Christian Ramirez and Myrto Uzuni scored within 12 minutes of each other in the second half and Brad Stuver turned away four shots for his second straight clean sheet to lead host Austin FC to a 2-0 win over struggling St. Louis City on Sunday.
The Verde (3-4-4, 13 points) have captured consecutive games via identical scores and have turned around a season that had seen them suffer through a seven-match winless swoon.
St. Louis City (1-6-3, 6 points) are now winless in their past five matches and have lost three times over that stretch.
Ramirez’s goal in the 69th minute broke Sunday’s scoreless deadlock. The scoring play started from a corner kick that was originally cleared from the zone before Uzuni pounced on the loose ball, sending it back into the box for teammate Dani Pereira.
Pereira then chipped a pass toward the far post that Ramirez leaped to head into the net past St. Louis goalkeeper Roman Burki for a 1-0 lead.
Austin added to the total in the 81st minute when Uzuni booted home a left-footed shot after Jon Gallagher ran down the ball near the end line and passed to Ramirez. Ramirez then fed Uzuni at the center of the box for a shot into the lower left corner that doubled the lead.
The Verde got a boost in the match from the return of midfielder Owen Wolff, who entered in the 82nd minute after missing Austin’s first 10 games of the season.
Austin had an excellent scoring chance in the early minutes but Gallagher’s header from deep in the box with a 24% goal expectancy went over the crossbar. Marcel Hartel countered with a shot on goal for St. Louis City three minutes later that Stuver batted away.
Uzuni was in prime position to open the scoring in the 22nd minute when he headed a free kick toward the net that Burki somehow stopped. Stuver then returned the favor in the 26th minute when he dove to make a save on Simon Becher.
–Field Level Media
