalkeeper David Ousted’s 6-yard box. Morris ran onto it and sent a diving header into the net.
Lodeiro, the Uruguayan international who joined the Sounders at the end of July and has played every minute of the eight games since then, has factored into the scoring into the last seven of those games. He has seven assists, along with three goals.
Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei had his sixth shutout of the season.
