Rapids brush off shaky start, dominate Vancouver in win

In the first of many must-wins for the Colorado Rapids, coming out on the front foot was a necessity for the home side as they couldn’t let the game come to them in a desperate Western Conference showdown.

Colorado got off to a running start in the 3rd minute. After a nice buildup from Danny Wilson, Jonathan Lewis, and Gyassi Zardes found Diego Rubio running towards the Vancouver box, the Rapids leading scorer whistled one just wide left of goal.

After not having much early joy, Vancouver struck first in the 9th minute following a fairly innocuous-looking, lofted ball that eluded Lalas Abubakar’s swinging leg trying to clear. Brian White ran to the loose ball and poked it past an onrushing…