• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

United goes for second straight win against Impact

May 16, 2014 - 8:56 PM Washington, DC (SportsNetwork.com) - A pair of Eastern Conference rivals meet on Saturday when D.C. United hosts the Montreal Impact at RFK Stadium.

After a slow start to the season, United has righted the ship and finds itself in the thick of the playoff positions with 14 points. The club will hope for a second consecutive victory after a 1-0 result over the Philadelphia Union last weekend.

United got off to a fast start against the Union when a strike from defender Cristian Fernandez deflected off the back of Union defender Raymon Gaddis and settled to Chris Rolfe in the box. Rolfe collected off his chest and fired it into the bottom right corner on the volley.

The goal from Rolfe was the 50th of the 31-year-old veteran's career, making him the 38th player in MLS history to score 50 regular-season goals.

"Results are important in this business, it's a good win, I'm extremely happy, I think the guys are extremely happy but I still think there's a ways to a go," United head coach Ben Olsen said.

"More than anything we needed to bounce back from the result we had last weekend and we did. It's not easy to play at a rival's house up a goal in the 6th minute and defend for 90," Rolfe said. "I'm proud of the guys I think they did a great job in particular the second half in the last 10 or 15 minutes so many balls were coming into the box and we had four or five guys step up and get their bodies in the way and get the result for us."

Montreal, meanwhile, is coming off a poor showing last weekend in a 3-0 defeat to Sporting Kansas City at Stade Saputo.

The visitors went in front after 18 minutes when Collen Warner was shown a straight red card for a handball in the penalty area and Dominic Dwyer converted the ensuing spot kick.

Sporting doubled its lead in the 34th minute when defender Chance Myers played a cross from the right flank that found Paulo Nagamura at the far post, putting his redirect back towards the opposite post for his first goal of the year.

KC found a third goal in the 64th minute when Dwyer was played through to goal by Nagamura. The SKC striker, alone in front of goal, picked the bottom right corner to score his second goal of the game.

"I think that the red card really changed the game for us. We really had some good moments early on," said head coach Frank Klopas. "I give credit to my guys because in the second half they worked extremely hard considering we had a game midweek and that we have some players injured. We have to focus on finding ways to improve now."

The teams split a pair of meetings last season, with each winning on home turf.