Darren Yapi scored in the 41st minute Saturday night and the Colorado Rapids earned a weather-delayed 1-0 win over visiting St. Louis City SC.
Yapi benefited from a fortunate deflection on his third goal of the year. Serviced by Ted Ku-Dipietro, Yapi spun to his right in the middle of the box and fired a right-footed shot that struck a defender no more than two feet away from him and spun inside the left post.
As St. Louis goalie Roman Burki fired his arms in the air in frustration, Yapi slid on the wet playing surface in celebration. Colorado (6-5-4, 22 points) made the lead stick over the final 49 minutes plus stoppage time for its second straight 1-0 triumph.
Meanwhile, the struggles continued for St. Louis (2-8-5, 11 points), which is winless in 11 matches, eight of them losses. It hasn’t won since blanking the Seattle Sounders 1-0 on March 15.
St. Louis coach Olof Mellberg has come under fire from fans and media during the skid as his team has often proved impotent and unable to finish. It actually had solid possession time of almost 55 percent and matched the Rapids’ 12 shots while generating more corners and crosses but simply couldn’t convert.
Backup goalie Nicholas Defreitas-Hansen, who replaced the injured Zack Steffen (oblique) for Colorado, got the clean sheet with three saves. Burki notched five saves for St. Louis.
The pregame storyline concerned the Rapids’ switch back to the 4-2-3-1 alignment they used successfully last year, when they cruised to a playoff spot and were one of the league’s highest-scoring outfits. They tried a 4-2-2-2 for six matches before switching back last week during a 1-0 blanking of Real Salt Lake.
But Mother Nature took the early spotlight, bringing a storm to the pitch that forced the officials to suspend play in the sixth minute. The fixture was delayed for about 90 minutes before it finally resumed.
The outcome marked the eighth time in 15 matches that St. Louis hasn’t scored.
–Field Level Media
