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Galaxy-Real Salt Lake Preview

Jun 10, 2010 - 12:03 AM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

Los Angeles (10-0-2) at Real Salt Lake (6-3-2), 9:00 p.m. EDT

Even with their two best players preparing for the World Cup, the Los Angeles Galaxy are running away with the Western Conference.

The Galaxy try to set an MLS record by extending their unbeaten streak to open a season to 13 games and increase their lead over second-place Real Salt Lake on Wednesday night in the teams' final match before the World Cup break.

The MLS season isn't even halfway through, but Los Angeles (10-0-2) has opened up a 12-point lead over defending MLS Cup champion Real Salt Lake (6-3-2).

The high-powered Galaxy have avoided a loss in their first 12 games, tying their own MLS record set in 1996. Rarely have the matches been close during this run, with Los Angeles outscoring opponents 22-3.

In Saturday's 4-1 victory over Houston, Jason Kirovski scored the first of his two goals 47 seconds into the match, the third-fastest goal in Galaxy history.

Tristan Bowen and Alex Cazumba also scored for Los Angeles, which is 3-0-0 without stars Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle, who are with the U.S. national team. Buddle leads MLS with nine goals, while Donovan has a league-best nine assists.

"We've had guys come in and step up, and we've done well," Kirovski said. "We have a deep squad."

The Galaxy, who have had 11 players score, also matched the club record by extending their unbeaten streak to 15 since a loss to Columbus on Sept. 26. It is the second-longest streak in MLS history, four games shy of the Crew's 19-game run without a loss July 3, 2004-April 2, 2005.

While Los Angeles still has two notable streaks intact, its shutout streak of 463 minutes - the sixth-longest in MLS history - came to an end when Dynamo forward Cam Weaver scored in the 7th minute.

"I'm not disappointed at all," said Donovan Ricketts, who leads MLS with a 0.27 goals-against average and eight shutouts. "Once we get three points I'm happy. My focus is on winning games, not just keeping clean sheets."

Ricketts made two saves and Buddle scored twice in a 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake on April 17.

RSL might have overlooked its last opponent with hopes of exacting some revenge against Los Angeles.

RSL's club-record five-game winning streak was snapped with a scoreless draw against MLS-worst D.C. on Saturday. RSL, which had outscored opponents 14-4 in the previous five, managed one shot on goal and became the first team to be shut out by United, which has allowed a league-worst 20 goals.

Although the offense never got in gear, coach Jason Kreis was happy that the defense stepped up.

"Probably the most important thing that comes out of that for us is a shutout, because we've been stressing it for every match for the past four or five games," he told Real Salt Lake's official website.