Diego Luna recorded a brace, including the tiebreaking goal on a penalty kick, to lead Real Salt Lake to a 3-1 victory over host San Diego FC on Saturday.
Sam Junqua also scored for Real Salt Lake, who avenged a 3-1 home loss to San Diego last month.
The goal output was the best of the season for Real Salt Lake (4-6-0, 12 points), which had just eight total goals entering the match. RSL had lost four of its previous five matches.
Chucky Lozano scored on a penalty kick for the lone goal for San Diego FC (4-4-2, 14 points). The expansion franchise dropped its third consecutive game.
Salt Lake’s Rafael Cabral had six saves while San Diego counterpart CJ dos Santos had two.
San Diego had an 18-11 edge in shots and a 7-5 advantage in shots on target.
Salt Lake was happy to have its best player in Luna on the field on Saturday.
Luna received a questionable red card in last week’s 1-0 home loss to Toronto FC. But the red card was rescinded on Tuesday, allowing Luna to play.
His first goal Saturday came in the first minute of first-half stoppage time. Luna intercepted a pass and drove in towards two San Diego defenders, who were passive toward confronting Luna.
Once Luna was inside the box, he sent a right-footed shot just over the hand of dos Santos to break the scoreless tie.
Salt Lake’s Alexandros Katranis brought down Anibal Godoy a few minutes later to give San Diego a penalty kick. Lozano stood at the spot and sent a low right-footed shot into the right corner of the net to tie the score six minutes into stoppage time.
Early in the second half, a foul on San Diego’s Jeppe Tverskov set up RSL with a penalty kick. Luna took the kick in the 54th minute and dos Santos went one direction and Luna went the other by booting a right-footed shot into the bottom-left corner. It was Luna’s fifth goal of the season.
Junqua made it 3-1 in the 66th minute. He was well beyond the box when the ball came in his direction and he ripped a powerful left-footed shot into the right corner.
Luna was bidding for a hat trick but his shot in the 80th minute was stopped by dos Santos.
–Field Level Media
