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United aim to clinch East's top spot against Fire

Oct 17, 2014 - 11:24 PM Washington, DC (SportsNetwork.com) - D.C. United will aim to clinch the top seed in the Eastern Conference on Saturday when the club welcomes the Chicago Fire to RFK Stadium.

It's been a remarkable turnaround for Ben Olsen's D.C. United this season as the club enters the penultimate weekend of the regular season at the top of the conference with 55 points following one of the worst seasons in league history last year.

United managed just three wins last season, and will be shooting for its 17th victory of the season on Saturday coming off a comfortable 3-1 win over the Houston Dynamo at BBVA Compass Stadium which ended the Dynamo's hopes of sneaking into the postseason.

The visiting side opened the scoring four minutes before the break when Fabian Espindola sent Chris Pontius in on goal with a nice through ball. Houston goalkeeper Tyler Deric did well to take the ball off the feet of Pontius, but the rebound fell to Taylor Kemp, who fired into the empty net.

United doubled their lead in the 64th minute as a Houston free kick was blocked by the DC wall and the ball found it way to Espindola at midfield, who went in alone seeing that the Houston center backs were nowhere to be found.

Espindola sauntered in on goal and deftly chipped it over the head of Deric for his 10th goal of the season.

Houston got back into the match in the 83rd minute as Ricardo Clark was pulled down in the box during a corner kick, resulting in a penalty kick which Giles Barnes converted with ease.

But United put the result away three minutes from time when Johnson got free inside the area and collected a quick pass from David Estrada before depositing it past Deric with ease to wrap up all three points and put an end to Houston's playoff hopes.

It's a great result," said Olsen. "It's never fun. This isn't a fun place to play. This is the type of team that can win here though -- they know how to dig in and win the tough games. It's another example of how this team has the right character."

Chicago, meanwhile, enters the match playing for pride, having already been eliminated from playoff contention and coming off a 2-0 loss to Sporting Kansas City last time out.

The opening goal finally came 10 minutes from the end. Graham Zusi took a pass from defender Kevin Ellis outside the Fire box, dribbled through defenders and unleashed a left-footed shot that sailed over Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson's outstretched right hand and into the upper left corner of the net.

Sporting salted away the result in the second minute of stoppage time, when Zusi put in a pinpoint cross from the right corner and Dominic Dwyer leaped to easily head home.

"I thought we played well, enough to get something out of the match, as we have in a lot of games this year, we're in every game," Fire head coach Frank Yallop said. "We've proved it again tonight, we were right there, toe to toe and we didn't quite get it done."

There has been little to separate the teams in their two previous meetings, a 3-3 draw on Sept. 20 and a 2-2 draw on March 29.