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Late tally by Wolff earns Wizards draw with Crew

Jul 18, 2008 - 3:55 AM COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ticker) -- Josh Wolff scored in the 75th minute to enable the Kansas City Wizards to salvage a 3-3 draw with the Columbus Crew on Thursday night.

Wolff, who signed with the team on June 30, accepted a feed from Jack Jewsbury in the penalty area and beat goalkeeper Will Hesmer to snap a streak of three unanswered goals by the Crew. The tally was the first of the season for Wolff, who scored 27 for the Wizards from 2003-06.

"Jack did a great job getting it in a good spot (and) at that point I just tried to beat the defender to the spot," Wolff said. "He put a great ball across, it would have been hard for anyone to miss that."

"Josh is a player that we have wanted in our organization for awhile," Kansas City coach Curt Onalfo said. "He makes extremely savvy runs, he's experienced, he's quick and he gets himself in good spots. It's great to see him finish off a goal the first 45 minutes with the team."

Guillermo Barros Schelotto had a goal and two assists for Columbus (8-5-4), which is 5-2-2 at home this season. The Crew moved within five points of the idle New England Revolution (10-4-3) for first place in the competitive Eastern Conference.

Schelotto, who scored his fourth goal of the season in the 26th minute, set up tallies by Alejandro Moreno in the 34th minute and Chad Marshall four minutes later for his side.

Despite his heroics, Schelotto was not pleased with the end result.

"I think (the) team played good," Schelotto said. "We were down two goals early and then came back and score three. But we give up goal at the end and only get one point instead of three. I think we play better, but not good enough to get win."

"I think in the first half, we had the better of the game, except for that five minutes where they scored two goals," Columbus coach Sigi Schmid said. "We did a great job fighting back, taking a 3-2 lead. We didn't need to take that third goal in the second half ... If you score three goals you should win the game."

After the Wizards opened the scoring on an own goal in the 22nd minute, Roger Espinoza notched his first professional tally two minutes later, accepting a brilliant feed from Jewsbury before beating Hesmer. The goals provided a 2-0 advantage for Kansas City (5-5-6), which is 1-3-5 on the road.

Schelotto halved the deficit two minutes later after his free kick slipped just inside the left goalpost.

The 35-year-old midfielder then raced up the wing in the 34th minute before feeding Moreno, who had his initial shot stopped by goalkeeper Kevin Hartman just as it was about to cross the goal line. Moreno alertly stopped his progress and tapped the ball into the vacant net to level the contest at 2-2.

Schelotto, who has 10 assists this season, gave Columbus its only lead of the contest when his cross off a corner kick found Marshall, who headed it past Hartman.

"I was disappointed because the goals they scored all came off set pieces - and we talked about limiting those," Onalfo said. "We are on the road and up 2-0 and then give up three goals, I think a lot of teams would probably not have come back and I thought we were the better team in the second half. We will build on that and take the point."