Substitute Ilie Sanchez scored from the edge of the penalty area in the third minute of second-half stoppage time to lift LAFC to a 2-1 victory over the host Vancouver Whitecaps on Sunday night.
Sanchez’s first goal of the season came long after Mateusz Bogusz scored his 15th goal in the first minute for an LAFC side playing while leading scorer Denis Bouanga (19 goals) was on international duty.
It came on virtually the only late attack for LAFC (18-8-7, 61 points), sealing its fourth consecutive victory and keeping hope alive of besting the LA Galaxy (64 points) for the top spot in the Western Conference.
Tristan Blackmon and Sebastian Berhalter were involved on the chance that led to Vancouver’s equalizer, ultimately credited as an own goal by Sergi Palencia in the 63rd minute.
The defeat kept Vancouver (13-12-8, 47 points) in eighth in the West, a finishing position that would have the Whitecaps hosting a wild-card game against the Portland Timbers. Vancouver enters Saturday’s regular-season finale two points back of seventh-place Minnesota.
Vancouver was also without several regulars — including attacker Ryan Gauld and midfielder Andres Cubas — and had the better of the chances to secure all three points late.
In the 74th minute, Brian White flashed a header from a promising position just wide of the far-left post, and in the 83rd he sent another aerial chance from a similar position further off target.
Then in the 86th, LAFC’s Timothy Tillman cleared Damir Kreilach’s header off the goal line following Berhalter’s corner kick.
Sanchez punished that wastefulness seven minutes later.
Nathan Ordaz made an excellent extended run down the left, then found Kei Kamara in the penalty area. Kamara picked out Sanchez near the top of the penalty arc, and Sanches drove a right-footed shot past Yohei Takaoka and off the inside of the right post.
White had one more chance to level the game, but his header struck the left post and rebounded back into the field of play.
Earlier, Palencia’s handball offense resulted in the free kick that saw Vancouver pull level.
Berhalter bent in a swinging cross, and as Tristan Blackmon rose to try to head it toward the goal, it instead caromed off the defending Palencia and past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris from close range.
Lloris finished with three saves, and Takaoka had two.
–Field Level Media
