There have been precious few meetings between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers where both teams had as much on the line as they did on Sunday. Clint Dempsey and the Sounders were the ones to rise to the occasion.
Dempsey scored a pair of second-half goals — to give him eight in his career against the Sounders’ biggest rivals — and the Sounders got an insurance goal from Cristian Roldan to win 3-1. The Sounders moved into a tie for eighth in the West, but more importantly are just two points out of the sixth spot with two games in hand.