By Jae Groll
Alvaro Saborio shrugged off his scoring slump in spectacular fashion in a 3-1 victory over Toronto FC.
The mercurial striker scored a brace in nice style as Real Salt Lake dominated Toronto for most of the evening.
At the kickoff RSL started applying steady pressure and would not relent until the final whistle.
The home side had several good attempts in the first half including strikes from Kyle Beckerman and Collen Warner.
On 25′ Will Johnson had a blistering shot parried over the crossbar by keeper Stefan Frei.
As the first half was coming to a close Real Salt Lake scored their first on a solid header by defender Nat Borchers off a Kyle Beckerman corner kick.
Minutes later Saborio scored his first. Robbie Russell down the right wing send a bouncing cross into the box. His pass was deflected but found it’s way to Saborio who slotted the ball in for a well earned score.
15 minutes into the second half Beckerman once again supplied great service. His lofted through ball was taken deftly by Saborio in the box. 1-on-1 against the keeper the striker left Frei no chance with his right footed shot.
Toronto did answer when Maicon Santos beat RSL net tender Nick Rimando on his near post from the top of the box with a powerful strike for his 6th goal of the MLS season.
RSL next face the Wilmington Hammerheads in US Open Cup play on Tuesday night. Toronto are also going to be on short rest when they play fellow Canadian squad Vancouver on Wednesday evening.
Man of the Match: Kyle Beckerman not only tallied 3 assists from his holding midfield position but also had 5 shots of his own as he constantly came forward to support the RSL attack. His defensive efforts were up to his usual standard which is among the top in the league on any given day.
“Extreme Home Makeover” Help: Across the league Saturday night and also at the Gold Cup final game the people from Extreme Home Makeover were out in force supporting a great cause. 7 year old Jonah Gomez, a huge soccer fan has a rare form of blood cancer and is in search of a DNA match for his bone marrow transplant. The folks from EHM set up DNA testing booths at 7 soccer games across the country to help find a donor for young Jonah.
Beltran Continues to Shine: Tony Beltran has been playing top quality soccer at the RSL left back position since coming on earlier in the year due to injury. Coach Jason Kreis had noticed his improvement in training. “He started to train every single day at an extremely high level. When you see that you recognize that this player is coming into good form.” he continued his praise for Beltran saying “So we plug him into the starting line up…..you’re answering the question for us. You’re making the choices for us.”
