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Ralston scores twice as Revolution top Toronto

Jun 29, 2008 - 3:39 AM By Brian Devine PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts (Ticker) -- Thanks to Steve Ralston, New England got back to its winning ways and beat Toronto FC, 2-1, on Saturday.

After having their seven-game unbeaten streak snapped in their last match, the Revolution wasted little time getting on the scoreboard against Toronto.

Ralston scored his team-leading fifth goal in the 12th minute to supply New England with an early 1-0 lead.

Ralston gathered the rebound of an Adam Cristman header that went off the post and sent it into the left corner just past Brian Edwards, who could not recover in time after his initial effort on the Cristman bid.

"As long as these guys keep hitting the ball of the post I will be there" joked Ralston. "I was pretty fortunate and I just kind of reacted, just try to be in a dangerous place", added Ralston.

In the 59th minute Ralston struck again to record his first multi-goal game since September 18, 2004 and the fifth of his career.

During a flurry that had a ball go off the crossbar, Ralston collected the ball near the middle of the box, made a move to avoid a defender and sent a ball that went just inside the far post.

"The ball kind of sat up, it kind of bounced up pretty high so I cut it back to my right and I though he was going to block it so I cut it back to my left again", Ralston said about the move he made to set his second goal of the game.

In the 78th minute Toronto spoiled Matt Reis' bid for his league-leading sixth shutout.

Amado Guevara sent a free kick into the box and Maurice Edu battled Shalrie Joseph for position and Joseph ended up heading it into his own goal.

Toronto made a valiant effort to tie the game in the 88th minute but Reis and his defenders scrambled to deny the Reds.

"They just came down and played it wide and Brennan took a shot to my left, I got a piece of it but it just kind of went straight in toward the goal and Parky (Michael Parkhurst) finally saved one on the line and it bounced around a little bit and as I was revering back into the goal it bounced right to me", Reis said of Toronto's bid to tie the match.

With the win Steve Nicol will lead the MLS All-Stars against West Ham United in the 2008 MLS All-Star Game in Toronto.

"I think tonight was a more complete performance, we have had a lot of changes and a lot of things disrupting us but I think tonight we passed the ball as well as we have all season but we did make it hard at the end."

Toronto FC, who is winless in four meetings against New England (0-3-1), was only able to get one shot on goal in the first half.

With the loss the Reds fall nine points behind the Eastern Division leading Revolution and are now 1-5 away from BMO field, where they are unbeaten.

"We have not had a great deal of success on the road and we all know that," Toronto coach John Carver said. "We went to LA and that was our only win so far but I wanted to come here and win the game, we've got players can win games for us as long as we can get those players in the right areas and for long periods of the game we did not do that we had chances."

Taylor Twellman, who had only played in one match this season due to injury, returned to the lineup in the second half for New England, who is now unbeaten in its last five home games (3-0-2).