Ariel Lassiter and Kristoffer Velde scored goals and James Pantemis recorded seven saves as the visiting Portland Timbers defeated Austin FC 2-0 on Saturday in the teams’ regular-season-ending match to cement a spot in the MLS Cup playoffs.
By winning its fourth match in a row, Portland clinched the seventh spot in the Western Conference standings to avoid the wild-card match featuring the eighth- and ninth-place teams.
The Timbers (13-14-7, 46 points) will play FC Dallas in a best-of-three, first-round playoff series.
Austin FC (8-16-10, 34 points) will miss the postseason for the third time in the past four years.
The Timbers, who finished the season with a five-game unbeaten run, wasted little time setting the tone for the match.
Lassiter put the visitors on the scoreboard with a goal in the third minute, taking a pass from Vincent Janssen near the right sideline and carrying the ball into the box before angling in and unleashing a left-footed shot that beat Austin goalkeeper Brad Stuver into the bottom left corner.
Stuver turned away the second shot he saw — this one from Eric Izoita in the eighth minute — to keep the Verde’s deficit at a goal.
Austin applied the pressure for the equalizer throughout the rest of the first half. First, the Verde’s Jon Gallagher hit the crossbar with a shot in the 13th minute, then Christian Ramirez was wide of the goal for Austin in the 39th minute.
Ramirez forced Pantemis into his only save of the half with a blistering shot in the 40th minute that the Portland keeper had just to hold his ground to bat away.
Pantemis stopped three Austin shots in a nine-minute stretch to keep the Timbers on top. The first, on a knuckling kick headed for the upper right corner by Guilherme Biro in the 61st minute, required Pantemis to leap high to his left to make the save. Jorge Alastuey and Przemyslaw Placheta tested him in the 62nd and 67th minute, respectively, but were denied.
That set the stage for Velde’s huge insurance goal, which came in the 70th minute. Ian Smith set up the goal with a short pass to Velde just outside the box, and the Norwegian blasted a shot past Stuver into the upper right corner.
–Field Level Media
