FRISCO. Texas -- For much of Friday evening at Pizza Hut Park, the Kansas City Wizards were the better side. After Scott Sealy put the visitors ahead in the 39th minute with his second goal of the year, the visitors looked poised to triumph over FC Dallas in Frisco for a second successive year.
But FCD forward Abe Thompson changed all that with his stoppage-time equalizer, forcing Kansas City to settle for a 1-1 draw and just the single point.
"Defensively, we were outstanding for 91 minutes," Wizards head coach Curt Onalfo said. "We've given up very few goals in MLS and were three minutes away from another shutout. But you can't put your defense under that kind of pressure for that many minutes. When you have a chance, you have to put them away. It's that simple."
Sealy's goal was the first goal by a Kansas City player in 448 minutes. The Wizards won last week against Real Salt Lake at CommunityAmerica Ballpark but that lone tally in a 1-0 victory was an own goal by RSL in the 89th minute.
In fact, their last goal before Sealy's was scored by Claudio Lopez on May 24 in a 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy at The Home Depot Center.
But the Wizards certainly had opportunities to kill off the match before Thompson's late heroics. A shot by Davy Arnaud in the 63rd minute just missed and went wide left. But the best of all came in the 69th minute when Sasha Victorine got on the end of a Lopez free kick and looked to head it home before FCD defender Duilio Davino cleared the ball off the line.
"It was a game where we had plenty of chances to put the game away," Onalfo said. "Our inability to do that cost us at the end. We've created a lot of chances over the last few games. Getting them isn't good enough. Now, we have to put them away."
It was hard not to feel the sense of frustration inside the Wizards locker room after the tough result.
"Obviously, we're disappointed to give up a goal in injury time," Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad said. "We defended well and limited their chances for the most part and made their game predictable. At the end, we were just bunkering down and they made the most out of a good ball and a good finish."
Kansas City goalkeeper Kevin Hartman completely agreed.
"It's one of those games where you're frustrated because it's not the first time that we've blown a lead," he said. "We have to do a better job defending leads, killing off games and being more mature about our soccer. We all have to take responsibility for it. It's disappointing. It's frustrating to have three points in our hand and just give it away.
"It's frustrating because I know the guys worked so hard to get in a position to get three points," Hartman continued. "But at the end of the day, you have to play for 94 or 95 minutes and not just 93. It would be nice to be able to celebrate a victory with the guys and reward them for the work they did. I thought what they did was a tremendous effort."
Still, Hartman saw the Wizards do a number of things well against the Hoops.
"We possessed the ball very well, were able to get a goal away from home and for a majority of the game, we did very well," he said. "I thought that for the last 5-10 minutes, we weren't experienced or mature enough with the game."
Kansas City returns to action on Tuesday when they travel to Seattle for a U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal against the USL1 Sounders. The Wizards return to league action next Thursday when they play host to the New York Red Bulls.
Onalfo knows all is not lost, it's merely time to circle the wagons.
"We have to regroup," he said. "We have a big Open Cup quarterfinal game in Seattle on Tuesday that we want to win. We've got a huge interconference game against New York where we have to get points."
Salt Lake play Kansas City to draw
Hamburg return to winning ways
Crew top Wizards, remain in first
