Hany Mukhtar’s hat trick leads Nashville past St. Louis

Hany Mukhtar recorded his fourth career hat trick, second this season, as Nashville SC extended their MLS unbeaten streak to a club-record 10 matches with Saturday night's 3-1 victory over visiting St. Louis City SC.

Mukhtar opened the scoring in the 11th minute for Nashville (10-3-5, 35 points), but St. Louis equalized in the 41st on Nicholas Gioacchini's seventh goal.

The match remained level through halftime, then the reigning MVP took over.

Mukhtar pulled up on a break to serve teammate Jacob Shaffelburg, who was taken down in the box by St. Louis' Kyle Hiebert, who was shown his second yellow card of the night.

Mukhtar converted from the spot at the 70-minute mark. Hiebert's red card forced St. Louis to play a man down the rest of the match.

Mukhtar then capped the scoring by driving home a Dax McCarty drop pass for his 13th goal for Nashville, amid a 7-0-3 overall run and franchise-record five-game MLS home winning streak.

Meanwhile, St. Louis (9-6-2, 29 points) played without injured midfielder Eduard Lowen and striker Joao Klauss, each with five goals, but didn't roll over.

However, Mukhtar proved too much for St. Louis, which entered leading the Western Conference but is 0-2-1 in its last three overall and mired in an 0-4-1 road rut.

Mukhtar was a force from the beginning. He proved to be in the right place at the right time to drive home an attempted headed clearing attempt from St. Louis' Miguel Perez just past the 10-minute mark of the contest.

The goal came moments after VAR confirmed the non-call takedown of Gioacchini in the box.

However, VAR ended up rewarding St. Louis with the equalizer just before the half. Off a corner and right-wing entry by Rasmus Alm, the ball made it out of some net-front traffic, and glanced in off Gioacchini. The play was initially ruled to be offside, and apparently a hand ball, but overturned.