| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
Galaxy 2, Wizards 1
Sunday June 15, 2003CARSON, Calif. (AP) After being shaken out of its doldrums when Josh Wolff scored for the Kansas City Wizards in the 49th minute, the Los Angeles Galaxy got goals from Cobi Jones and Carlos Ruiz over the next 24 minutes for a 2-1 victory Saturday night.
Ruiz scored the tie-breaking goal on a 73rd-minute penalty kick and goalkeeper Kevin Hartman preserved the victory by stopping Preki's penalty kick in the seventh minute of stoppage time as Los Angeles (2-4-4) won for the second time in two games at its new stadium.
``I thought we came out flat in the first half,'' said Hartman, who made five saves. ``I didn't think we played as well as we could have. But I think we reacted well to the goal. We stepped it up a level. We really took it to them.''
Los Angeles was awarded the penalty kick when referee Ricardo Salazar ruled midfielder Francisco Gomez fouled Jones in the penalty area. Ruiz outguessed goalkeeper Tony Meola, putting his kick inside the right goal post as Meola dove left.
Meola said after the game that Los Angeles should not have been awarded the ball at the start of the scoring sequence because Galaxy forward Chris Albright had kicked the ball out of bounds.
``It's our ball 100 percent,'' Meola said. ``I just want to be involved in one game where calls don't determine the game.''
``That was a good soccer game tonight,'' he said. ``There was some great soccer going on in that game. There were fast breaks, there were headers, there were saves. ... I'm not quite certain it was determined by 22 guys.''
But Los Angeles coach Sigi Schmid said a Wizards player was the last to touch the ball before it went out of bounds.
The Wizards were awarded their penalty kick when Salazar ruled defender Alexi Lalas fouled Eric Quill in the penalty area.
Wolff scored his second goal of the season in the 49th minute for Kansas City (4-2-5) off Igor Simutenkov's assist.
The Galaxy tied the score in the 54th minute when Jones headed in a pass from Mauricio Cienfuegos for his second goal of the season.
Ruiz's goal was his sixth of the season, tying him for the league lead with Preki and New England's Taylor Twellman.
Los Angeles led 17-16 in shots and 7-6 in shots on goal before a crowd announced at 18,683.
Seven yellow cards, four to Los Angeles and three to Kansas City, were issued over the final 26 minutes.
Galaxy midfielder Mauricio Cienfuegos received a red card after the final whistle when he was issued a yellow card, his second of the game, for arguing about the call giving the Wizards a penalty kick. Cienfuegos will be suspended for the Galaxy's next game, Wednesday night against San Jose.
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