Alan Pulido recorded a first-half brace as host Sporting Kansas City defeated St. Louis City 2-1 on Saturday night.
Sporting KC (8-11-8, 32 points) avenged a 4-0 shutout that they took at the hands of St. Louis City earlier in the year in the first-ever matchup between the two sides in Kansas City, Kan.
Despite the loss, St. Louis City (15-10-2, 47 points) remain atop the Western Conference standings. Kansas City sits in 11th in the 14-team West.
Sporting KC are now 21-9-10 overall against expansion teams and 14-3-1 in their first-ever home matches against an expansion franchise, only suffering defeats to the Houston Dynamo (2006), Seattle Sounders (2009) and Montreal Impact (2012).
Trailing 2-1 in the second half, St. Louis appeared to tie the match at 2-2, but Samuel Adeniran was ruled to have been offsides.
SKC nearly went up by two goals in the 73rd minute when they had a three-on-one, but they couldn't convert.
St. Louis got on the board in the 22nd minute. It picked up possession deep in its own zone but countered quickly. Adeniran sent a left-footed shot from the left side of the box past a diving Tim Melia. Indiana Vassilev earned the assist on the play.
Kansas City tied it in the 31st minute on a point-blank shot by Pulido. Daniel Salloi had a clear shot at the goal from the left side of the box, but he found a streaking Pulido, who fired it past St. Louis goalkeeper Roman Burki.
Pulido scored his second goal of the match in the 44th minute to give SKC their first lead of the season against St. Louis City. Jake Davis split a pair of defenders on the right flank and then dribbled into the box. When two more defenders converged on him, he found Pulido at the top of the box, and Pulido one-timed a shot past Burki.
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