Sebastien Le Toux's Late Goal Not Enough as Sounders Top Union

BOX SCORE

SEATTLE -- The hometown guy finally made good.

Rookie Jordan Morris scored late in the second half for his first career goal to help the Seattle Sounders beat the Union 2-1 Saturday night.

Seattle (2-3-1) is 2-0-1 in its last three games after losing its first thee.

Morris, from Mercer Island just across Lake Washington from Seattle made it 2-0 in the 71st minute from 8 yards in front of the left post after catching up with a long pass from Andrea Ivanschitz.

The highly touted Morris helped Stanford win the NCAA championship last fall as a junior and was named winner of the MAC Hermann Trophy, presented annually to the best college player in the country.

"It was a great ball by Andreas. I'm just happy to put the ball in," Morris said.k "It happened kind of fast, so I just put my foot up there and I'm glad it went in. It's great to score in front of the (home) fans and my family, so that was awesome."

For all the expectations being heaped upon Morris, Sounders coach Sigi Schmid wasn't concerned that the 21-year-old hadn't scored in his first five games as a pro.

"I'm sure he feels more relieved than I do," Schmid said. "When you've been around a long time, you know it's going to happen. You learn to be patient. When you're young, you're not very patient. You want it to be yesterday that it happened, not tomorrow.

"That's a big weight off of his shoulder," Schmid added. "That weight each week, there was probably another five pounds that got added to that."

Chad Marshall headed in a corner kick late in the 41st minute to give Seattle the lead. Marshall's second goal in two games came as Ivanschitz floated a corner kick from the right side across the 6-yard box and Marshall headed it inside the near post.

Last Sunday in Houston, Marshall scored in the final second of stoppage time to help Seattle salvage a 1-1 tie. Prior to that goal, he hadn't scored in nearly two years.

The Union (3-3-0), playing with 10 men after Roland Alberg was sent off in the 53rd minute with his second yellow card of the night, cut it to 2-1 on Sebastien Le Toux's goal in the 73rd minute. It was his second of the season.

"It's unfortunate the red card happens with 40 minutes left in the game. We've talked to our guys about staying on their feet to avoid these things," Union coach Jim Curtin said. "That gave the ref an opportunity to make the call.

"At the same time, we still pushed and still fought," he added. "I thought we had a lot of the ball and created some chances. But in the big moments, we came up a little short."

Sounders midfielder Osvaldo Alonso and midfielder/defender Brad Evans each played in their 200th MLS game on Saturday. Alonso has spent all eight years of his career with Seattle. Evans played his first two years (30 games) in Columbus, then came west when the Sounders joined the league as an expansion team in 2009.

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