SEATTLE (AP) - Osvaldo Alonso and Lamar Neagle scored five minutes apart early in the second half for Seattle, but Real Salt Lake advanced to the Western Conference final with a 3-2 aggregate victory over the Seattle Sounders FC on Wednesday night.
RSL will face either New York or Los Angeles in the conference final this weekend. The Galaxy own a 1-0 lead over the Red Bulls going into Thursday's second leg. If the Galaxy win, the conference final will be Sunday night in Los Angeles. If New York wins, RSL will host the Red Bulls Monday night at Rio Tinto Stadium.
Trailing 3-0 after a loss on the road Saturday night, and with just 45 minutes remaining in their season on Wednesday night, the Sounders turned the final 30 minutes into a frantic mess, and that came after a breakneck first half where Seattle nearly scored on numerous occasions.
But Salt Lake did just enough and advanced to Major League Soccer's final four for the second time in three years. RSL won the 2009 MLS Cup on Seattle's home field.
Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Nick Rimando was peppered with shots all night, but the biggest save for Salt Lake came in the first half when Rimando left his net exposed and Tony Beltran headed Jeff Parke's blast from the top of the penalty area over the crossbar.
"Yeah, it was tough," said Rimando. "It felt like we were down the whole game. But we battled. It was one of those games where we had to battle and stick in there to the end through a lot of adversity. Take that any way you guys want to take it but I think we stuck in there and we advanced. This loss feels like a win for sure because we got to advance and we get to play the winner of L.A. - New York. So the guys fought hard and, all in all, we did what we had to do, even if it was a loss."
Meanwhile the Sounders, after the most successful season in the franchise's three years, were dispatched in the conference semifinals yet again and brought Keller's illustrious career to an end.
It was a complete change from the game played last Saturday in Utah when Salt Lake controlled every aspect and built what seemed to be an insurmountable advantage behind two goals from Alvaro Saborio and one from Ned Grabavoy.
But Salt Lake was vulnerable, playing without central defenders Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers and that vulnerability was exploited
all night by Seattle. Alonso got Seattle on the board with the first home playoff goal in franchise history - three years in - when he converted a penalty kick in the 56th minute. Beltran pulled down Mike Fucito in the penalty area and was given a yellow card for the foul.
Alonso converted the penalty with a shot directly at Rimando that couldn't be stopped. Five minutes later Seattle really made things nervous for Salt Lake when Alonso settled a loose ball outside the penalty area to Montero. Seattle's star striker dropped a pass into space where Neagle ran on and put a left-footed shot across Rimando's body and just inside the far post.
"Yeah, I knew that at some point it was going to be like them wave after wave, serving balls into our box and seeing how we dealt with them," said RSL head coach Jason Kreis. "I expected - I really did expect us to be better with the ball than we were tonight. I felt like we were really hurried. We got in a lot of good spots early in the game to win the ball and then just gave it right back. So we never were able to gain any ground or get out of our half or keep things in their end for long stretches and it was a choppy game, which doesn't help us to gain any kind of rhythm. It felt like any time a Seattle player fell in the first half, there was a whistle right behind it and a free kick against us. That made things difficult and they just kept serving it into our box and the entire night was a difficult night. Credit to Seattle and credit to their crowd for creating that atmosphere and credit to the team for putting us under that kind of pressure and I think that what you saw was that this is a very, very good team that went out in the first round of the playoffs which is, I think, disappointing."
But Seattle failed to get a dangerous attempt on net in the final 30 minutes as Salt Lake packed in its defense and drained seconds off the clock at every opportunity.
If Seattle was going to make the night a little uncomfortable for Salt Lake, the belief was it needed a goal in the first half.
From the start the Sounders created a frenetic pace with defenders pushing forward regularly and leaving themselves open for potential counter attacks.
Yet Seattle controlled possession and chances wiuht its best opportunity coming in the 36th minute on Parke's shot that was headed away by Beltran.
Seattle later had a goal disallowed after Montero clearly interfered with Rimando's attempt to make a save. Seattle was also forced to sub out Alvaro Fernandez and Brad Evans in the first 21 minutes of the match. Fernandez left with a hamstring injury, while Evans had to be helped back to the bench with a right ankle injury.
