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Casey leads Rapids past Wizards

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:48 AM COMMERCE CITY, Colorado (Ticker) -- The rain fell on Dick's Sporting Goods Park, but the Colorado Rapids put a stop to their flood of winless matches.

Conor Casey scored two goals as the Rapids continued their success at home against the Kansas City Wizards on Saturday by holding on for a 2-1 victory.

"It wasn't an easy game, but I'm happy to get the win," Casey said. "We haven't had won in a while and it feels good."

The Rapids, who notched their second win in the last 10 contests, improved to 13-4-5 all-time at home against the Wizards.

"It wasn't pretty," said Colorado assistant coach Gary Smith, who is filling in for head coach Fernando Clavijo while he tends to a family matter in his native Uruguay. "I think we have played a (heck) of a lot better than that at times and not gotten a result, but three points were more important than anything else tonight."

Meanwhile, the Wizards failed to halt their 10-game road winless streak and are 0-5-5 as the visitors since defeating the Chicago Fire in the Windy City on April 20.

Colorado got on the board first as Casey scored on a header off a nifty cross pass from Terry Cooke on the right wing in the 11th minute.

"Yeah, there's been some distractions," Casey said. "But I mean we haven't won in a while so... we were able to put a good training week together and everyone was just ecstatic we finally won and got three points, something definitely to build off of."

In the 44th minute, Michael Harrington evened the contest with a rebound shot after Sasha Victorine's blast bounced off the body of lunging goalkeeper Preston Burpo.

Casey struck again three minutes later for the decisive tally. He booted a ball to the left, and a diving Kevin Hartman barely got a hand on it, but it had enough momentum to lead the Rapids to a much-needed triumph.

"We really came out hungry," Casey said. "We had some good opportunities and were able to get one of them early. And I think that really was kind of a bit of something off our shoulders."

The Rapids outshot the Wizards, 17-5, and have a 61-18 advantage over the opposition in the past three games.

"I think that was part of the game plan today, to press a little bit higher and maybe try to get after some of those instead of dropping as we have the past couple of weeks," Casey said. "I think in the end it worked out for us."

Entering play, Colorado had been blanked in consecutive games at home, including a 1-0 loss to Toronto FC last Saturday.