SEATTLE — Chris Pontius scored his first career hat trick, with two goals late in the first half and another after the break, to give D.C. United a 3-2 win over the Seattle Sounders on Thursday night in the final Major League Soccer game before the World Cup.
D.C. United (3-8-1) ran its unbeaten streak to three games (2-0-1) and picked up its first road points of the season after losing its first four away from RFK Stadium.
Pontius’ hat trick was the third in the league this season and gave United a 3-0 lead. The Sounders (4-6-3) scored twice late in the game — James Riley in the 90th minute and Fredy Montero during the first minute of stoppage time — to make it close.
Pontius put United on the board late in the 39th minute with his first of the season.
He got the ball just beyond the top of the arc and wasn’t able to shoot, but kept control and let fly with a shot that glanced off the back of Sounders midfielder Patrick Ianni and flew past goalkeeper Kasey Keller into the net.
Near the midpoint of the 44th minute, again just outside the arc, Pontius dribbled in to the top of the box and fired a shot that Keller, playing six yards off his line, deflected but couldn’t grab. The ball squirted toward the goal, and Keller reacted in time to double back and get his hands on it, but it glanced off the post and into the net.
Late in the 79th minute, Pontius, playing just inside the top left corner of the box, headed a free kick from Santino Quaranta toward the far post. Keller leaped after it, but the ball tucked inside the post an instant before he got there.
Riley drilled in a shot from the top right corner of the box to make it 3-1, then Montero headed in a cross from Freddie Ljungberg early in stoppage time to get the Sounders within one before time ran out.
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