With six months of long memories motivating the Colorado Rapids, they broke out early against Real Salt Lake in the first meeting of the Rocky Mountain Cup in 2009, getting a first-half goal from Nick LaBrocca and a second-half strike from Kosuke Kimura to defeat a 10-man Real Salt Lake 2-0 Saturday night at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
The Rocky Mountain Cup seems to get more intense with each match between the regional rivals, and the final match of last season left a bitter taste for the Rapids that they were finally able to spit out with the convincing victory. The Rapids overtook Real for the third place in the Western Conference in putting an end to their three-game winless streak, while keeping RSL winless and goalless on the road this year.
A year ago, the Rapids were poised for a return to the postseason, leading RSL by a goal in the final match of the season when Yura Movsisyan leveled the score in the 90th minute, earning a draw and stealing Colorado's playoff berth.
Saturday's game-winner from LaBrocca came in after a pair of attacks came up empty, one on a Terry Cooke free kick that went out before anyone could touch it and another on a play Cooke made leading Omar Cummings in the right corner that Cummings couldn't catch up to.
In just the 11th minute, however, the Rapids took a more controlled pace, with Cooke collecting the ball off a Salt Lake corner kick and finding Kimura on the right. Kimura left RSL midfielder Kyle Beckerman flat on the ground before passing off to Pablo Mastroeni who crossed to the left side to Conor Casey. Casey stayed back toward midfield and found Clark down on the wing, setting up LaBrocca's early goal.
The Rapids threatened again when Cummings chipped a ball to Casey at the left side of the goal and Casey headed it into the goal, but the ball was ruled to have crossed the end line and come back into play before Casey made contact and knocked the ball into the goal.
The dynamic changed a bit when RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando left the game in the 35th minute after a collision in front of the goal and Kyle Reynish made his MLS debut as an injury substitution.
The rivalry heated up as Ugo Ihemelu drew a yellow card in the 37th minute, and finally reached boiling point when Jamison Olave was shown a red card in the 41st minute.
In addition to the advantage of facing an RSL side down a man for more than half the match, the ejection spurred the Rapids to resist any temptation to sit on their back foot and protect their lead.
Robbie Findley drew another RSL yellow card on a trip of Mastroeni in the 55th minute and Beckerman saw a final yellow for Salt Lake in the 87th.
The Rapids got their cushion when Jordan Harvey crossed a ball from the left to Terry Cooke, who turned and laid it back to Kimura at the edge of the penalty area. He drilled it to the left of Reynish for his first career goal and a 2-0 lead.
Colorado made a pair of late substitutions, with Jacob Peterson spelling Cooke in the 68th minute and Mehdi Ballouchy coming on for Cummings in the 76th.
Owen Perkins is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
