Rafael Navarro scored his 15th goal of the season, his fifth for St. Louis City, in the fifth minute of a 3-0 victory over the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday night in Harrison, N.J.
Simon Becher added his ninth goal in the 87th minute, and Tomas Ostrak added the visitors’ third in second-half stoppage time as St. Louis (13-6-8, 47 points) extended its MLS-best unbeaten run to 17 matches.
The all-time MLS record is 19 games unbeaten, set by Columbus in 2004-05 and matched by Dallas in 2010.
Roman Burki made four saves to keep his third clean sheet this season as St. Louis moved up to second place in the Western Conference, three points behind Vancouver and ahead of Dallas on goal differential.
New York (9-12-6, 33 points) saw its modest two-match winning streak snapped on a night it was without an MLS-high 10 call-ups during the September/October international window.
The short-handed Red Bulls remained eighth in the East with the defeat.
Navarro put the Red Bulls ahead on the second phase of an attack from a free kick.
Tomas Totland played in a cross from the left corner of the penalty area to the back post, Conrad Wallem met it with a header across the top of the 6-yard box, and Navarro nodded the second header beyond Ethan Horvath and inside the left post.
Much later, Chris Durkin forced the Red Bulls into a turnover in their own half that led to the visitors’ second goal, a low strike from Becher that sped past the diving Horvath into the bottom right corner. Jeong Sang-bin assisted Ostrak’s third tally four minutes after the second goal.
In between, the Red Bulls created more of the dangerous chances.
Cade Cowell forced Roman Burki into a difficult save in the 30th minute, and Emil Forsberg missed narrowly wide on another quality opportunity nine minutes later.
Then four minutes into the second half, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting had the best look of all following a St. Louis giveaway in its own end but was denied by Durkin’s block with Burki already beaten.
Burki made an excellent diving denial of Cowell moments shortly after Becher’s goal.
–Field Level Media
