MLS Semifinals start to come Together

On the 26th the Metros hosted LA to a 4-1 rout of the Galaxy. The win forced a third game to be played in LA. The Galaxy started the scoring with a strike from Sasha Victorine in the 4th minute. The goal came off a free kick that found its way to Victorine. But in the second half the Metros came alive as the Galaxy started to lose players. In the 48th minute Greg Vanney was given his second yellow card of the match and was shown the red. The re-energized Metros began to force the attack and saw results in the 72nd minute when Mark Chung found Rodrigo Faria in the LA box. Faria headed home the equalizer that opened the flood gates. In the 75th minute Luis Hernandez sent in another free kick to Chung who nodded the ball under Kevin Hartman. Faria scored a second goal just 5 minutes later sending a volley into the back of the net. Finally in the 83rd minute Adolfo Valencia was able to banafit from an LA miscue and win the ball from Danny Califf in order to score once more for the Metros.

But the joy of the Metros was to last only a few days. On the 29th they traveled back to LA to take on the Galaxy once again. In a strange twist of the playoff arrangements a tiebreaker extra time was awarded since both teams had 4 points each due to a win and tie for each of them. The LA win came that night as the Galaxy were victorious in regular time with a 3-2 win. The scoring in regular time began with Sasha Victorine as the star once again. Victorine had started the scoring in the 21st minute with a header that barely found its way into the gaol under the crossbar. Victorine doubled the score in the 33rd minute when Cobi Jones timed a perfect pass to beat the offside trap and set Victorine one-on-one on Tim Howard. Victorine did not miss with a powerful blast past Howard. But just after half-time the Metros mounted a comeback with Petter Villegas scoring in the 49th minute. But LA would again be 2 up when Adam Frye scored in the 56th minute heading home a corner kick. Villegas would again bring the Metros within 1 with a powerful strike off a feed from Mark Chung in the 60th minute. The final score in regulation would end in a LA win that then caused the need for a tiebreaker. Just 8 minutes into the playoff Mauricio Cienfuegos struck a free kick just outside the Metros penalty box that deflected off the wall and found its way into the left side of the net.

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