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Hejduk, Rogers keep Crew cruising

Sep 19, 2008 - 2:51 AM COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ticker) -- Frankie Hejduk recorded his first goal in nearly three years by scoring in the 41st minute and Robbie Rogers tallied five minutes later as the Columbus Crew continued their winning ways with a 3-1 triumph over the New York Red Bulls on Thursday.

Eddie Gaven also scored in the 85th minute for Columbus (14-6-5), which improved to 5-0-1 in its last six matches and 9-2-2 at home.

The Crew were victorious without the services of Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who injured his leg in practice this week. The talented Argentine leads the league with 18 assists.

"We have different people that can score goals," Columbus coach Sigi Schmid said. "Tonight it was Eddie Gaven scored a goal, Robbie Rogers finally got off the mark and had a great goal. And Frankie (Hejduk) was chipping the ball all the way over the goalkeeper. He scored a great goal.

"I think we are a tough team to play because we have so many guys that can score goals. If you focus on one guy, someone else comes in and puts it in the back of the goal."

Juan Pablo Angel opened the scoring in the 21st minute for New York (9-8-8), which is 1-7-5 away from Giants Stadium.

Off a set piece, Angel wrapped his free kick around the defensive wall and into the top right corner of the net for his 10th goal of the season.

Hejduk leveled the contest 20 minutes later by scoring his first goal since September 10, 2005 against the New England Revolution.

After faking a shot that sent Red Bulls defender Jorge Rojas into the air, Hejduk dribbled around him and lofted a high, arching shot that sailed over the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Jon Conway and into the net.

"It was long overdue," Hejduk said. "I felt great before the game. ... It was definitely a shot. I saw (Conway) cheating a little bit and I tried to chip it somewhere on the back post and it ended up going in the goal."

"That was a huge goal," Rogers said. "Down 1-0 at home, we were playing well and when we got that, we went in with a lot more energy. It was a great goal to get especially at that time."

With the second half barely underway, Rogers accepted a through ball from defender Gino Padula and dribbled to the top of the box. Rogers then blasted a shot past Conway and into the upper right corner of the net to give the Crew a 2-1 advantage.

"I was a little lucky," Rogers said. "Coach told us to take more shots and I just said why not? I scored one like that in the Open Cup. It's a ball I like to strike I was just happy to score and get the three points."

Gaven capped the scoring with an insurance tally in the 85th minute. The midfielder accepted a feed from Pat Noonan and booted it past Conway for his third goal of the season.

"We didn't give ourselves a chance to win this game," New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio said. "First of all, we couldn't keep the lead and then the early second-half goal destroyed everything we had talked about. After that is was just a matter of us going forward and they counter attacked and created chances."