Lucas Halter scored in the 26th minute Wednesday night and Jonathan Bond made six saves as the visiting Houston Dynamo blanked the Seattle Sounders 1-0.
Playing nearly its entire team in the 18-yard box for most of the last 15 minutes, Houston (14-9-9, 51 points) snapped a seven-match winless streak and earned three crucial points to help its playoff positioning. The Dynamo sit fourth in the Western Conference, tied on points with third-place St. Louis City.
Seattle (11-11-10, 43 points) fell to eighth in the West, just a point ahead of Real Salt Lake and two points ahead of the 10th-place Los Angeles Galaxy. The eighth- and ninth-place teams will meet in a wild-card matchup as the last two playoff teams.
The Sounders also lost Peter Kingston for their next match on Sunday at West leader Vancouver via a yellow card in the 65th minute, earning him a one-match suspension for card accumulation.
The Dynamo were outshot 21-2 and got just one shot on frame. That was Halter’s header off a well-taken corner kick from Mateusz Bogusz that bounced into the box’s middle. It was Halter’s first marker in 20 matches this year.
Bond took care of the rest in his 12th clean sheet of the season. His biggest save came on Seattle’s last chance, when he knocked away a Paul Arriola header in the box during second-half stoppage time.
The main storyline prior to kickoff was the importance of this game for both sides in regards to the West playoff picture. Houston started the night in fifth, five points ahead of Seattle, which was in seventh with three matches remaining.
The teams played to their regular-season tendencies. The Sounders carved out clear advantages in possession and shots, but the defensive-minded Dynamo mostly maintained their shape. In the few instances where they didn’t, Bond was there to erase the mistakes.
He came up with consecutive saves in the 41st minute, including a diving stop on Albert Rusnak’s shot that was ticketed for the lower left corner. Then he turned away Dejan Joveljic’s header in the 45th minute.
–Field Level Media
