CHESTER – After being shut out the last two games, the Union’s offense broke out in a big way Saturday.
Quinn Sullivan opened the scoring and set up the third as the Union, despite being reduced to 10 men, blanked Atlanta United, 3-0, Saturday night.
Danley Jean Jaques scored his first career MLS goal, and Tai Baribo added his seventh of the season off as the Union ended a run of one win in five by beating a team struggling far worse than they. Even Jovan Lukic’s second yellow card in the 56th wasn’t enough to get the Five Stripes’ offense on track.
Sullivan’s first goal of the season was a beauty, completely out of step with the chaotic mess the proceeded it. On the third entry to the box after a free kick from 30 yards out, a wayward clearance attempt by Atlanta fell to Sullivan 14 yards from goal. The Homegrown controlled it with his chest and lashed the ball with his right foot, cutting a fizzling lane through traffic and into the net.
The Union (5-3-1, 16 points) would’ve wanted to be up a goal before that. Mikael Uhre had two looks in the 17th minute, after Bruno Damiani fought off a defender nudged a long defensive clearance into his strike partner’s path. Uhre’s first shot caught Brad Guzan leaning the wrong way, but the Atlanta United goalie got down to push it away. Indiana Vassilev kept it alive, finding an off-balance Uhre to one-time a shot from 16 yards that trickled wide of the open cage.
Uhre had a chance in the 29th, when he cut down the right wing and shaped a shot with his left boot, but it picked out only the crossbar to the right of a stranded Guzan.
Uhre’s industriousness paid off in the 50th. Kai Wagner won a battle in midfield, then connected to Damiani and Uhre, who laid off into the path of Jean Jaques. The Haitian midfielder blasted his first MLS goal through the legs of Guzan.
Baribo finished it off in the 84th. A move that started with an Vassilev interception and fed through a bombing run down the left flank by Wagner was rescued at the opposite touchline by Sullivan. He placed a cross into the box that Baribo headed home.
Atlanta United (2-4-3, 9 points), with hits trio of eight-figure attackers, produced precious little in the first half. They got four shots from Miguel Almiron, all of them from outside the box and only one on target, which Andre Blake handled with ease. Emmanuel Latte Lath, the $20 million striker and league record transfer, was consistently frustrated, while Aleksei Miranchuk connected passes in midfield, but little that threatened into the box.
Blake only had to make three saves, and Atlanta United only managed three shots fron inside the box in the first 70-plus minutes. The game started to tip in their favor by then, when Lukic was sent off foolishly in the 56th. His yellow card in the first half was for kicking the ball into the ad boards. He was whistled for delaying the restart of the game when Atlanta had a free kick in the 56th and given his marching orders.
Saba Lobzhaidze, whose equalizer at Subaru Park last Sept. 28 started the Union’s slide to an 0-3-1 finish to the season, side-footed an 8-yard attempt off the post in the 76th. Bartosz Slisz stung a header from the edge of the 6-yard box a minute later, but Blake leapt to pad it away. Atlanta has gone 253 minutes since its last goal, shut out in two straight games.
Source: Berkshire mont