Revs fall to Sounders, winless streak now seven

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SEATTLETyson Wahl and Alvaro Fernandez scored six minutes apart late in the first half Sunday to rally the Seattle Sounders to a 2-1 victory over the New England Revolution.

The Sounders (8-4-7) won their season-high third straight game and are unbeaten in their last six (4-0-2). The Revolution (3-8-6) are on a seven-game winless streak (0-5-2) since a 1-0 victory at home against Vancouver on May 14.

Wahl's first career goal pulled the Sounders into a 1-1 tie late in the 34th minute. On a direct free kick to the right of the penalty area restraining arc, he launched the ball over a six-man New England wall, and it went just under the crossbar into the top left corner past goalkeeper Matt Reis.

"It was sitting well for a left-footed shot," Wahl said. "I'm not sure if Reis was out of position, but I thought it was possible to hit it to that side. I just tried to keep it on frame and bend it, just like a corner kick like I've been hitting those, and it went in."

Fernandez scored the winner midway through the 40th minute with his fourth goal of the season. Playing 8 yards up from the goal line in the left side of the box, he took a short through ball from Roger Levesque and sent a shallow shot toward the far post. Reis got a hand on it, but couldn't stop it.

"I was just waiting for the ball to come to me," said Fernandez, who is tied with fellow midfielder Brad Evans for the team scoring lead. "It's hard to get a goal against you so early, but this team has enough tools to come back and keep the calm and get the goals we needed later in the game."

The Revolution scored 2 minutes into the game when Sainey Nyassi drilled in a shot off Benny Feilhaber's corner kick for his first goal of the year.

Wahl's goal on the free kick was Seattle's ninth this season off of a set piece with seven from corners, two on direct free kicks. The Sounders had just five such goals all of last season and seven during their inaugural season in 2009.

"When you can get goals from different places, you're a harder team to figure out," Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said. "We've scored goals this year on set pieces, the service has been better and guys have been practicing them more. And we're encouraging some guys who didn't want to step up and do it, like Tyson. We said, 'Hey, you can do it, you're a lefty, and this is a ball you can hit.' "

New England pressed for the equalizer throughout the second half, and nearly had it late in the 85th minute when Zack Schilawski, who had come on four minutes earlier, cracked a 30-yarder that was out of Keller's reach, but it hit the crossbar and flew high in the air before falling away.

"We can't get a break," New England coach Steve Nicole said. "We had a couple of chances where we could have gotten a point, but didn't. I feel disappointedwe put ourselves in good position in this match."

Seattle had nine shots to New England's 11 in the game attended by 36,212 fans.

"We started off as well as we could have hoped for," said Revolution midfielder Pat Felon. "We really didn't give them anything until the foul on the first goal. The second goal came off our mistake. You can really look at the whole game and they didn't create a whole lot. We made it easy for them."

-- The Associated Press

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