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Schelotto, Crew stay in playoff hunt

Oct 14, 2007 - 6:33 AM FOXBORO, Massachusetts (Ticker) -- Guillermo Barros Schelotto kept the Columbus Crew's slim playoff hopes alive.

Schelotto scored in the 86th minute to lift the Crew to a wild 3-2 comeback victory over the New England Revolution on Saturday night.

"We decided not to start him, we thought he would give us a better push coming off the bench," coach Sigi Schmid said of Schelotto. "His focus in games is something that he really showed, he changed the game not only with his touches, he changed the game with his energy."

"(Schelotto) gave them a different look and they seemed to send a lot more runners forward when in the first half they kind of stayed home more" New England midfielder Andy Dorman said.

With the win, Columbus (8-11-10, 34 pts) moved ahead of the Colorado Rapids and have an opportunity to catch either the Chicago Fire or the Kansas City Wizards for the final playoff spot.

"The result in Kansas City killed us, we gave some games away like in Houston before that and we certainly did not do well in our homestand when we only got one point in our last four home games," Schmid said.

Schletto capped a three-goal second half by the Crew when he spun past Revolution midfielder Steve Ralston and sent a kick towards the goal from about 25 yards out. The ball came up just short of the goal line but skipped past the dive of goalkeeper Matt Reis for Schelotto's fifth goal of the season.

New England took a 1-0 lead in the 26th minute when Ralston sent a corner kick towards the box and Taylor Twellman beat out a defender to head the ball past Columbus goalkeeper Will Hesmer. It was Twellman's team-leading 15th goal of the season and the 90th of his career and Ralston collected his league-leading 13th assist.

Columbus drew even in the 61st minute. After Robbie Rogers' turn around shot hit the post, Eddie Gaven sent a right-footed shot into the open net to tie the score at 1-1.

"All the boys played really hard tonight, you can't say anything about the effort we did everything that we could do at this point, it's a shame that things are not a little more in out hands but we let that happen," Crew captain Frankie Hejduk said.

Gaven played a big role in the Crew taking their first lead of the night in the 77th minute. Gaven came down to the right side and showed a great amount of patience by waiting for his oncoming teammates, then sent a pass over the Revolution defense and found the charging Stefani Miglioranzi who one-timed a powerful kick past Reis.

"Eddie did extremely well to get to the ball and compose himself and put it into the middle of the box where I was running into an open area and at that point I just concentrated on hitting the target," Miglioranzi said.

It took just six minutes for New England to answer as Ralston blasted a right-footed shot to the far side to tie match at 2-2. Ralston was set up by Shalrie Joseph on a nifty give and go play.

"(Ralston) obviously did well, he was pretty dangerous all night with his set plays and the chances he was creating" Dorman said.

New England (14-8-7, 49 pts), which remains in second place in the Eastern Conference, has already clinched a postseason berth.