Latif Blessing scored in his second consecutive match to give the Houston Dynamo the lead for good in a 3-1 victory over the visiting Colorado Rapids on Wednesday night.
Amine Bassi and Sebastian Kowalczyk also added their second goals of the season for Houston (6-6-3, 21 points), which earned its first home win since March 30 and snapped a three-match winless run.
Andrew Tarbell made a club-record-tying 10 saves while deputizing for injured Houston starter Steve Clark to preserve his first MLS win since the 2020 season.
Djordje Mihailovic scored his fourth goal of the season for Colorado (6-6-4, 22 points), which dominated most of the first half but faded after losing the lead for a second time on Blessing’s strike.
The Rapids conceded three or more goals for a third consecutive match and fourth out of five while seeing their own winless run extend to three matches.
Blessing arrived in Houston earlier this spring in a trade from Toronto FC, and after a slow start has provided some recent needed attacking support.
His second goal with the Dynamo came from a moment of individual brilliance in the 70th minute.
Rapids goalkeeper Zack Steffen tried to punch the ball clear of danger on the second cross from Houston after a corner kick.
But the ball fell to Blessing, who took it on the volley and beat Steffen to his near post with a dipping shot from the fringe of the penalty area that swerved into the bottom left corner.
Kowalcyk made it 3-1 on a finish from a similar position 10 minutes later after playing a give-and-go in transition with Ibrahim Aliyu.
Colorado took the majority of the first-half shots and forced Tarbell into seven stops before the break, but were behind in the 40th minute when Bassi hammered in Griffin Dorsey’s cross.
Mihailovic tied the score four minutes into the second half when he was first to the rebound of Tarbell’s penalty save of Rafael Navarro’s shot.
–Field Level Media
