LOS ANGELES (ABC4 Sports) – Real Salt Lake has set franchise records on the road all season, so they weren’t fazed by a two goal deficit on the road at the L.A. Galaxy Saturday night.
Anderson Julio scored in stoppage time in the first half, while Diego Luna found the equalizer in the 76th minute, as RSL salvaged a 2-2 draw to move into the fifth seed in the Western Conference with one game left in the regular season.
Real Salt Lake (13-11-9, 47 points) trails Houston by one point going into the final game, with home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs at stake. The top four seeds will have home field in the best-of-three first round series.
RSL concludes the regular season next week at Colorado, while Houston travels to Portland. Vancouver is also in contention for the fourth seed, as the Whitecaps also have 47 points.
The Galaxy did not look like a team already eliminated from playoff contention in the first half, as Dejan Jovelijc scored the first goal of the match in the 7th minute. L.A. added to its lead in the 34th minute on a goal from Douglas Costa.
But RSL rallied just before halftime, as Julio found the corner of the from just inside the box to cut the deficit in half.
It stayed a 2-1 game until the 76th minute, when Luna recovered a rebounded shot, and blasted in his fourth goal of the season, and his first since July 15th to level the match at two.
Zac MacMath made four saves in goal to preserve the draw.
Real Salt Lake outshot the Galaxy, 20-16, with L.A. putting seven shots on goal to six for RSL.
The Galaxy struck in the seventh minute on Joveljic’s right-footed shot. It was his sixth goal of the season and was set up by Daniel Aguirre’s pass.
Costa’s goal made it 2-0 in the 34th minute. Joveljic sent a touch pass to Costa, who booted a left-footed shot into the right corner of the net for his third goal of the season.
Real Salt Lake got on the board in the first minute of first-half stoppage time. Julio’s right-footed shot deflected off a Galaxy defender and found the back of the net. It was Julio’s fifth goal of the season.
In the 76th minute, Luna sent a right-footer through traffic that tipped the hand of Micovic before ending up in the net. It was Luna’s fourth goal of the season.
RSL had a solid chance in the 18th minute, but Andrew Brody sent a close-range right-footer off the crossbar.
RSL’s Marcelo Silva had an opportunity to score off a corner kick in the 64th minute, but his header went over the net.
RSL concludes the regular season October 21 at Colorado at 7:00 p.m.