COLUMBUS (ABC4 Sports) – Real Salt Lake isn’t just losing games to start the 2023 season — they are getting blown out.
Aidan Morris scored two goals, Lucas Zelarayán had a goal and two assists and the Columbus Crew rolled to a 4-0 victory over Real Salt Lake on Saturday night.
RSL lost to St. Louis City last week by the same 4-0 score, and have been outscored in five games this season, 13-3.
Since a season-opening victory against Vancouver, RSL have been outscored 12-1 during its four-game slide, and have now played 248 minutes since scoring their last goal.
Morris staked Columbus (3-2-1) to a 1-0 lead with a goal in the 14th minute off an assist from Zelarayán.
The Crew took a 2-0 lead into halftime on Zelarayán’s penalty-kick goal in the 41st minute.
Morris made it 3-0 with an unassisted score in the 53rd minute and Yaw Yeboah capped the scoring when he took a pass from Zelarayán and scored in the third minute of stoppage time.
The Crew outshot Real Salt Lake 18-8 with a 6-5 edge in shots on goal.
Gavin Beavers made his first start in goal for Real Salt Lake at 17 years, 11 months and three days old, becoming the third-youngest goalkeeper to start in Major League Soccer history.
Beavers made two saves for RSL.Patrick Schulte finished with five saves to earn the clean sheet for the Crew.
The Crew improve to 6-0-2 in their last eight home matches with Real Salt Lake. RSL has only two wins in 15 trips to Columbus.
Real Salt Lake (1-4-0) has lost four straight for the first time under coach Pablo Mastroeni. RSL has just five victories since the beginning of July. Only DC United (4) has fewer.
Real Salt Lake returns home to host Charlotte on Saturday.
