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Sounders overcome Montero's ejection, tie Fire 1-1

May 3, 2009 - 4:38 AM By NICOLINO DIBENEDETTO STATS Writer

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. (STATS) - Seven games into their inaugural season, the Seattle Sounders showed a lot of resiliency after losing their leading scorer to a red card.

Tyrone Marshall scored for the first time in nearly two years, helping the Sounders overcome Fredy Montero's ejection and rally for a 1-1 tie with the unbeaten Chicago Fire on Saturday night.

Marshall was unmarked at the back post on Freddie Ljungberg's corner in the 74th minute, and tapped the ball in past goalkeeper Jon Busch for the game-tying score. The goal came on Seattle's only shot on net, and was Marshall's first since May 13, 2007, when he was with Los Angeles.

"It's a long time coming," Marshall said.

The Jamaican's score followed Montero's ejection in the 48th minute. The forward, who leads Seattle (4-2-1) with three goals, was issued a red card for elbowing defender Gonzalo Segares in the head as both players leaped for the ball.

Montero will miss the Sounders' next game on May 10 at Los Angeles.

The Fire (2-0-5), who outshot Seattle 15-4, took advantage of the ejection 20 minutes later, when Cuauhtemoc Blanco spun away from two defenders. The Mexican playmaker then laid off a pass to Marco Pappa at the top of the box, and the midfielder drove a shot into the lower right corner of the net for his third goal of the season.

That ended Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller's season-opening shutout streak at 457 minutes. The former U.S. national team star is 4-0-1 with four shutouts in his first MLS season after spending 16 years in Europe.

"(Sounders coach Sigi Schmid) said, 'I don't want to see anyone quit out there," Marshall said of the one-goal deficit after losing Montero. "It doesn't matter if it's 1-0 or 2-0, keep playing until the whistle blowing.' That's what we did tonight. The boys didn't put their heads down."

After its fourth consecutive tie, Chicago remained the only unbeaten team in MLS and extended its franchise-record unbeaten run to seven games. However, the Fire has allowed eight goals in their last four games after giving up two in the first three.

They yielded an Eastern Conference-low 33 goals last year.

"I'm frustrated and the whole team is frustrated," Chicago coach Dennis Hamlett said. "We can't continue down the road this way. The marking on the corner was just not good enough. In the second half when they bunkered down after the red card, I think we lost a little bit of our patience of getting the ball wide and getting into the spaces."

Chicago also lost Segares to a left calf contusion after he was tackled by Sounders forward Nate Jaqua a minute before Pappa's goal.

"I thought it was an absolute bad tackle. He may have a broken leg. That's what I think about it. He barely can walk," Hamlett said.

Segares, one of the Fire's top defenders and a member of Costa Rica's national team, will be evaulated during the week.