KANSAS CITY, Kan. — It was apparent heading into Real Salt Lake's Saturday night contest against Kansas City that if the team wanted to keep legitimate playoff hopes alive, it would need to pick up three points on the road during its last four road games.
The struggling Wizards provided a perfect opportunity for those road points, and RSL capitalized, winning 1-0 at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
"It's huge. This game tonight was important for a lot of reasons," Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis said. "It's another road win, and we haven't had one in a long time. Coming down the stretch here we are going to have a couple important road games where we need to pick up some points. It's great that we showed we can do it."
Real Salt Lake, which improved to 9-9-6 with 33 points, jumped out to a lead in the 18th minute when Pablo Campos sent a shot past the Wizards' Kevin Hartman from 8 yards out. The goal was set up when Robbie Russell sent the ball from the right side to Andy Williams, who was able to get the ball forward to Campos.
It's the second straight game the newly acquired striker has scored for Real Salt Lake. On Wednesday, Campos scored the opening goal for RSL in its 4-0 victory over Chivas USA.
The matchup on Saturday was a stark contrast from the first time these two teams met this season. On May 16, Kansas City put together a 2-0 win behind a pair of goals from Josh Wolff. With Wolff out of the lineup because of a hip injury on Saturday, Kansas City's offense continued to struggle.
The anemic Wizards' offense hasn't scored since a 1-1 draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 25.
Kansas City did outshoot Real Salt Lake 17-5 and 8-3 on goal. Despite the imbalanced shots, reserve goalkeeper Chris Seitz was able to pick up his first career shutout, with seven saves.
"We have a lot of guys that we believe in, and Chris Seitz is one of those guys," Kreis said. "He deserved an opportunity and took full advantage of it."
Seitz has to thank Fabian Espindola somewhat for the shutout. In stoppage time, Espindola, a late substitution, knocked away a Kansas City header that seemed destined to be the equalizer.
"It was a great team effort, people were diving everywhere to stop shots," Seitz said. "It made it easy. (Espindola) did a great job."
The shutout, RSL's fourth in five games, was impressive, considering RSL was forced to play without Ned Grabavoy from the 42nd minute on. Grabavoy picked up the red card with a hard tackle near midfield.
He'll miss the next match along with team captain and midfielder Kyle Beckerman. Beckerman earned his suspension because of yellow card accumulation. He drew the yellow in the 44th minute on a foul on Wizards defender Matt Besler.
Kreis is confident after the last three matches that his team has the depth to handle missing those two.
"We haven't done a whole lot of rotation this season," Kreis said. "We haven't given players probably the opportunities they probably deserved. But after this week we've used about everyone on our roster, and everyone has contributed to these six points."
Despite losing two starters for their Sept. 12 home match against Chicago, Real Salt Lake was happy to take the three points on the road. Especially considering it was the team's third match in seven days.
It was just the second road victory of the year for RSL, improving its road mark to 2-8-2. As a franchise, it has won just 10 games on the road.
"We have to feel good about where we are at right now, but we have to know there is a lot of work to be done still," Kreis said. "We have six matches remaining, and we are going to have to probably pick up another 10 points at least to make the playoffs."