Caps Extinguish Fire

The Vancouver Whitecaps snapped a two game losing streak with a solid performance over the Chicago Fire on Saturday night in front of the 22,120 fans and their 6th sellout of the season.
Vancouver set the tone early with some good chances early against the Fire only to see Richard Sanchez stone the caps shooters with some solid early saves for Chicago.

Kei Kamara was the front striker for Vancouver getting the feeds early with a three chances in the 11th and 15th minutes having his shot sail wide and over the crossbar keeping the game scoreless.

Felipe had a shot to the top of the box only to be stopped by Sanchez who smothered it keeping the game scoreless 20 minutes in.

Chicago had shots from outside the penalty area that appeared an easy stop for Brian Rowe that had Kamara maintaining his composure of the ball with Davies up-front creating several chances on the offence rushes creating space outside the box.

Vancouver’s opening goal came from a scramble that saw Vancouver have four chances as the the strikers combination gave the Fire defense fits.

Davies was robbed twice by Sanchez point blank being followed up by Juarez as the fire were clearly on their heels.

Kamara scored on a rebound (29th minute) on a shot that Davies was stopped on by Sanchez, but Kamara buried the rebound low to the corner giving the Caps the 1 nil lead.

For many it appeared that Vancouver was content taking the one goal lead into the intermission but a misplay by the Caps back four saw Kevin Ellis feed a pass to Nemanja Nikolic who beat Brian Rowe (42nd minute) to even the game at one.

Vancouver came out strong in the second half as Jordon Mutch got one to Efrain Juarez who gave Vancouver the 2-1 lead.

Vancouver played entertaining soccer coming close to breaking it open as Marcel de Jong surprised Sanchez with a long shot only to have him recover keeping it a one goal game.

The 61st minute saw Kamara add his second of the match from Alphonso Davies who ripped to the back of the net extending the Caps lead to 3-1.

Chicago came to life in the final 10 minutes testing Vancouver’s “D” as former Vancouver player and second half sub Tony Tchani beat Brian Rowe in the 81st minute cutting Vancouver’s lead to 3-2.

In the post game scrum by Head Coach Carl Robinson he mentioned “it’s all hands on deck” allowing them off to pull off the victory.

Vancouver improves to 7-7-5 on the season good for 26 points on the year staying in the top six in the Western Conference.

The loss sees Chicago fall to 6-8-5 in the Eastern Conference as they fall to 7th with 23 points one back of the Montreal Impact.

The two goals by Kei Kamara gave him 106 goals in his MLS career moving him into 6th place overall and passing Dwayne De Rosario who sits 7th.

Jordan Mutch scored his first scored his first MLS goal in the 47th minute of the match with the win allowing Vancouver to .500 on the season.

Budweiser Man of the Match was Kei Kamara of Vancouver as selected by the media.

Vancouver will be without Cristian Techera for two more game serving a three game suspension against Philadelphia June 23rd.

He is eligible to play against DC United in their next road game July 14th, followed by a visit Seattle Sounders July 21st .

Vancouver plays July 25th which is a Canadian Championship against Montreal (7:00 pm) followed by a match July 28th against Minnesota in regular league play.

Thanks to Bruce Nolte in part for the story.