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Real Salt Lake, Columbus play to scoreless draw

Apr 15, 2007 - 3:50 AM SALT LAKE CITY (Ticker) -- Real Salt Lake avoided a case of deja vu - barely.

A header in the 92nd minute by Columbus' Kei Kamara went high as Real Salt Lake held on for a 0-0 draw with the Crew.

A week ago, Real Salt Lake (0-0-2) yielded a goal with 30 seconds left in stoppage time and was forced to settle for a 2-2 tie with FC Dallas.

Saturday's result was all but in the books when Kamara got loose in front of the net, beat goalkeeper Nick Rimando to the ball and headed Frankie Hejduk's pass over the crossbar.

"Obviously we need to finish chances if we are not creating chances," Columbus coach Sigi Schmid said. "I was disappointed that, in the second half, we were not creating chances, but we still in the 88th minute almost stole the game with the header by Kamara. We need to be a little more definite in the final third. We need to do a better job of being clever."

Rimando kept the game scoreless with a spectacular save in the 69th minute.

The Crew's Eddie Gaven drilled a left-footed shot earmarked for just inside the right goalpost, but Rimando stretched out fully to bat away the shot. The goalie then had to scramble and regain his footing to deflect Hejduk's crossing pass.

"Anything you do, anything you practice, the more you play, you get more and more comfortable and you get a little bit better," Rimando said. "I expect that from myself, I expect that from the team and as each week goes on we will be a great team. We're happy with the clean sheet, and we'll go out and get more."

"I think we are going to definitely work on finishing," Gaven said. "We're probably going to do a lot of shooting drills, because that's what this game is all about ... putting the ball in the net. It doesn't matter how good or bad we play if we aren't putting the ball in the net."

Real Salt Lake's best chance came when reigning MLS Player of the Week Jeff Cunningham slipped behind Columbus' defense, only to see his in-close shot snuffed out by a sprawling Andy Gruenebaum in the 52nd minute.

"We didn't get the job done tonight. It wasn't because of the lack of opportunities tonight," Cunningham said. "I think we learned from last week and we didn't want that to happen again and you could see everybody tracking back at the end.

"I think we did a good job defensively at the end. I think Columbus did a good job tactically as well. They didn't allow us to penetrate to the back line."

Freddy Adu and Jason Kreis had chances for Real Salt Lake on free kicks six minutes apart in the second half, but Adu's shot went high and Kreis' bullet went through the wall but right to Gruenebaum.

Real Salt Lake enjoyed a 16-11 advantage in shots and 6-5 in shots on goal over Columbus (0-0-2), which leads the all-time series, 3-1-1.