Rafael Navarro scored a brace for the second straight game and St. Louis City extended its unbeaten streak to 16 games with a 4-2 victory over visiting Minnesota United on Saturday night.
Carlo Holse had a goal and an assist and Daniel Edelman also scored a goal for St. Louis City (11-6-8, 41 points), which defeated the Loons for the first time in team history in four home matches (1-3-0).
Roman Burki made one save for St. Louis, which improved to 10-0-5 since a 2-0 loss at Austin FC on May 3.
Kelvin Yeboah and Tomas Chancalay each scored goals for Minnesota United (7-10-8, 29 points), which lost its third straight game. Drake Callender finished with four saves.
St. Louis, which outshot Minnesota, 10-1, in the first half, put the pressure on the Loons from the start with Callender being forced to make three saves in the first four minutes.
Chancalay then gave the Loons a 1-0 lead in the fifth minute when he snuck behind a pair of defenders at midfield, fielded a long through pass from Joaquin Pereyra, and fired a right-footed shot from the middle of the box into the center of the goal for his fourth goal.
St. Louis answered by scoring three goals in a 20-minute span to take a 3-1 lead. Edelman got the first in the 18th minute when he put in a right-footed rebound of a long Holse shot for his fourth goal. Holse followed four minutes later with a curling left-footed shot from the top right corner of the box into the far corner for his second goal of the season. Navarro then made it 3-1 when he chipped in Holse’s over-the-top pass into the box over Callender.
The teams traded penalty kicks early in the second half. Navarro, tripped by Michael Boxall in the box, roofed a right-footed penalty try to make it 4-1. Yeboah, knocked down in the box making a baseline run by Jaziel Orozco, then scored his 13th goal with a right-footed penalty shot inside the bottom left post.
Minnesota twice had a chance to cut the deficit to one goal but hit the crossbar on headers by Anthony Markanich and Maurice Malone. The Loons then went down to 10 men in the 80th minute when defender Kyle Duncan was sent off after picking up his second yellow card.
–Field Level Media
