Minnesota United finishes strong, wins 3-1 at Vancouver

Minnesota United scored early and then held on tight to win the first two in its current three-game winning streak.

The Loons did it the other way around in Friday night's 3-1 victory at Vancouver that moved them suddenly into fifth place in the Western Conference.

This time, they scored the final three goals, all of them within 17 minutes in the second half and all of them with what coach Adrian Heath called "quality."

"After the game, when we've got three points, I don't care whether we scored early or we scored late," Heath said. "At the end of the day, we look at the full body for the 90 minutes and I thought we were better than them tonight. I thought we had more quality than them."

That's saying something about a Vancouver team that was 4-1-1 in its previous six games and 5-1-3 at home.

The teams had identical 7-8-3 regular-season records coming into the game. The all-time series was 3-3-3.

Vancouver started leading scorer Lucas Cavallini on the bench. He entered as a second-half sub and needed only three minutes to give the Whitecaps a 1-0 lead in the 66th minute.

"The most important thing of all in this is I never lost belief in the group," Heath said. "A few years ago I might have been a lone voice when I said this team is very, very close to being very, very good. We've started to see little glimpses of that."

He saw that in Friday's scorers.

Too ill to train last week, veteran left back Kemar Lawrence tied the score at 1-1 with a sliding, left-foot redirection near the back post of DJ Taylor's crossing pass from the right wing in the 71st minute.

Thirteen minutes later, striker Luis Amarilla scored the winner. He did so with a left-foot strike from distance after he pushed the ball for several strides in the open field in the 84th minute.

Attacker Franco Fragapane scored the clincher in the 88th minute, when he took a ball Amarilla laid off because it would have been offside. Fragapane chipped it over keeper Cody Cropper.

"I woke up this morning thinking he wouldn't play," Heath said. "Then I got a text from the physio who said Kemar says he's fine, he hasn't come all this way to sit in his bed. It shows a lot of character from the kid. He literally hasn't eaten for a couple of days. I'm delighted he played the way he has and then he gets a reward for getting the goal that gets us back in the game."

Lawrence said he began to feel better Thursday and better yet Friday morning.

"I had a little bit of breakfast and I was keeping it in," he said, "so I knew I was going to play."

Amarilla leapt and punched the air after his long strike beat Cropper just inside the left post for his fifth goal this season.

Heath was asked if that was the best strike for a goal that he has seen from Amarilla.

Fragapane's second goal this season earned a rare assist from goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair after Fragapane turned St. Clair's booming kick from the field's other end into a goal.

"We've been working on that all week in training," Heath said dryly. "So no doubt Dayne will claim the assist, knowing Dayne."

Now that MLS' secondary transfer window is open, the Loons in Friday's Internet chatter were linked with South Korean striker Hwang Ui-jo, a member of his national team who has been playing in France.

"He's not the only player we've inquired about," Heath said. "We have a couple spots open. We're going to try for something in the window. But there's nothing signed or nothing sealed yet, so we have got a couple other options because we think that will be difficult to do. But we are trying."